I completely agree that it makes completely no sense for Apple to buy Twitter. I was responding to the parent post who was saying that the functionality of Twitter would be really easy to duplicate.
Twitter doesn't fit in with Apple's core business model, and Apple doesn't seem to like wasting money and time on stuff that doesn't make them lots of money in return.
What happened to the good ol days of Apple speculative rumors, when the rumors were at least plausible?
A lot of people don't necessarily pay for Office, but for the file formats Office creates, which they need to use so the other people working on the documents can read them with their copy of Office.
Out of that whole rant, he did have one very good point: Most people see Windows as being $FREE, as in, "I don't have to pay for it." Most people either get it with their computer, or they know "Someone" who can get them a copy for free. And as long as people think that, any advantage Linux might have over not costing anything is moot.
World of Goo had something like a 95% piracy rate, and I believe the studio stopped making games because they couldn't make ends meet. Don't think you want to use them as a good example of this working.
Call me an optimist, but I hope people will have more common sense when that day comes.
The justification for having the patent will be so I can make money off it so I can get stuff and feed my family. If we had replicator technology, I can get stuff basically for free anyway, food included. So if I'm the type of person who's happiness depends on how much stuff I have, then i can still be happy. The only type of person this doesn't work out well for is the type that is only happy when they have something and no one else has it. But those people are mostly dicks anyway.
Of course, now there's a problem with motivating people to actually do some work, but that's the future's problem. Let them deal with it.
It sounds like the Stardock CEO understands that, but he's still not about to let the pirates feel all warm and fuzzy inside about what they're doing. Playing a pirated version of a game longer than the few days it takes to figure out if it'll run on your system or if its fun or not is wrong, no matter if you want to call it theft, copyright infringement, or simply bad juju.
So you want game publishers to get out of the games business, and go find other jobs?
And the free market assumes you have a fair chance to sell your wares. Piracy tends to break the free market.
If you download the game to see if it works on your system and if its fun for you, that's one thing. If you download it and still play it a month later, then you're long past the "Does it work and is it fun?" evaluation, and you should have paid for it.
The pirates may show friends, and generate word-of-mouth advertising. But they may also show their friends where they got it, and how their friends can get it for free too.
What about the case of the guy down the street running a bootleg DVD operation out of his garage? Should he not be able to be "attacked"?
I think the better option is shorter, multiple copyright terms. Perhaps 28 years from date of publication plus another 28 that you have to register and pay a $1 fee for. And in order to claim copyright, you have to register your work before it will be recognized, to aid in getting works into the Public Domain.
Perhaps the municipal corporation could concentrate on building the infrastructure, and then lease out lines to competitors. Then, though subscription fees and a tax on broadband, that could pay for upgrades to the system.
So if the telcos are cherry-picking the profitable neighborhoods, why don't those areas, or the extremely dense areas have the ungodly bandwidth that the other nations have?
For now, the plan is to pay the bonds off with subscriber fees. If TWC gets their way, however, then that probably won't be feasible anymore. Then they can go around to other communities and show "Hey look, this town couldn't pay off the bond with fees, what makes you think you can?"
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So they should buy a company to get the users that they already have?
I completely agree that it makes completely no sense for Apple to buy Twitter. I was responding to the parent post who was saying that the functionality of Twitter would be really easy to duplicate.
Twitter doesn't fit in with Apple's core business model, and Apple doesn't seem to like wasting money and time on stuff that doesn't make them lots of money in return. What happened to the good ol days of Apple speculative rumors, when the rumors were at least plausible?
Its more than the application. Its the millions of users that come with it.
A lot of people don't necessarily pay for Office, but for the file formats Office creates, which they need to use so the other people working on the documents can read them with their copy of Office.
Out of that whole rant, he did have one very good point: Most people see Windows as being $FREE, as in, "I don't have to pay for it." Most people either get it with their computer, or they know "Someone" who can get them a copy for free. And as long as people think that, any advantage Linux might have over not costing anything is moot.
World of Goo had something like a 95% piracy rate, and I believe the studio stopped making games because they couldn't make ends meet. Don't think you want to use them as a good example of this working.
The waiter still makes a wage if you tip him or not. Whether this wage is enough to live on is another argument entirely.
So do we oppose it all, or do we only oppose those that are problematic and can break the game?
Call me an optimist, but I hope people will have more common sense when that day comes.
The justification for having the patent will be so I can make money off it so I can get stuff and feed my family. If we had replicator technology, I can get stuff basically for free anyway, food included. So if I'm the type of person who's happiness depends on how much stuff I have, then i can still be happy. The only type of person this doesn't work out well for is the type that is only happy when they have something and no one else has it. But those people are mostly dicks anyway.
Of course, now there's a problem with motivating people to actually do some work, but that's the future's problem. Let them deal with it.
It sounds like the Stardock CEO understands that, but he's still not about to let the pirates feel all warm and fuzzy inside about what they're doing. Playing a pirated version of a game longer than the few days it takes to figure out if it'll run on your system or if its fun or not is wrong, no matter if you want to call it theft, copyright infringement, or simply bad juju.
There are a lot of open source game projects that would love to have people donate their time helping to improve the product.
The original idea of Copyright put into the Constitution was a hard limit of 14 years. I don't see how that's a cop out.
So you want game publishers to get out of the games business, and go find other jobs? And the free market assumes you have a fair chance to sell your wares. Piracy tends to break the free market.
If you download the game to see if it works on your system and if its fun for you, that's one thing. If you download it and still play it a month later, then you're long past the "Does it work and is it fun?" evaluation, and you should have paid for it.
Unfortunately the "Is it fun?" stage is usually the one that gets shortened in favor of "Does it have teh shinies?" stage.
So by your post, you're also entitled to free money from the government. Why should I work?
Well, with torrents, there's usually the proverbial "Honor amongst Thieves"
The pirates may show friends, and generate word-of-mouth advertising. But they may also show their friends where they got it, and how their friends can get it for free too.
Valve won't be going out of business until long after my wife makes me give up video games.
What about the case of the guy down the street running a bootleg DVD operation out of his garage? Should he not be able to be "attacked"?
I think the better option is shorter, multiple copyright terms. Perhaps 28 years from date of publication plus another 28 that you have to register and pay a $1 fee for. And in order to claim copyright, you have to register your work before it will be recognized, to aid in getting works into the Public Domain.
Perhaps the municipal corporation could concentrate on building the infrastructure, and then lease out lines to competitors. Then, though subscription fees and a tax on broadband, that could pay for upgrades to the system.
So if the telcos are cherry-picking the profitable neighborhoods, why don't those areas, or the extremely dense areas have the ungodly bandwidth that the other nations have?
Hell, if the city is laying down the fiber themselves and maintaining it, I'd see that as one less thing that I have to charge overhead for.
For now, the plan is to pay the bonds off with subscriber fees. If TWC gets their way, however, then that probably won't be feasible anymore. Then they can go around to other communities and show "Hey look, this town couldn't pay off the bond with fees, what makes you think you can?"