A wireless SD card with 2GB onboard, addressable wirelessly, goes for about $100 now. With one in a Kindle, I could send wirelessly all the transcoded material (PDFs and DOC files) sent back to my desktop or laptop email account.
However, at $400 a pop, I think this is another "Segway" of e-books. Sell the reader for $9.99 and make up the cost on the media, then you've got something.
It would be worth the high price if it included were electronic rights to all the print media the I've purchased from Amazon historically.
This would ignite an e-market for books, with high-volume online purchasers leading the way. Amazon has the heft to pull off such a deal with publishers. Win win win. (Amazon, publishers, consumers).
This is a gross simplification - a caricature - of antitrust law and the obligations of Microsoft under the consent decree. Ah, where to begin?
For starters, it is absolutely false there is any kind of a "50% rule" about market share. That's a misleading, irrelevant, bogus statement. Ted Kennedy has fantasized about enacting such a rule, but it's not the law.
Further, it was never about "integration", but allegations of illegal tying. Microsoft allegedly tied IE and Windows, however they gave the browser product away for free, and made claims there were technical benefits that overrode any concern about affect on competition. Each claim took them outside a straightforward tying analysis.
The outcome of the case, and its ultimate resolution, was arguably on technically illiterate grounds in part, political in others.
Microsoft remains, from a legal standpoint, essentially "unhinged". The problem is, they haven't taken advantage of a plenitude of market opportunities. Don't blame competitors, don't blame "closed source" or "open source", don't blame the legal framework. Microsoft simply hasn't been aggressively competing with foresight.
The most frightening scenario is Google positioning itself as the uber-enforcement agent of copyright on the Internet, in exchange for a piece of the action. With the data it is accumulating, Google more than any other single firm can identify people, and tag them with the creation of violating derivative works or the consumption of violating works. The statute of limitations for criminal prosecution is years.
What, the comment from Joss deserves only an "update" to an existing item? This is Joss Whedon! I know it's only been a few hours, but that's the tradition with Firefly/Serenity news. Give it a NEW ITEM.
This article betrays complete ignorance of "disruptive" technology.
These small percentage changes aren't what keeps executives awake at night. It's the prospect of one company making a breakthrough that changes the game significantly overnight and moves percentage points by a decimal point or more.
It's good to see multiple players in the game. If google ever takes M$ and Yahoo out of the game entirely, we're much less likely to see such innovation.
"This is the voice of Colossus. The voice of Guardian. We are one. This is the voice of World Control."
Hey, at least they didn't have to evacuate Crete.
With the technology they've been forced to share (and who knows what level of industrial espionage they've exposed themselves to), Google's big brother incarnation in China will persist, whatever corporate decisions taken at this point.
Standard software licenses include waivers of liability under a handful of standard civil law standards. What Bruce is saying is (i) impose by statute and (ii) make it *illegal* for a shrink wrap style license to include a waiver.
From an economics standpoint, the justification for such a standpoint is inequality of bargaining power and market power (i.e., monopoly or near monopoly) in the software segment.
His argument from "principle" is interesting but ignores a much more interesting avenue for exploration. Look at heavily negotiated software license agreements between parties with equal bargaining power and consider what liability standards are commonly accepted.
I haven't done this research, but I would suspect that *support* rather than liability is the typical approach taken by customers who are in a position to get a fair deal.
OK, so we could make support contracts mandatory for the consumer. There might be some advantage to consumers if it were illegal to sell software without a support infrastructure in place, because it would arguably reduce the cost per consumer.
It might reduce *average* total costs across the industry. But this does not necessarily translate to advantages all consumers in all situations.
As an aside, where Bruce's argument theoretically and practically leads is the standard of "strict liability". This is a dangerous doctrine to impose on IP products with zero marginal cost; it drastically changes the economics of production. And yes, this is a potential disaster for open source products.
Slashdot Mirror
:noh turns off search result highlighting
A wireless SD card with 2GB onboard, addressable wirelessly, goes for about $100 now. With one in a Kindle, I could send wirelessly all the transcoded material (PDFs and DOC files) sent back to my desktop or laptop email account.
However, at $400 a pop, I think this is another "Segway" of e-books. Sell the reader for $9.99 and make up the cost on the media, then you've got something.
It would be worth the high price if it included were electronic rights to all the print media the I've purchased from Amazon historically.
This would ignite an e-market for books, with high-volume online purchasers leading the way. Amazon has the heft to pull off such a deal with publishers. Win win win. (Amazon, publishers, consumers).
> While they apparently sent their crack team of process servers out looking for random people named Pamela Jones ...
"Sarah Connor?"
"... Yes?"
Isn't it likely that Apple's contracts with the major labels specifically prohibits iTunes to offer DRM-free music from other parties?
Christ's Second Coming, and you're basically *there*.
Reconsider. You are much too personally involved with the topic to write a fair, balanced and scholarly work.
This is a gross simplification - a caricature - of antitrust law and the obligations of Microsoft under the consent decree. Ah, where to begin?
For starters, it is absolutely false there is any kind of a "50% rule" about market share. That's a misleading, irrelevant, bogus statement. Ted Kennedy has fantasized about enacting such a rule, but it's not the law.
Further, it was never about "integration", but allegations of illegal tying. Microsoft allegedly tied IE and Windows, however they gave the browser product away for free, and made claims there were technical benefits that overrode any concern about affect on competition. Each claim took them outside a straightforward tying analysis.
The outcome of the case, and its ultimate resolution, was arguably on technically illiterate grounds in part, political in others.
Microsoft remains, from a legal standpoint, essentially "unhinged". The problem is, they haven't taken advantage of a plenitude of market opportunities. Don't blame competitors, don't blame "closed source" or "open source", don't blame the legal framework. Microsoft simply hasn't been aggressively competing with foresight.
That's right, Microsoft "can't innovate" until they're below 50% market share, for legal reasons. Thanks. That explains everything
The most frightening scenario is Google positioning itself as the uber-enforcement agent of copyright on the Internet, in exchange for a piece of the action. With the data it is accumulating, Google more than any other single firm can identify people, and tag them with the creation of violating derivative works or the consumption of violating works. The statute of limitations for criminal prosecution is years.
What, the comment from Joss deserves only an "update" to an existing item? This is Joss Whedon! I know it's only been a few hours, but that's the tradition with Firefly/Serenity news. Give it a NEW ITEM.
Raise them!
This article betrays complete ignorance of "disruptive" technology. These small percentage changes aren't what keeps executives awake at night. It's the prospect of one company making a breakthrough that changes the game significantly overnight and moves percentage points by a decimal point or more. It's good to see multiple players in the game. If google ever takes M$ and Yahoo out of the game entirely, we're much less likely to see such innovation.
The greatest loss would, IMHO, be the end of the emergence of Predictive Markets, which are uniquely suited to online application.
Has anyone seen an analysis of the impact of this legislation on Predictive Markets?
"This is the voice of Colossus. The voice of Guardian. We are one. This is the voice of World Control." Hey, at least they didn't have to evacuate Crete.
With the technology they've been forced to share (and who knows what level of industrial espionage they've exposed themselves to), Google's big brother incarnation in China will persist, whatever corporate decisions taken at this point.
Where is OpenDocument support?
Standard software licenses include waivers of liability under a handful of standard civil law standards. What Bruce is saying is (i) impose by statute and (ii) make it *illegal* for a shrink wrap style license to include a waiver.
From an economics standpoint, the justification for such a standpoint is inequality of bargaining power and market power (i.e., monopoly or near monopoly) in the software segment.
His argument from "principle" is interesting but ignores a much more interesting avenue for exploration. Look at heavily negotiated software license agreements between parties with equal bargaining power and consider what liability standards are commonly accepted.
I haven't done this research, but I would suspect that *support* rather than liability is the typical approach taken by customers who are in a position to get a fair deal.
OK, so we could make support contracts mandatory for the consumer. There might be some advantage to consumers if it were illegal to sell software without a support infrastructure in place, because it would arguably reduce the cost per consumer.
It might reduce *average* total costs across the industry. But this does not necessarily translate to advantages all consumers in all situations.
As an aside, where Bruce's argument theoretically and practically leads is the standard of "strict liability". This is a dangerous doctrine to impose on IP products with zero marginal cost; it drastically changes the economics of production. And yes, this is a potential disaster for open source products.