I guess it all depends upon the appearance you want to present to a given crowd. Since most gamers are more driven by marketing nonsense than real understanding of hardware, I can see why Alienware might make a good impression.
Yes and no. I've bought alieanwares because they do actually sell good solid harware, take a look at the packages they sell, they're very upfront about what specifically you're getting. And personally I'd rather not build my own machine as I'd rather not spend the time to do so. Yes I can get something faster and cheaper if I do it myself, but thats why I'm paying more, so I can have somone else do it. So realize not every gamer wants to build his own machine but would still like something thats high quality.
As far as looks and marketing, you're probably right. Might be able to shop around and find something similar with less flash and lower price tag. But I also like a bit of flash and realize I'm paying extra for it.
Mac hardware has been fully compatible with PC hardware upgrades for years now. AGP, PCI, USB, IEEE 1394, ATA, SATA, memory technology, now processor technology, the list goes on. The only thing you can't readily change out for third party hardware on a Mac is the mainboard.
Not really. There's a lot of hardware thats not compatible with the apple mainboards, and I've heard some horror stories about some bits that supposedly are. But thats just my experience.
What I'm getting at is I would much rather choose my OS strictly on its own meritts and not have to accept any hardware limitations along with the choice.
But have you actually tested the customer service lines, and do you realize that warranty service under Alienware can take literally months to return your machine? That's why I hope Dell will be an improvement in service.
A friend of mine with an alienware laptop had to return it for service, took about a week, which is pretty standard for a mail order company. Everyones got their own horror stories about services for just about any company you can name, even Dell. I just think you saying alienwares computers are a waste of money because some people have had problems is a bit exagerated.
I've also found that with a well built computer the need for service depends mostly on how well the user maintains it, so as I said I may not be the typical customer.
My advice is to try the things you normally do on a PC out on a Mac (if you have access to one, or at an Apple store). OS X is not only worth switching to, I believe it's costly not to.
I've had access to both at work, some of our artists\salespeople have macs and I've had to work on them to do various technical fixes or upgrades or whatever. I find most of the differences to be aesthetic really, which does matter to a lot of people but not so much to me. There's really only one thing I can point to that I like better about the mac OS, the bloat prevention, where it optimizes after moving data on HD, that its a very nice feature. Other thatn that I really haven't found anything on the OS I find significantly better, so I think a lot of it is personal preference.
The big reason I won't use a mac is hardware, whith a mac you're boxed in using only their stuff, I don't like that. I like being able to have lots of choices in hardware options and later upgradability. I'd consider switching to a mac OS if it ran on PC hardware, but until then its no dice.
True enough. But look at the amount of money they make off of things like WarioWare and Brain Age and compare it to the big budget franchises. It just validates what Spector is talking about, Nintendo needs those big buget franchises to keep themselves in the market.
So what I'm trying to get at here is that Nintendo is no so much like Sundance. I think it's be more accurate to compare them to Spielberg, he makes War of the Worlds to crank out the money for the studio so he can make Berlin afterward.
Indie games may be part of the Revo, but they're not going to be the main attraction.
I don't know about you but the Nintendo I remeber is built on its primary franchise games like zelda and mario, which are each high production cost games. So I'm not sure what you're talking about.
Right but thats what he's saying. PopCap and Puzzle Pirates are those "puzzle and boutique" games he's talking about. Niche market games like that will still have a place, but their never going to challenge the audience or overall porfitability of big producer backed games.
As far as the Revolution goes, I severly doubt Nintendo is going to limit their market in any way. While they may be looking at bringing more "casual" games in, their focus is still going to be big budget titles (think zelda\mario\metroid), otherwise Mircosoft and Sony will grind them into the dirt.
Personally I think the whole ratings concept is based in stupidity and missinformation. Children over the age of 6(possibly even younger) are able to discern reality from fantasy. Exposing them to violent material isn't going to magically change them into monsters. I watched R rated films when I was 10, played Doom when I was 13, played all kinds of violent games in my high school years, even saw a lot of porn on the internet. Now, I have a job, pay my taxes, and help the old lady down the hall carry in her groceries. Violent media did not make me into a monster. Why? Because my parents loved me and cared for me. Its that simple, neglect will screw a kid up a million times more than any piece of violent media ever will.
The religious fundementalists in the world just want you to be afraid of things they don't approve of, thats why ratings exist. It has nothing to do with protecting anyone, just another way to control you.
Okay I know I said I was done but there are three things here I wanted to point to, and then I'm done, promise. Agree to disagree and that:)
One word: escrow.
Well you can't mean holding the investment in escrow, because then it couldn't be spent to cover the creation costs. So you must mean holding the work in escrow, like they do with source code. Problem here is what good is a half finsihed song or piece of software to the general public? You still lose your investment. Still don't think adequate accountablility is provided here and getting part of the finsihed product in case of default doesn't help the average consumer as he doesn't have the means of completeing it.
Same way you choose anyone else who provides a service. You go by their reputation or examples of their work, and if they have neither, you demand a price low enough that you won't be disappointed if they turn out to be no good - or just move on and find someone who does have a reputation.
Thats fine if I want a service, and thats the problem I don't want a service, I want a product. The value to the consumer here is the final prouct. What happens when a product offers certain features on the front end, but doesn't have them when completed (this happens a lot btw), in the system you describe I'm stuck paying for a product I may not have wanted, or doesn't do what I expected. In the current market I can read reviews and comparisons and choose my product based on that. With this I just have to hope that the product does what I want when its done. It doesn't even have to be a shoddy product, it can be very good, but maybe I invested because they said it would have some specific feature, but in the process of creation that feature got removed. I get stuck paying for something I didn't want.
In fact its also the same case in the way of services, lets go back to the plumber. Lets say the plumber does a bad job and breaks my toilet instead of fixing it. I can refuse to pay him. Most services don't charge up front. If I pay a muscian to make some music and its not what I wanted, I'm stuck, he delivered but I'm not happy. Thats the disconnect here, I don't buy things based on the reputation of the manufacturer alone, I've been burned by that, I'll bet you have too.
It's logically impossible to restrict the use of any data once it's known
So, data encryption is logically impossible? Isn't that the restriction of known data? The complexity of the data plays a factor here. The number representing the speed of light is very simple, therefore yes, it is logically impossible to restrict its use. However the source code to Windows XP is much more complex and therefore it is logically possible to restrict its use. So theres a scale factor you're not considering here.
Not really, RPG is a pretty broad term. Even in tabletop you'll find variance in playstyle and the ammount of "roleplaying" involved. Good example is that myself and friend often play D&D more for its combat tactics element than roleplaying element, but we're still playing an RPG. So its a blanket term that involves a lot of styles of play.
Ok, parting shot and I'm done with this one as we seem to be making no headway with eachother.
Because they know that if no one pays, it won't get written at all. Again--I can't make this clear enough, apparently--they aren't paying for a copy of the software. They're paying for the privilege of living in a world where that software exists. If they don't care enough about this software to pay you to write it, then they may be able to get it for free once it's written... or they may never have access to it at all. If they do care enough, then they'll pay because they want you to write it.
So we realy on the publics good faith to make these things? I don't find that comforting. Also what happens when the end product fails to be produced or isn't what was expected\promised? We paid up front, where is the accountablity if the money's already been spent? Also this makes it impossible to compare products, I can't have somone let me know if a product is any good if I have to pay to have it made. That doesn't serve the public good. We now have to micro maanage artists whenever we want media? This is far too nebulus, how am supposed to get what I want in this kind of system? I can't just fund every artist and hope one one of them turns out something I like. The power of the consumer is choice, how can I choose from things that don't exist yet?
The "final product" you seem concerned with, however, isn't a song - it's a copy of a song. And I don't think people really care about those. They can make their own copies if you give them the information they need to do so.
No, its a song. A song I could not create myself and thus should give due payment to its creator. The medium its on doesn't matter, that music was crafted by someone, that arangment of sounds or bits or whatever has a value because that is what I want to aquire.
I hate to break it to you, but a piece of data is a number. Just as one byte represents a number from 0-255, and four bytes represent a number from 0 to 2^32 - 1, the 5 million bytes a song takes up also represent a (much bigger) number. If I gave you a mathematical equation whose solution was that number, you could solve the equation and listen to the song by feeding the solution into an MP3 player. The number, the MP3 file, and the song are all equivalent.
No they aren't. Data is numbers true, but its not random numbers, its aranged. And aranged in way I couln't do myself. Thats why I pay for the aragnement. Salt is naturally occuring mineral, but I pay for packaged processed salt because I am unable to do that myself. Numbers are free conceptual knowledge, but I pay for useful or entertaining arangements of them.
Also, what do you mean, "not everyone can create them"? Do you think just anyone can "create" the number representing the speed of light? It took a lot of research to come up with that number... well, not to come up with the number itself exactly, but to realize that that particular number represented the speed of light. So, is it a product or not?
You're making my case for me. Not everyone could come up with that number, we had to research it. Thats what I mean not everyone can create them. Just because the componenet digits are common knowledge doesn't mean the number can be instantly arrived at. So yes the number representing the speed of light could theoretically be a product, but its logically impossible to restrict its use once it is known, so its not something you could sell.
I agree its a nice way to look at things if we could just pay people to do things we wanted and they would always deliver the things we want. But thats naive. The reason we pay for things after they made in our society is because we've learned that we cannot trust people unless they have a specific incetive to please us.
It doesn't matter because the system of thinking on this isn't going to change, I'm fairly certain of that. Feel free to quote me till the end of time on that.
How could he make more than the creators? The creators have already been paid for their work, remember, and if they want to make some extra money on the side, they can enter the copying business and compete with these copyists on the same footing.
They don't need to recoup their initial costs in the price of copies, as long as they make sure they've already been paid for their initial costs by the time they finish producing the original work.
So in effect they are foced to be non-profit because their medium is easily copied. That doesn't encourage people in a captialist society. But something that is not easily copied is free to profit from their labor.
Sounds like you need to ask your investors for enough to cover those costs, then.
And how do I pay them back? People invest in things expecting a return. Software can take millions of dollars to develope in labor and equiment costs. Its a quaint idea to think I can get the public to finance this but its completely inept, I can't pitch a software idea to thousands of people because I don't know exactly how much its going to cost in whole to build. And why would anyone pay me to make a product if they can just get it for free when its done? To start buisness ventures you need investors and you have to pay back the investors and then some, the world enconomy is not a charity system.
Um.. because each car requires its own materials and labor. Making two cars costs (about) twice as much as making one car, because you need twice as much steel and twice as much time to put it together. You need the manufacturer to provide those materials and labor for you if you want a car, and the manufacturer can set a price.
Making two copies of the same song, on the other hand, costs about the same as making one copy or a thousand copies, and the artist doesn't need to be involved in any of the copying.
And creating songs doesn't require labor or equipment? Or software for that matter since they share a data medium. Just because it doesn't take continual effort to replicate makes it worthless? That is what you are saying, because if only the labor is worth paying for then the final product has no value. That is nonsense because the consumer isn't interested in the labor, they are interested in the final product.
OK, is the number 1 a product? How about the number 1,234,567,890? How about the largest known prime number or the age of the universe? How long does a number have to be, or how much effort must be invested in its discovery, before you'll call it a product?
How doesn this have anything to do with the discussion at hand? Numbers aren't products because anyone can access them, they're concepts anyone can grasp so they have no commercial value. However data or music have value because not everyone can create them. Thats pretty basic logic.
Yes, I understand that and I have been addressing it. If you pay for the cost of production at the time of production, then the artist doesn't need to sell copies to recoup those costs - you've already paid him.
So these buisnesses are forced to becomone non-profit ventures. Sounds great for people who invested in any data based industry "oh we decided because the medium can be replicated that you won't recieve any return on your investment." That will really encourage them to give more money for future innovation.
Huh? What on earth makes you think you'll make more money by selling copies of a book or movie than the producer made by writing it? How much do you think people will be willing to pay for a file or a plastic disc when they can easily make their own copies for no more than the cost of media?
The original author can charge whatever he wants, because he's the only one who can provide the service he's offering, but copyists have to compete with other copyists, the internet, and the DVD burner.
Like I said, a copyist won't just sell the work of one person and isn't going to be just selling the work alone but potentially services that go with it. Considering the absolutly tiny overhead cost of a copyist he is almost gaurenteed to make more than the creators as long as he is marginally clever.
This also assumes all artists are already somehow established and can set a price based on previous work. What about the new guy trying to pay back his initial investment? How can he demand a fair price for his work when he can't demonstrate any current work? Artists are a disadvantage as they can't attract inventors with a good buisness plan, they all have the same buisness plan the issue is with the quality of the end product which is unkown.
The thing is, a movie, a book, a song, or any other piece of data is not a "product". It's a number, and as such, calling it "easily duplicated" is an understatement. It is fundamentally uncontrollable, uncontainable, and unownable.
A musician or movie producer doesn't have a manufacturing job, he has a service job: essentially, arranging data into a form that people like. Money goes in, data comes out.
Absurd. It takes many people long amounts of time to create sowftware. Initial investment on a software product will NEVER cover the operating costs of the company (I work in software, I know this). By this coin car factory workers are service employees, money goes in cars come out. Why should they demand we pay for the cars? Its simple because THEY NEED TO RECOUP THE COST OF MAKING THE CAR! Same thing with movies or music the intital investment will never be recouped if the final product is not sold as a product (which it is). JUst because you can easily copy a product doesn't mean you get to say its not a product, you're only trying to justify getting something for nothing.
Now consider plumbing, another service job. When you have a problem with your toilet, you call the plumber, he comes by and fixes it, you pay him for his time, and then he leaves. You don't have to pay him again.
Again with the plumbers. Plumbers don't create an end product, that why they are a service. Movies and music are end products. When you call a plumber you need he service, when you want music or movies you are only interested in aquiring the end result, the actual end product.
Is he being "punished" for the nature of his work by only getting paid once? Would it be more fair if he came out and fixed the toilet for free, and then you had to pay him a few bucks every time you flushed it from then on? Of course not - flushing the toilet is something you can do on your own, so it hardly makes sense for you to pay him for that instead of the service you can't do on your own. In fact, that business model couldn't work without invasive technological or legal means to make sure that every flush is accounted for, which is more complicated (and less reliable) than just letting the plumber collect payment at the time of service. But that's exactly what you're suggesting is needed for artists.
Guess what? You don't pay for music everytime you listen to it. Why? Because its a finished product you pay for once. This arguement makes zero sense.
Something tells me your word wouldn't hold up in court. "Seriously, Your Honor, Harry Potter was a Nazi in the original manuscript. I found it in Rowling's garbage can a few years ago. No, I can't prove that; don't you trust me?" That's one step above "My
Also remember that there is a much larger service component to the MMO buisness than your standard out of the box game. Since the game is partly a service the Terms of Service Agreement with the customer is much more important. If something in a game guild advocates violation of the TSA in some way (not sure if thats the case here) Blizzard has to act.
I'd like to see more specifically what Blizzard is objecting to in this, as I can kinda see how both sides have a good arguement.
If he were smart, he would've found a customer base to pay him for the act of writing and recording, i.e. his labor, beforehand. Then it wouldn't matter who sold copies, because the musician wouldn't need to make a huge profit on them - he's already been paid.
So an investment model, but one where the end results of the investment are proffitted on primarily by me, the copyist, who does virtually no work for greater profit. Good system, the artist get paid for his labor and possibly pays back his innitial costs, I get paid more for doing far less work using the fruits of his labor.
Should grocery stores now demand Coke give them their products for free because people oringinally invested in their company? Does Coke need to get out of the grocery buisness? No, because the only reason you're arguing this is because music is a medium that is easy to duplicate, soft drinks are not. Yet why should muscians be punished because their end product is easily dupilicated (yet not easily created), why should someone with a product that is difficult to duplicate be able to profit from the end product of their incestment, while somone with an easy to duplicate product must hand that profit over to a copyist?
Not necessarily... that's fraud, not just copyright infringement. Just because you'd be allowed to sell (modified) copies of the book doesn't mean you'd also be allowed to lie to your customers about its authorship.
You're right, but the author has to proove that I commited the fraud, I am innocent until prooven guilty. I could claim my version is an earlier revision he didn't release but I got hold of, If he has no ownership of the words I can do as I will with them. It's his word against mine. With a copyright the law is on his side, the case is cut and dry, I committed fraud because the copyritten material is different than what I published. Without it who's to say which verision is the original, no trusted, independant third party has verified it, the burden of proof is pushed onto the author. Again a non-copyrighten system punishes the artist.
Indeed. The moral is: it's time for artists to get out of the copying business and charge for their actual work, just like everyone else.
Great idea. While we're at it lets take inventors out of the production buiness. They don't need to sell the things they spend their lives creating, we pay them to do research, its the marketers and builders who should profit most from their ideas. I mean creating something is worth way less than selling it right?
Economies don't work this way. You're asking the muscian to shoulder the entire burden of the initial investment and asking the public to make up the investment through good faith that they will keep producting. You can't run by donation because many people will choose not to donate, the public always seeks goods at the lowest price. You can't have an enconomy where people choose to pay for goods or not, it just doesn't work. What happens if the artists music is popular, but not enough people choose to donate, the artist can't pay back the initial investment and can't continue producting. The good faith of the public is not gaurenteed, $12.99 for a CD is gaureneteed.
And we can flip it the other way, what if the artist doen't act in good faith? What if an artists release some intital material and asks for donation to keep producing, yet does nothing?
Capitalism is NOT based on good faith, its contractual, both consumer and producer have to honor their side of the contract for things to work. If one side can choose not to honor their role in the system you create chaos.
Do you pay for those updates? Does Joe make a competing operating system?
No and no.
What about products that don't require updates, or can be maintained by third parties? Because I can get my Ford fixed at the local mechanich, does that mean Chevy can copy design because Ford won't be selling the maintenance?
If I am able to copy material at the point of release then the "demand for creation of new content" and the "demand for creation of copies of existing content" are fullfuiled simultaniously, the source does not matter. If my copy service has the music one hour after the band releases it they gain almost no market advantage and I can promote the newly released music. There is no barrier to me copying something as soon as it is released, and if I'm sneaky I can potentially get my hands on it before it is released.
Again, you are missing the point. Pirates don't have an advantage, but in the past they have been at a severe disadvantage. Modern technology has given them much faster and more reliable ways to copy material. My whole point is that pirates have advanced greatly in their ability to copy material, not that they have any kind of technological advantage that is unavailable to legitimate publishers.
Complete non-sequitur, thats a method of DISROBUTION, not creation or duplication. Movies not being distributed on bittorrent has absolutly nothing to do with the ease people are able to copy them.
To be more specific 50 years ago copying a movie would mean getting a hold of the film negative and copying it, neither of those things is easy and the firt part likely involves physical theft. Now it requires a computer, a purchased DVD and an hour of your time. So the idea that pirates have the always had the same level of technology and access to copy material is absurd.
In the grand scheme of things, as technology improves, it replaces old ways of doing business. Now that you don't need a huge studio to make music, you also don't need huge budgets. What is wrong with a band making an album to give out freely -- charge for signatures or value added options -- and make their money using their real labor in live shows? What is wrong with a theater group making a movie DVD of their performance to give away freely -- to drive people to see their shows? What is wrong with a book author writing freely online (as I do) in order to charge more for their public engagements (as I do)?
Lets turn this idea loose into the free market and see what happens. Lets say I own a webserver and take all those free music and videos and host them for public download at no cost. But, being a clever entrepenuer I add in services to make money for myself, I set up a fast saver with a better connection and sell "premium" fast downloading at a minimal cost. Or I limit bandwidth you get for free access and offer more if you pay. Also if I can sell advertising space on my web service. Also since the music is free a make my own compliation CDs, print and sell those. Heck I can even ceate my own merchandising (t-shirts, hats, etc) and sell those alongside my "free" music. My only overhead costs are just waiting for the artists to realease new music so I can copy it into my service, then I can advertise and distribute it. This is an excellent buisness model, low overhead and high profit potential. When you remove copyright protection it means ANYONE can sell your work even if you choose not you. And as in my example they don't actually have to sell your specific creation to profit from it, it can be tangential to their real product. The artists get stuck with paying for the instruments the recording equiment and have to spend all the time create the music, so there is no way for them to compete with me, I'll be able to profit much more efficiently from their work than they will. So in effect you completely recreate those big bad record companies you don't like only now the have ABSOLUTLY no obligations to the original artists.
It can even get more fun, lets say I decide to market and sell a book you wrote, but I don't like the ending, I'll just re-write it and leave your name on it. Its free so I can do whatever I want to it and sell it and I have no obligation to tell anyone I changed it. I can throw it into compilations of writing and sell it, heck I'll even pitch it to you "Sure you can spend hours looking online for these stories and downloading them, but for the mere cost of $29.95 I give them to you in a collection" nice of me isn't it. And since I sell in bulk I can afford to distribute and advertise more than you so now my re-written copy of your book is more common than your orignal work. Giving up your protections to the free market is great isn't it? I'll just package your work with Mien Kampf, I mean its all just writing so you won't mind, it is free after all. We can go another way, without protections I can use your work as a tool for my own marketing "with every purchase of my book you get this guys book, absolutely free."
Its basic economics, the act of creating a new product is always going to cost more than copying an exisiting product. If you allow anyone to copy exisiting products at will you create a force in the market that makes creating new products LESS profitable than copying them.
Which is why you need to sell more than the data on the CD. Sell the support, sell the add-on hardware, sell the live performance, sell the training, sell the installation, sell a follow-up newsletter. The time you spend making that CD is your labor -- don't put in your labor until you know how you can market the product in a world of competition and "piracy."
What if someone copying your data does this too, but because they had to invest nothing into the creation they can do it cheaper than you. In this type of model the copier will always win because he has no overhead costs in the creation.
This is great if everyone remains honest and well intentioned, but we don't live in that kind of reality.
You seem to be forgetting the basic concept of copywriting; it's in the word itself "copy." What happens when you create something, you spend hours, weeks, months, years creating this, be it a work or art or commerce. After completing someone comes along and find a way to duplicate your work with minimal effort, say a few minutes. Now this person decides to not only copy your work, but also is dishonest and claims the work as their own. Should this person be allowed to claim your hard work as their own? You seem to be under the impression that the act of duplication is equal to the act of original creation, it isn't, by just about any measure.
The emergence of copywrite has nothing to do with decreased desire to create new works, but the emergence of easier and easier methods to copy those works and in many cases fraudulent claims that the copies are original work. To explain, lack of copywrite didn't discourage people from releasing work in the past because methods of duplication were difficult. Now methods of duplication are simplistic and thus the lack of protection on original works can mean the creator can be drowned in copies of his own work. With no protection there is nothing perverting lazy, deceitful people from stealing original work and profiting from it.
Now copywrite can be abused certainly, but with methods of duplication so simple today I really think lack of copywrite would be stifling in many areas of both art and commerce. Its one of those things that has be evolved an compromised, throwing it out removes protections from honest people looking to profit from their hard work. So rather lets find good way to improve copywrite laws to reduce abuses and retain protection of original work as just saying "throw them all out" is naïve.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess it all depends upon the appearance you want to present to a given crowd. Since most gamers are more driven by marketing nonsense than real understanding of hardware, I can see why Alienware might make a good impression.
Yes and no. I've bought alieanwares because they do actually sell good solid harware, take a look at the packages they sell, they're very upfront about what specifically you're getting. And personally I'd rather not build my own machine as I'd rather not spend the time to do so. Yes I can get something faster and cheaper if I do it myself, but thats why I'm paying more, so I can have somone else do it. So realize not every gamer wants to build his own machine but would still like something thats high quality.
As far as looks and marketing, you're probably right. Might be able to shop around and find something similar with less flash and lower price tag. But I also like a bit of flash and realize I'm paying extra for it.
Mac hardware has been fully compatible with PC hardware upgrades for years now. AGP, PCI, USB, IEEE 1394, ATA, SATA, memory technology, now processor technology, the list goes on. The only thing you can't readily change out for third party hardware on a Mac is the mainboard.
Not really. There's a lot of hardware thats not compatible with the apple mainboards, and I've heard some horror stories about some bits that supposedly are. But thats just my experience.
What I'm getting at is I would much rather choose my OS strictly on its own meritts and not have to accept any hardware limitations along with the choice.
But have you actually tested the customer service lines, and do you realize that warranty service under Alienware can take literally months to return your machine? That's why I hope Dell will be an improvement in service.
A friend of mine with an alienware laptop had to return it for service, took about a week, which is pretty standard for a mail order company. Everyones got their own horror stories about services for just about any company you can name, even Dell. I just think you saying alienwares computers are a waste of money because some people have had problems is a bit exagerated.
I've also found that with a well built computer the need for service depends mostly on how well the user maintains it, so as I said I may not be the typical customer.
My advice is to try the things you normally do on a PC out on a Mac (if you have access to one, or at an Apple store). OS X is not only worth switching to, I believe it's costly not to.
I've had access to both at work, some of our artists\salespeople have macs and I've had to work on them to do various technical fixes or upgrades or whatever. I find most of the differences to be aesthetic really, which does matter to a lot of people but not so much to me. There's really only one thing I can point to that I like better about the mac OS, the bloat prevention, where it optimizes after moving data on HD, that its a very nice feature. Other thatn that I really haven't found anything on the OS I find significantly better, so I think a lot of it is personal preference.
The big reason I won't use a mac is hardware, whith a mac you're boxed in using only their stuff, I don't like that. I like being able to have lots of choices in hardware options and later upgradability. I'd consider switching to a mac OS if it ran on PC hardware, but until then its no dice.
Odd, I've bought Alienwares for a couple years now. Never had any problems with performance or service. Maybe I just take good care of my machines.
True enough. But look at the amount of money they make off of things like WarioWare and Brain Age and compare it to the big budget franchises. It just validates what Spector is talking about, Nintendo needs those big buget franchises to keep themselves in the market.
So what I'm trying to get at here is that Nintendo is no so much like Sundance. I think it's be more accurate to compare them to Spielberg, he makes War of the Worlds to crank out the money for the studio so he can make Berlin afterward.
Indie games may be part of the Revo, but they're not going to be the main attraction.
I don't know about you but the Nintendo I remeber is built on its primary franchise games like zelda and mario, which are each high production cost games. So I'm not sure what you're talking about.
Right but thats what he's saying. PopCap and Puzzle Pirates are those "puzzle and boutique" games he's talking about. Niche market games like that will still have a place, but their never going to challenge the audience or overall porfitability of big producer backed games.
As far as the Revolution goes, I severly doubt Nintendo is going to limit their market in any way. While they may be looking at bringing more "casual" games in, their focus is still going to be big budget titles (think zelda\mario\metroid), otherwise Mircosoft and Sony will grind them into the dirt.
And excellent acting work in ... well ...
Personally I think the whole ratings concept is based in stupidity and missinformation. Children over the age of 6(possibly even younger) are able to discern reality from fantasy. Exposing them to violent material isn't going to magically change them into monsters. I watched R rated films when I was 10, played Doom when I was 13, played all kinds of violent games in my high school years, even saw a lot of porn on the internet. Now, I have a job, pay my taxes, and help the old lady down the hall carry in her groceries. Violent media did not make me into a monster. Why? Because my parents loved me and cared for me. Its that simple, neglect will screw a kid up a million times more than any piece of violent media ever will.
The religious fundementalists in the world just want you to be afraid of things they don't approve of, thats why ratings exist. It has nothing to do with protecting anyone, just another way to control you.
Okay I know I said I was done but there are three things here I wanted to point to, and then I'm done, promise. Agree to disagree and that :)
One word: escrow.
Well you can't mean holding the investment in escrow, because then it couldn't be spent to cover the creation costs. So you must mean holding the work in escrow, like they do with source code. Problem here is what good is a half finsihed song or piece of software to the general public? You still lose your investment. Still don't think adequate accountablility is provided here and getting part of the finsihed product in case of default doesn't help the average consumer as he doesn't have the means of completeing it.
Same way you choose anyone else who provides a service. You go by their reputation or examples of their work, and if they have neither, you demand a price low enough that you won't be disappointed if they turn out to be no good - or just move on and find someone who does have a reputation.
Thats fine if I want a service, and thats the problem I don't want a service, I want a product. The value to the consumer here is the final prouct. What happens when a product offers certain features on the front end, but doesn't have them when completed (this happens a lot btw), in the system you describe I'm stuck paying for a product I may not have wanted, or doesn't do what I expected. In the current market I can read reviews and comparisons and choose my product based on that. With this I just have to hope that the product does what I want when its done. It doesn't even have to be a shoddy product, it can be very good, but maybe I invested because they said it would have some specific feature, but in the process of creation that feature got removed. I get stuck paying for something I didn't want.
In fact its also the same case in the way of services, lets go back to the plumber. Lets say the plumber does a bad job and breaks my toilet instead of fixing it. I can refuse to pay him. Most services don't charge up front. If I pay a muscian to make some music and its not what I wanted, I'm stuck, he delivered but I'm not happy. Thats the disconnect here, I don't buy things based on the reputation of the manufacturer alone, I've been burned by that, I'll bet you have too.
It's logically impossible to restrict the use of any data once it's known
So, data encryption is logically impossible? Isn't that the restriction of known data? The complexity of the data plays a factor here. The number representing the speed of light is very simple, therefore yes, it is logically impossible to restrict its use. However the source code to Windows XP is much more complex and therefore it is logically possible to restrict its use. So theres a scale factor you're not considering here.
Ok, done for real this time.
Not really, RPG is a pretty broad term. Even in tabletop you'll find variance in playstyle and the ammount of "roleplaying" involved. Good example is that myself and friend often play D&D more for its combat tactics element than roleplaying element, but we're still playing an RPG. So its a blanket term that involves a lot of styles of play.
Ok, parting shot and I'm done with this one as we seem to be making no headway with eachother.
Because they know that if no one pays, it won't get written at all. Again--I can't make this clear enough, apparently--they aren't paying for a copy of the software. They're paying for the privilege of living in a world where that software exists. If they don't care enough about this software to pay you to write it, then they may be able to get it for free once it's written... or they may never have access to it at all. If they do care enough, then they'll pay because they want you to write it.
So we realy on the publics good faith to make these things? I don't find that comforting. Also what happens when the end product fails to be produced or isn't what was expected\promised? We paid up front, where is the accountablity if the money's already been spent? Also this makes it impossible to compare products, I can't have somone let me know if a product is any good if I have to pay to have it made. That doesn't serve the public good. We now have to micro maanage artists whenever we want media? This is far too nebulus, how am supposed to get what I want in this kind of system? I can't just fund every artist and hope one one of them turns out something I like. The power of the consumer is choice, how can I choose from things that don't exist yet?
The "final product" you seem concerned with, however, isn't a song - it's a copy of a song. And I don't think people really care about those. They can make their own copies if you give them the information they need to do so.
No, its a song. A song I could not create myself and thus should give due payment to its creator. The medium its on doesn't matter, that music was crafted by someone, that arangment of sounds or bits or whatever has a value because that is what I want to aquire.
I hate to break it to you, but a piece of data is a number. Just as one byte represents a number from 0-255, and four bytes represent a number from 0 to 2^32 - 1, the 5 million bytes a song takes up also represent a (much bigger) number. If I gave you a mathematical equation whose solution was that number, you could solve the equation and listen to the song by feeding the solution into an MP3 player. The number, the MP3 file, and the song are all equivalent.
No they aren't. Data is numbers true, but its not random numbers, its aranged. And aranged in way I couln't do myself. Thats why I pay for the aragnement. Salt is naturally occuring mineral, but I pay for packaged processed salt because I am unable to do that myself. Numbers are free conceptual knowledge, but I pay for useful or entertaining arangements of them.
Also, what do you mean, "not everyone can create them"? Do you think just anyone can "create" the number representing the speed of light? It took a lot of research to come up with that number... well, not to come up with the number itself exactly, but to realize that that particular number represented the speed of light. So, is it a product or not?
You're making my case for me. Not everyone could come up with that number, we had to research it. Thats what I mean not everyone can create them. Just because the componenet digits are common knowledge doesn't mean the number can be instantly arrived at. So yes the number representing the speed of light could theoretically be a product, but its logically impossible to restrict its use once it is known, so its not something you could sell.
I agree its a nice way to look at things if we could just pay people to do things we wanted and they would always deliver the things we want. But thats naive. The reason we pay for things after they made in our society is because we've learned that we cannot trust people unless they have a specific incetive to please us.
It doesn't matter because the system of thinking on this isn't going to change, I'm fairly certain of that. Feel free to quote me till the end of time on that.
How could he make more than the creators? The creators have already been paid for their work, remember, and if they want to make some extra money on the side, they can enter the copying business and compete with these copyists on the same footing.
They don't need to recoup their initial costs in the price of copies, as long as they make sure they've already been paid for their initial costs by the time they finish producing the original work.
So in effect they are foced to be non-profit because their medium is easily copied. That doesn't encourage people in a captialist society. But something that is not easily copied is free to profit from their labor.
Sounds like you need to ask your investors for enough to cover those costs, then.
And how do I pay them back? People invest in things expecting a return. Software can take millions of dollars to develope in labor and equiment costs. Its a quaint idea to think I can get the public to finance this but its completely inept, I can't pitch a software idea to thousands of people because I don't know exactly how much its going to cost in whole to build. And why would anyone pay me to make a product if they can just get it for free when its done? To start buisness ventures you need investors and you have to pay back the investors and then some, the world enconomy is not a charity system.
Um.. because each car requires its own materials and labor. Making two cars costs (about) twice as much as making one car, because you need twice as much steel and twice as much time to put it together. You need the manufacturer to provide those materials and labor for you if you want a car, and the manufacturer can set a price.
Making two copies of the same song, on the other hand, costs about the same as making one copy or a thousand copies, and the artist doesn't need to be involved in any of the copying.
And creating songs doesn't require labor or equipment? Or software for that matter since they share a data medium. Just because it doesn't take continual effort to replicate makes it worthless? That is what you are saying, because if only the labor is worth paying for then the final product has no value. That is nonsense because the consumer isn't interested in the labor, they are interested in the final product.
OK, is the number 1 a product? How about the number 1,234,567,890? How about the largest known prime number or the age of the universe? How long does a number have to be, or how much effort must be invested in its discovery, before you'll call it a product?
How doesn this have anything to do with the discussion at hand? Numbers aren't products because anyone can access them, they're concepts anyone can grasp so they have no commercial value. However data or music have value because not everyone can create them. Thats pretty basic logic.
Yes, I understand that and I have been addressing it. If you pay for the cost of production at the time of production, then the artist doesn't need to sell copies to recoup those costs - you've already paid him.
So these buisnesses are forced to becomone non-profit ventures. Sounds great for people who invested in any data based industry "oh we decided because the medium can be replicated that you won't recieve any return on your investment." That will really encourage them to give more money for future innovation.
Huh? What on earth makes you think you'll make more money by selling copies of a book or movie than the producer made by writing it? How much do you think people will be willing to pay for a file or a plastic disc when they can easily make their own copies for no more than the cost of media?
The original author can charge whatever he wants, because he's the only one who can provide the service he's offering, but copyists have to compete with other copyists, the internet, and the DVD burner.
Like I said, a copyist won't just sell the work of one person and isn't going to be just selling the work alone but potentially services that go with it. Considering the absolutly tiny overhead cost of a copyist he is almost gaurenteed to make more than the creators as long as he is marginally clever.
This also assumes all artists are already somehow established and can set a price based on previous work. What about the new guy trying to pay back his initial investment? How can he demand a fair price for his work when he can't demonstrate any current work? Artists are a disadvantage as they can't attract inventors with a good buisness plan, they all have the same buisness plan the issue is with the quality of the end product which is unkown.
The thing is, a movie, a book, a song, or any other piece of data is not a "product". It's a number, and as such, calling it "easily duplicated" is an understatement. It is fundamentally uncontrollable, uncontainable, and unownable. A musician or movie producer doesn't have a manufacturing job, he has a service job: essentially, arranging data into a form that people like. Money goes in, data comes out.
Absurd. It takes many people long amounts of time to create sowftware. Initial investment on a software product will NEVER cover the operating costs of the company (I work in software, I know this). By this coin car factory workers are service employees, money goes in cars come out. Why should they demand we pay for the cars? Its simple because THEY NEED TO RECOUP THE COST OF MAKING THE CAR! Same thing with movies or music the intital investment will never be recouped if the final product is not sold as a product (which it is). JUst because you can easily copy a product doesn't mean you get to say its not a product, you're only trying to justify getting something for nothing.
Now consider plumbing, another service job. When you have a problem with your toilet, you call the plumber, he comes by and fixes it, you pay him for his time, and then he leaves. You don't have to pay him again.
Again with the plumbers. Plumbers don't create an end product, that why they are a service. Movies and music are end products. When you call a plumber you need he service, when you want music or movies you are only interested in aquiring the end result, the actual end product.
Is he being "punished" for the nature of his work by only getting paid once? Would it be more fair if he came out and fixed the toilet for free, and then you had to pay him a few bucks every time you flushed it from then on? Of course not - flushing the toilet is something you can do on your own, so it hardly makes sense for you to pay him for that instead of the service you can't do on your own. In fact, that business model couldn't work without invasive technological or legal means to make sure that every flush is accounted for, which is more complicated (and less reliable) than just letting the plumber collect payment at the time of service. But that's exactly what you're suggesting is needed for artists.
Guess what? You don't pay for music everytime you listen to it. Why? Because its a finished product you pay for once. This arguement makes zero sense.
Something tells me your word wouldn't hold up in court. "Seriously, Your Honor, Harry Potter was a Nazi in the original manuscript. I found it in Rowling's garbage can a few years ago. No, I can't prove that; don't you trust me?" That's one step above "My
Also remember that there is a much larger service component to the MMO buisness than your standard out of the box game. Since the game is partly a service the Terms of Service Agreement with the customer is much more important. If something in a game guild advocates violation of the TSA in some way (not sure if thats the case here) Blizzard has to act.
I'd like to see more specifically what Blizzard is objecting to in this, as I can kinda see how both sides have a good arguement.
If he were smart, he would've found a customer base to pay him for the act of writing and recording, i.e. his labor, beforehand. Then it wouldn't matter who sold copies, because the musician wouldn't need to make a huge profit on them - he's already been paid.
So an investment model, but one where the end results of the investment are proffitted on primarily by me, the copyist, who does virtually no work for greater profit. Good system, the artist get paid for his labor and possibly pays back his innitial costs, I get paid more for doing far less work using the fruits of his labor.
Should grocery stores now demand Coke give them their products for free because people oringinally invested in their company? Does Coke need to get out of the grocery buisness? No, because the only reason you're arguing this is because music is a medium that is easy to duplicate, soft drinks are not. Yet why should muscians be punished because their end product is easily dupilicated (yet not easily created), why should someone with a product that is difficult to duplicate be able to profit from the end product of their incestment, while somone with an easy to duplicate product must hand that profit over to a copyist?
Not necessarily... that's fraud, not just copyright infringement. Just because you'd be allowed to sell (modified) copies of the book doesn't mean you'd also be allowed to lie to your customers about its authorship.
You're right, but the author has to proove that I commited the fraud, I am innocent until prooven guilty. I could claim my version is an earlier revision he didn't release but I got hold of, If he has no ownership of the words I can do as I will with them. It's his word against mine. With a copyright the law is on his side, the case is cut and dry, I committed fraud because the copyritten material is different than what I published. Without it who's to say which verision is the original, no trusted, independant third party has verified it, the burden of proof is pushed onto the author. Again a non-copyrighten system punishes the artist.
Indeed. The moral is: it's time for artists to get out of the copying business and charge for their actual work, just like everyone else.
Great idea. While we're at it lets take inventors out of the production buiness. They don't need to sell the things they spend their lives creating, we pay them to do research, its the marketers and builders who should profit most from their ideas. I mean creating something is worth way less than selling it right?
Economies don't work this way. You're asking the muscian to shoulder the entire burden of the initial investment and asking the public to make up the investment through good faith that they will keep producting. You can't run by donation because many people will choose not to donate, the public always seeks goods at the lowest price. You can't have an enconomy where people choose to pay for goods or not, it just doesn't work. What happens if the artists music is popular, but not enough people choose to donate, the artist can't pay back the initial investment and can't continue producting. The good faith of the public is not gaurenteed, $12.99 for a CD is gaureneteed.
And we can flip it the other way, what if the artist doen't act in good faith? What if an artists release some intital material and asks for donation to keep producing, yet does nothing?
Capitalism is NOT based on good faith, its contractual, both consumer and producer have to honor their side of the contract for things to work. If one side can choose not to honor their role in the system you create chaos.
Do you pay for those updates? Does Joe make a competing operating system?
No and no.
What about products that don't require updates, or can be maintained by third parties? Because I can get my Ford fixed at the local mechanich, does that mean Chevy can copy design because Ford won't be selling the maintenance?
If I am able to copy material at the point of release then the "demand for creation of new content" and the "demand for creation of copies of existing content" are fullfuiled simultaniously, the source does not matter. If my copy service has the music one hour after the band releases it they gain almost no market advantage and I can promote the newly released music. There is no barrier to me copying something as soon as it is released, and if I'm sneaky I can potentially get my hands on it before it is released.
Again, you are missing the point. Pirates don't have an advantage, but in the past they have been at a severe disadvantage. Modern technology has given them much faster and more reliable ways to copy material. My whole point is that pirates have advanced greatly in their ability to copy material, not that they have any kind of technological advantage that is unavailable to legitimate publishers.
Complete non-sequitur, thats a method of DISROBUTION, not creation or duplication. Movies not being distributed on bittorrent has absolutly nothing to do with the ease people are able to copy them.
To be more specific 50 years ago copying a movie would mean getting a hold of the film negative and copying it, neither of those things is easy and the firt part likely involves physical theft. Now it requires a computer, a purchased DVD and an hour of your time. So the idea that pirates have the always had the same level of technology and access to copy material is absurd.
In the grand scheme of things, as technology improves, it replaces old ways of doing business. Now that you don't need a huge studio to make music, you also don't need huge budgets. What is wrong with a band making an album to give out freely -- charge for signatures or value added options -- and make their money using their real labor in live shows? What is wrong with a theater group making a movie DVD of their performance to give away freely -- to drive people to see their shows? What is wrong with a book author writing freely online (as I do) in order to charge more for their public engagements (as I do)?
Lets turn this idea loose into the free market and see what happens. Lets say I own a webserver and take all those free music and videos and host them for public download at no cost. But, being a clever entrepenuer I add in services to make money for myself, I set up a fast saver with a better connection and sell "premium" fast downloading at a minimal cost. Or I limit bandwidth you get for free access and offer more if you pay. Also if I can sell advertising space on my web service. Also since the music is free a make my own compliation CDs, print and sell those. Heck I can even ceate my own merchandising (t-shirts, hats, etc) and sell those alongside my "free" music. My only overhead costs are just waiting for the artists to realease new music so I can copy it into my service, then I can advertise and distribute it. This is an excellent buisness model, low overhead and high profit potential. When you remove copyright protection it means ANYONE can sell your work even if you choose not you. And as in my example they don't actually have to sell your specific creation to profit from it, it can be tangential to their real product. The artists get stuck with paying for the instruments the recording equiment and have to spend all the time create the music, so there is no way for them to compete with me, I'll be able to profit much more efficiently from their work than they will. So in effect you completely recreate those big bad record companies you don't like only now the have ABSOLUTLY no obligations to the original artists.
It can even get more fun, lets say I decide to market and sell a book you wrote, but I don't like the ending, I'll just re-write it and leave your name on it. Its free so I can do whatever I want to it and sell it and I have no obligation to tell anyone I changed it. I can throw it into compilations of writing and sell it, heck I'll even pitch it to you "Sure you can spend hours looking online for these stories and downloading them, but for the mere cost of $29.95 I give them to you in a collection" nice of me isn't it. And since I sell in bulk I can afford to distribute and advertise more than you so now my re-written copy of your book is more common than your orignal work. Giving up your protections to the free market is great isn't it? I'll just package your work with Mien Kampf, I mean its all just writing so you won't mind, it is free after all. We can go another way, without protections I can use your work as a tool for my own marketing "with every purchase of my book you get this guys book, absolutely free."
Its basic economics, the act of creating a new product is always going to cost more than copying an exisiting product. If you allow anyone to copy exisiting products at will you create a force in the market that makes creating new products LESS profitable than copying them.
Which is why you need to sell more than the data on the CD. Sell the support, sell the add-on hardware, sell the live performance, sell the training, sell the installation, sell a follow-up newsletter. The time you spend making that CD is your labor -- don't put in your labor until you know how you can market the product in a world of competition and "piracy." What if someone copying your data does this too, but because they had to invest nothing into the creation they can do it cheaper than you. In this type of model the copier will always win because he has no overhead costs in the creation.
This is great if everyone remains honest and well intentioned, but we don't live in that kind of reality.
You seem to be forgetting the basic concept of copywriting; it's in the word itself "copy." What happens when you create something, you spend hours, weeks, months, years creating this, be it a work or art or commerce. After completing someone comes along and find a way to duplicate your work with minimal effort, say a few minutes. Now this person decides to not only copy your work, but also is dishonest and claims the work as their own. Should this person be allowed to claim your hard work as their own? You seem to be under the impression that the act of duplication is equal to the act of original creation, it isn't, by just about any measure.
The emergence of copywrite has nothing to do with decreased desire to create new works, but the emergence of easier and easier methods to copy those works and in many cases fraudulent claims that the copies are original work. To explain, lack of copywrite didn't discourage people from releasing work in the past because methods of duplication were difficult. Now methods of duplication are simplistic and thus the lack of protection on original works can mean the creator can be drowned in copies of his own work. With no protection there is nothing perverting lazy, deceitful people from stealing original work and profiting from it.
Now copywrite can be abused certainly, but with methods of duplication so simple today I really think lack of copywrite would be stifling in many areas of both art and commerce. Its one of those things that has be evolved an compromised, throwing it out removes protections from honest people looking to profit from their hard work. So rather lets find good way to improve copywrite laws to reduce abuses and retain protection of original work as just saying "throw them all out" is naïve.