Unfortunately 99% of MPAA lawsuits are valid because people are, in fact, breaking copyright laws and getting stuff for free.
I agree, many are probably guilty (though the number is probably less that 99%.)
However the MPAA/RIAA should not have the ability to financially devastate an individual for downloading a song or movie. There has to be an obligation to prove real damages. Right now the sky is the limit-- why are they allowed to sue a teenager for tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars for a song that costs $1 on itunes, or a movie that costs $7 at Best Buy? Even taking the fact that they are uploading it back to others into consideration, that still is not more that (in all practicality) a dozen to a hundred people. This should be a case in small claims court.
That's the biggest problem here, IMO. The punishment doesn't fit the crime, and the legal system does nothing to prevent corporate entities with unlimited legal resources from demanding incredibly exaggerated sums from average people who can't be expected to have the means to fight or pay. Wal-Mart can't sue you for hundreds of thousands for stealing a DVD in their store-- why should the MPAA be able to for stealing a movie online?
I want the justice system to take a look at itself and really reconsider what the MPAA is doing to people. I want judges to stop handing out fines because the MPAA lawyers tell them the right things.
Have any cases made it to the point where the justices are handing out fines? AFAIK, which admittedly is not all that much, every MPAA/RIAA case so far has been settled before a verdict has been reached.
That said, I'm all for reform of the legal system. Specifically I don't believe a corporation or other business entity should be able to sue an individual under any circumstances. Of course they can and should press charges if they're wronged, or go into collection mode if a customer defaults on money owed, but it is absolutely unreasonable to expect any an individual to have a fair case when defending themselves against a large company suing for "damages."
Of course that would never happen, but you know, this is Slashdot.
Here's a big problem-- Youtube may claim a license/ownership in their TOS. But if they try to sell the videos for profit, they will in all likelihood open themselves up to lawsuits from any subjects in the video who did not grant permission for their likeness to be used. You simply cannot film a person who is not a public figure (e.g. politician, celebrity) and distribute it without an agreement. Or to be precise, you CAN (it's not illegal) but you will be sued (especially if you make a profit) and you will most likely lose.
Say a high school kid films another guy lighting farts on fire at a party and throws it up on Youtube. Did the fart-lighter sign a personal release? How about the crowd of people in the background, especially if their voices can be heard? Did the owner of the house sign a location release? I'm not even going to get into the problems that will arise if a copyrighted song is playing in the background. If any of these parties think Youtube is making a profit from this video they could sue. I'm not even sure they're wrong, I certainly wouldn't want a video of myself circulating on the internet without my permission-- and I would certainly do what I could to put a stop to it if someone else was making a profit.
I should also add, by the way, that a minor cannot sign a release. So even if the fart-lighter says you could post the video, his parents might feel otherwise-- and, yes, they could sue.
This is a problem that's going to bite Youtube in the ass sooner or later-- say when the parents of the next Star Wars Kid sues Youtube for being a party in the distribution of the video. Since Youtube is licensing the video rather than washing their hands and saying they don't have anything to do with their content, they will certainly be named in any lawsuit. And if they're making a profit from this video they will certainly be liable for damages.
And no, I'm not a lawyer. But I have been an assistant producer at a production house that makes reality shows and documentaries and I've seen the great lengths they need to go to to secure releases-- and dealt with the legal department extensively over the inevitable problems. Producers actually have to take out insurance policies to protect themselves against oversights.
The difference between Apple and Microsoft is that Microsoft is more successful. Both companies love proprietary software and DRM. Both companies screw over their customers.
They don't love DRM, they relish screwing over their customers... But they don't love their customers, either. There's no emotion involved here at all. Apple and Microsoft exist to make money, period.
I'm no fan of either company. But I think the "screwing" goes both ways. DRM, proprietary software and other forms of copy protection exist because hacks, cracks and piracy has been rampant since the days of the Apple 2. I'm not saying they haven't gone too far (though in this case, I think the movie studios set the terms, not Apple) but many of us out here in computerland have, to some extent, brought this on ourselves by completely disrespecting copyright laws. Yeah, they're screwing us, but we screwed them too.
Before someone throws open source in my face-- I use it whenever I can, which is often. But how much open source software (OS and apps) is truly innovative, and how much is an attempt to approximate products by Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, etc.? You think if all software was open source we would be advanced as we are today? Profit is much more of a motivator to spur innovation than any communal "free beer speech" effort ever could be.
Sorry, but the real reason for this is you can pick up 14-17 year old girls.
No, the sheer numbers are because MySpace is a way 14-to-17 year old BOYS can pick up 14-17 year old girls. And vice versa. And the age range is more like 15-25, but why quibble.
I know sensationalist news stories and "think of the children" types make it sound like pedophiles lurk under every bush but come on. The real reason Myspace is such a success is because they figured out (or stumbled upon) how to do a social network site that appeals to the high school mentality.
IMO it's the 1-on-1 approve/deny friends system which lets them form cliques (and shut people out), as well as the top 8 which lets you create an inner circle. Friendster failed because when you're one person's friend you're friends with all of their friends, and so on. Myspace allows the user to be a selective snob.
(I also believe the clunky style appeals to the teen mind more than any slick, well-designed Web 2.0 portal ever could. A typical Myspace page is like a locker or Trapper Keeper covered with stickers, notes, pictures, doodles and other crap... A complete eyesore to us adults with refined taste, but exactly what a 15-year old wants.)
Re:How much editorial oversight is enough?
on
When Wikipedia Fails
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
IMDB excels at what it is, which is a database of movie credits. If you want to see everything an actor did in his career, if you like a director and want to get a list of his other works, that's where you go. I'm sure there are abuses (or just mistakes) but it's pretty hard to dick around with the credits list of Star Wars.
The abuses you mentioned are pretty much sandboxed-- movies in production (which are tumultous by nature, and no media source will have anything but speculation until they are released), the comments and "fun facts" section which should be taken with a grain of salt anyway. Perhaps the biggest potential for abuse is someone padding their credits by getting movies listed that shouldn't be there-- like a student film-- but that behavior is so under the radar it doesn't really affect other users.
Misinformation and abuse in Wikipedia is much more widespread... But that said, I don't see why there's so much hand-wringing over it. Yeah, the articles are biased and subject to manipulation. So what? It's not an academic resource, it's a repository of common knowledge. Treating it as anything but a "know-it-all friend" is a mistake (and just plain laziness.) If you're serious about a subject (or even trying to settle an argument) Wikipedia should do nothing more than give you ammo to do real research.
The Indian caste system has been in use for many years. Still today the values of the caste system are held strongly. It has kept a sense of order, and peace among the people. There are five different levels of the system: Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra, and Harijans. Within each of these categories are the actual "castes" or jatis within which people are born, marry, and die. They all have their own place among each other and accept that it is the way to keep society from disintegrating to chaos. This system has worked well for Indian people and still has a major role in modern India.
I don't think this guy had much of a leg to stand on, and I'm not defending the merits of his case, but before
When someone sues for an exhorbitant amount they do so on the advice of a lawyer who knows full well that most cases are settled before they get to court (or before a verdict is reached) and that the settlement will be a fraction of the original claim. Even when the case goes to trial and the court rules in the plantiff's favor more likely than not the award will be whittled down. And then of course there are the legal fees, which are as much as half of the award. So it's pretty much obligatory that you have to sue for many times the actual amount that is realistic or fair to expect.
Again... This is a pretty ridiculous case so it's not a good example (the guy's just looking to win the lottery) but realize that a claim of damages that sounds outrageous is a necessary tactic to end up with an award that comes close to actual damages.
Business Students at a local university surveyed a bunch of local high schools. They found that Apple scored low on reliability. Apple also scored low on features, the kids really thought the lack of AM/FM was a negative(*). However, iPod was the most common player. Apple did win on ease of use. Many iPod owners admitted they traded functionality/reliability for "status symbol"/fashion. The kids were fairly well informed since there was a lot of comparing and contrasting of the various players they had.
Forgive me if I don't take a secondhand version of a college project where students interviewed students as a reliable report on what the general consumer wants in a Mp3 player.
You fail to mention the players the iPod was compared to. Am I to take from this that the iPod is the least reliable on the market? Is there something better? I'd tend to believe that all players are assembled from cheap parts in Asia and all have more chance than they should of falling apart. The best you can do is get one with a good warranty program, which Apple seems to have (in most cases they'll just hand you a new one, though it does sometimes require raising a stink.) Apple's not alone in that by any means, of course, but they're better than many (*cough* Sony.)
You say lack of AM/FM is seen as a negative. But is it a missing feature that would influence a significant amount of people's buying decisions? If you present a person with the feature list of two products and one is longer than the other, they'll say the one without is lacking. But that doesn't mean it's going to affect their decision-- There are lots of electronic products (from cell phones to cars) with less that sell better than those with more. A ton of features don't do you much good if the product is difficult to use or has other flaws.
(By the way, almost no players have AM. I only say "almost" because someone might dredge up an obscure Vietnamese model if I say "none".)
You fail to mention the iTunes factor. It's not all about the hardware. How did that figure into this survey?
I can't stress enough that I do not own an iPod, or care to. The fact that the battery can't be easily switched is a definite turn off for me. I'm not sticking up for my brand. I just hate to see know-it-alls throw around pointless and and arbitrary surveys like this as data we should all respect.
Oh, and...
(*) I expect Apple has similar research of their own and it probably inspired the Radio Remote. I'd wager future models will have it built in.
I'll take that bet. I don't think those things are flying off the shelves. Seems more like a specialty add-on for the small minority who want it to me.
...But he seems kinda not all there. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking him, hell, maybe it makes him better at what he does. But I just get this sense that he does NOT think like me, in a way I don't normally get from reading interviews. Is it just me?
I think this has more to do with the presentation.
Most interviews we are highly edited. If they're in print the language is cleaned up, if on video or radio then only the best sound bites are used. Have you ever seen or heard raw interview footage? Unless it's completely scripted in advance-- meaning the subject gets the questions ahead of time and then meticulously prepares a response-- most don't sound all that much more coherent than this. By the way, most celebrity interviews (Barbara Walters, Today Show, etc.) are scripted as I described.
This interview seems to be a guy from Slashdot firing off random questions at Mr. West and then transcribing his answers verbatim. Additionally, it seems to be very informal, conversational and "off the cuff" (lightweight questions with answers that don't exactly take a lot of forethought.) Nothing wrong with that, but it's not a "professional" style. Why don't you transcribe a casual phone call with a friend and see how "all there" both of you sound?
I guess I can't blame Myspace completely for this phenomenon as it seems to be an attitude that is pervading our entire society: it's better to look good than actually be good. Mspace seems to reinforce that message.
Well, why do you think teens are flocking to it in droves? You think they care more about substance than style? They (and by "they", I don't mean Web 2.0 geeks, I mean the unwashed masses) love it because Myspace is the closest approximation we've seen yet of the (junior) high school experience. Mucking with layout with editors, tacking up animated GIFs and music bits is the not much different than putting stickers or writing band names all over their notebooks and lockers. Sure, it's clunky but isn't everything at that age?
But the real genius of Myspace is the friends system. Friendster missed the mark by making it all-inclusive (if you're one person's friend, you're everyone's friend.) With Myspace, you have to actively collect them (or be so popular that people are asking you.) The friends system is not that much different than the little cliques that form in school-- and the ability to "deny" lets you deal out the sting of rejection with as much pain as in real life. And the "top 8" is like choosing who to sit with at the lunch table (forget the "interests" section, you can gather the most sense of who a person is by seeing who their best friends are.)
Of course it's all very juvenile-- but it's for kids. And for adults who stil have that junior high mentality.
Only a two year jail sentence? That seems extremely light, considering that once you have your identity stolen, it can easily take over two years to put everything back in order
Well, first, a victim of ID theft doesn't spend two years of straight time fixing the problem. There's a difference between two years of dealing with bureacracy for a few hours a week and two years of your life spent in a prison cell. I'm not making light of ID theft, I was a victim of it myself and it was certainly a bitch to deal with... But hell, I'd take eight years of doing what you have to do to get everything back in order over eight months of prison time. Prison really, really sucks.
So two years doesn't sound that harsh to me. These guys are not violent criminals. They aren't gang members and will not be at the top of the prison food chain. Those two years will not exactly fly by, and being 19-24 they will lose some of what should have been the best years of their lives. When they get out they will be felons and will lose many rights (including foreign travel), and will have to check in with parole officers, and will find it much harder to find work and a decent place to live. They may even be prevented from using a computer for a period of time. I think losing two years of your life would deter most from d
So I think Apple is screwing themselves by combining the consumer and pro brand into 'MacBook'.
Yeah. They should make a better laptop and call it "MacBook Pro." (cough.)
The Nano, which was clearly designed to cheap and accessible, does not have the ruggedness of the original machines.
As per the name, the Nano was designed to be smaller than the iPod. And it is. "Ruggedness" has nothing to do with it.
Now, the Shuffle WAS designed to be the cheap and accessible iPod. But since it's flash-based, encased in plastic and has no screen, it's actually the most rugged of the three. The only way to kill a Shuffle is to drop it in water.
Seriously, Metro is not a paper of note. It might be picked up for a quick read on the subway or for lunch by some NY office workers but it's certainly not the caliber of other free papers like the Voice, NYPress or even the Onion. I can't imagine it will get Open Office much return for their investment.
Wouldn't that $10,000 be better spent on banner ads on high traffic site or Google adwords? Then they'd reach a worldwide audience, and the reader would be literally seconds away from downloading the suite for themselves.
Don't forget that, even Belgium is a small country, its captial city is Brussels, which is also the capital of Europe.
The EU is an economic agreement, not a country. The UN is in New York, does that make NY the capital of the world?
Also the government of Belgium is a completely different entity than the EU. They have no more power to make this a Europe-wide decision than, say, Austria.
I've said it a thousand times, don't make Belgium more important than it is. It's a nice little country but in the end it's just the Canada of France.
Seems like this could lead to some trouble. Copyright violation is for the most part overlooked on Google and YouTube right now because the videos are amateur, or the clips are uploaded by fans, and anyway who cares because no one is making money anyway. But if uploaders start making a profit you can certainly bet the copyright holders will start to pay attention.
It's not just the RIAA typoes we have to worry about, either-- how many of the subjects of these videos signed releases? If I put up a video on a free site of a frat guy lighting farts on fire he'll probably just laugh it off. If I am making a profit from that video without an agreement with the star he's going to have the right to demand a cut (or even damages for posting his image without permission.)
Also, if there is a violation of copyrights (or use of a person's likeness without permission) under the free model Google can pretty much wash their hands of it and say they don't take responsibility for what is uploaded to their site. If Google is taking a cut of the ad profits, however, aren't they making themselves complicit too?
I know "protecting the children" is a cliche, but doesn't it kind of apply here? Camp administrators are the children's guardians for the time they are there and have as much, if not more obligation as a parent to keep kids safe. They also have an obligation to protect themselves from lawsuits from parents if a fat kid trying to paddle a canoe becomes the next viral video...
As any Slashdot nerd who's been to camp (or gym class, or any other instance where 8-to-18 year olds are thrown together) there is a lot of pranks, hazing and other forms of humiliation that goes on in these environments. I bet the camps are more worried that photos of kids who had the ol' hand-in-warm-water trick pulled on them by their bunk mates will circulate (and then the potential lawsuits from parents afterwards.)
A few months ago someone posted a blog about a Magsafe power adaptor that caught fire. It made the rounds of all the blogs and tech sites. There was wild speculation on the blogs and tech sites, wild exchanges of Apple horror stories and a call for Apple to make a formal declaration and fix the problem. Thing is, it was an isolated incident-- Apple gave the guy a new machine and remained mum, and there have been no similar reports since.
Like any other company that sells millions of units Apple has to protect their own hides. If a problem turns out to be widespread they have to figure out a way to fix it effectively, efficiently and (of course) with minimal expense. If a problem surfaces with a small number of machines they have to repair those and do damage control to keep tens or hundreds of thousands of Mac owners who don't have problems from bombarding their service lines and repair centers who want their machines fixed "just in case", or who think they're seeing signs of problems that just aren't there (just like when a disease is in the news, large numbers of perfectly healthy people think they have the symptoms.)
And when there clearly is a problem, Apple is going to protect their own corporate hides. Here's one of those trademark Slashdot car analogies: Let's say you back into another car in the parking lot and it's clearly your fault. Do you admit blame right away (leaving yourself liable for whatever they demand, including back problems ten years later) or do you exchange insurance information and let them work out a fair settlement? Any sane person would do the latter, and any corporation has an obligation (for the shareholders, as well as their own survival) to wait for the facts come in before they make an official declaration of fault and a plan of attack to fix the issue.
Apple's as good as, if not better than other companies with regards to recalls and repair programs (and again, I don't believe you understand the ramifications of putting such programs into place.) Compared to most other manufacturers they're very good about fixing problems and even giving you a new machine if yours is faulty (sometimes it takes being a "squeaky wheel", but that has as much to do with the actual human you're dealing with as anything.) But really, in the end what people who make comments like yours have to realize that all that really matters is, if the machine YOU own has an issue while under warranty or Applecare it will in almost every case be taken care of in a fair manner.
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately 99% of MPAA lawsuits are valid because people are, in fact, breaking copyright laws and getting stuff for free.
I agree, many are probably guilty (though the number is probably less that 99%.)
However the MPAA/RIAA should not have the ability to financially devastate an individual for downloading a song or movie. There has to be an obligation to prove real damages. Right now the sky is the limit-- why are they allowed to sue a teenager for tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars for a song that costs $1 on itunes, or a movie that costs $7 at Best Buy? Even taking the fact that they are uploading it back to others into consideration, that still is not more that (in all practicality) a dozen to a hundred people. This should be a case in small claims court.
That's the biggest problem here, IMO. The punishment doesn't fit the crime, and the legal system does nothing to prevent corporate entities with unlimited legal resources from demanding incredibly exaggerated sums from average people who can't be expected to have the means to fight or pay. Wal-Mart can't sue you for hundreds of thousands for stealing a DVD in their store-- why should the MPAA be able to for stealing a movie online?
By the way, IANAL but what from I've seen Dungeons and Dragons references don't go over very well in a court of law.
I want the justice system to take a look at itself and really reconsider what the MPAA is doing to people. I want judges to stop handing out fines because the MPAA lawyers tell them the right things.
Have any cases made it to the point where the justices are handing out fines? AFAIK, which admittedly is not all that much, every MPAA/RIAA case so far has been settled before a verdict has been reached.
That said, I'm all for reform of the legal system. Specifically I don't believe a corporation or other business entity should be able to sue an individual under any circumstances. Of course they can and should press charges if they're wronged, or go into collection mode if a customer defaults on money owed, but it is absolutely unreasonable to expect any an individual to have a fair case when defending themselves against a large company suing for "damages."
Of course that would never happen, but you know, this is Slashdot.
Here's a big problem-- Youtube may claim a license/ownership in their TOS. But if they try to sell the videos for profit, they will in all likelihood open themselves up to lawsuits from any subjects in the video who did not grant permission for their likeness to be used. You simply cannot film a person who is not a public figure (e.g. politician, celebrity) and distribute it without an agreement. Or to be precise, you CAN (it's not illegal) but you will be sued (especially if you make a profit) and you will most likely lose.
Say a high school kid films another guy lighting farts on fire at a party and throws it up on Youtube. Did the fart-lighter sign a personal release? How about the crowd of people in the background, especially if their voices can be heard? Did the owner of the house sign a location release? I'm not even going to get into the problems that will arise if a copyrighted song is playing in the background. If any of these parties think Youtube is making a profit from this video they could sue. I'm not even sure they're wrong, I certainly wouldn't want a video of myself circulating on the internet without my permission-- and I would certainly do what I could to put a stop to it if someone else was making a profit.
I should also add, by the way, that a minor cannot sign a release. So even if the fart-lighter says you could post the video, his parents might feel otherwise-- and, yes, they could sue.
This is a problem that's going to bite Youtube in the ass sooner or later-- say when the parents of the next Star Wars Kid sues Youtube for being a party in the distribution of the video. Since Youtube is licensing the video rather than washing their hands and saying they don't have anything to do with their content, they will certainly be named in any lawsuit. And if they're making a profit from this video they will certainly be liable for damages.
And no, I'm not a lawyer. But I have been an assistant producer at a production house that makes reality shows and documentaries and I've seen the great lengths they need to go to to secure releases-- and dealt with the legal department extensively over the inevitable problems. Producers actually have to take out insurance policies to protect themselves against oversights.
The difference between Apple and Microsoft is that Microsoft is more successful. Both companies love proprietary software and DRM. Both companies screw over their customers.
They don't love DRM, they relish screwing over their customers... But they don't love their customers, either. There's no emotion involved here at all. Apple and Microsoft exist to make money, period.
I'm no fan of either company. But I think the "screwing" goes both ways. DRM, proprietary software and other forms of copy protection exist because hacks, cracks and piracy has been rampant since the days of the Apple 2. I'm not saying they haven't gone too far (though in this case, I think the movie studios set the terms, not Apple) but many of us out here in computerland have, to some extent, brought this on ourselves by completely disrespecting copyright laws. Yeah, they're screwing us, but we screwed them too.
Before someone throws open source in my face-- I use it whenever I can, which is often. But how much open source software (OS and apps) is truly innovative, and how much is an attempt to approximate products by Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, etc.? You think if all software was open source we would be advanced as we are today? Profit is much more of a motivator to spur innovation than any communal "free beer speech" effort ever could be.
That means the RIAA actually lost money on this one. Hopefully A LOT!>
Considering they won a default judgement against the daughter (if you RTFA) I think the RIAA will still come out ahead.
Sorry, but the real reason for this is you can pick up 14-17 year old girls.
No, the sheer numbers are because MySpace is a way 14-to-17 year old BOYS can pick up 14-17 year old girls. And vice versa. And the age range is more like 15-25, but why quibble.
I know sensationalist news stories and "think of the children" types make it sound like pedophiles lurk under every bush but come on. The real reason Myspace is such a success is because they figured out (or stumbled upon) how to do a social network site that appeals to the high school mentality.
IMO it's the 1-on-1 approve/deny friends system which lets them form cliques (and shut people out), as well as the top 8 which lets you create an inner circle. Friendster failed because when you're one person's friend you're friends with all of their friends, and so on. Myspace allows the user to be a selective snob.
(I also believe the clunky style appeals to the teen mind more than any slick, well-designed Web 2.0 portal ever could. A typical Myspace page is like a locker or Trapper Keeper covered with stickers, notes, pictures, doodles and other crap... A complete eyesore to us adults with refined taste, but exactly what a 15-year old wants.)
I find MySpace for the most part intensely narcissistic and inane.
No shit. That's why it's so popular with 13-21 year olds, who for the most part are also intensely narcissistic and inane.
The Gnome-based Nokia 770 has everything you asked for but the phones: http://www.mobileburn.com/review.jsp?Id=1376
IMDB excels at what it is, which is a database of movie credits. If you want to see everything an actor did in his career, if you like a director and want to get a list of his other works, that's where you go. I'm sure there are abuses (or just mistakes) but it's pretty hard to dick around with the credits list of Star Wars.
The abuses you mentioned are pretty much sandboxed-- movies in production (which are tumultous by nature, and no media source will have anything but speculation until they are released), the comments and "fun facts" section which should be taken with a grain of salt anyway. Perhaps the biggest potential for abuse is someone padding their credits by getting movies listed that shouldn't be there-- like a student film-- but that behavior is so under the radar it doesn't really affect other users.
Misinformation and abuse in Wikipedia is much more widespread... But that said, I don't see why there's so much hand-wringing over it. Yeah, the articles are biased and subject to manipulation. So what? It's not an academic resource, it's a repository of common knowledge. Treating it as anything but a "know-it-all friend" is a mistake (and just plain laziness.) If you're serious about a subject (or even trying to settle an argument) Wikipedia should do nothing more than give you ammo to do real research.
The Indian caste system has been in use for many years. Still today the values of the caste system are held strongly. It has kept a sense of order, and peace among the people. There are five different levels of the system: Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra, and Harijans. Within each of these categories are the actual "castes" or jatis within which people are born, marry, and die. They all have their own place among each other and accept that it is the way to keep society from disintegrating to chaos. This system has worked well for Indian people and still has a major role in modern India.
I don't think this guy had much of a leg to stand on, and I'm not defending the merits of his case, but before
When someone sues for an exhorbitant amount they do so on the advice of a lawyer who knows full well that most cases are settled before they get to court (or before a verdict is reached) and that the settlement will be a fraction of the original claim. Even when the case goes to trial and the court rules in the plantiff's favor more likely than not the award will be whittled down. And then of course there are the legal fees, which are as much as half of the award. So it's pretty much obligatory that you have to sue for many times the actual amount that is realistic or fair to expect.
Again... This is a pretty ridiculous case so it's not a good example (the guy's just looking to win the lottery) but realize that a claim of damages that sounds outrageous is a necessary tactic to end up with an award that comes close to actual damages.
Business Students at a local university surveyed a bunch of local high schools. They found that Apple scored low on reliability. Apple also scored low on features, the kids really thought the lack of AM/FM was a negative(*). However, iPod was the most common player. Apple did win on ease of use. Many iPod owners admitted they traded functionality/reliability for "status symbol"/fashion. The kids were fairly well informed since there was a lot of comparing and contrasting of the various players they had.
Forgive me if I don't take a secondhand version of a college project where students interviewed students as a reliable report on what the general consumer wants in a Mp3 player.
You fail to mention the players the iPod was compared to. Am I to take from this that the iPod is the least reliable on the market? Is there something better? I'd tend to believe that all players are assembled from cheap parts in Asia and all have more chance than they should of falling apart. The best you can do is get one with a good warranty program, which Apple seems to have (in most cases they'll just hand you a new one, though it does sometimes require raising a stink.) Apple's not alone in that by any means, of course, but they're better than many (*cough* Sony.)
You say lack of AM/FM is seen as a negative. But is it a missing feature that would influence a significant amount of people's buying decisions? If you present a person with the feature list of two products and one is longer than the other, they'll say the one without is lacking. But that doesn't mean it's going to affect their decision-- There are lots of electronic products (from cell phones to cars) with less that sell better than those with more. A ton of features don't do you much good if the product is difficult to use or has other flaws.
(By the way, almost no players have AM. I only say "almost" because someone might dredge up an obscure Vietnamese model if I say "none".)
You fail to mention the iTunes factor. It's not all about the hardware. How did that figure into this survey?
I can't stress enough that I do not own an iPod, or care to. The fact that the battery can't be easily switched is a definite turn off for me. I'm not sticking up for my brand. I just hate to see know-it-alls throw around pointless and and arbitrary surveys like this as data we should all respect.
Oh, and...
(*) I expect Apple has similar research of their own and it probably inspired the Radio Remote. I'd wager future models will have it built in.
I'll take that bet. I don't think those things are flying off the shelves. Seems more like a specialty add-on for the small minority who want it to me.
...But he seems kinda not all there. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking him, hell, maybe it makes him better at what he does. But I just get this sense that he does NOT think like me, in a way I don't normally get from reading interviews. Is it just me?
I think this has more to do with the presentation.
Most interviews we are highly edited. If they're in print the language is cleaned up, if on video or radio then only the best sound bites are used. Have you ever seen or heard raw interview footage? Unless it's completely scripted in advance-- meaning the subject gets the questions ahead of time and then meticulously prepares a response-- most don't sound all that much more coherent than this. By the way, most celebrity interviews (Barbara Walters, Today Show, etc.) are scripted as I described.
This interview seems to be a guy from Slashdot firing off random questions at Mr. West and then transcribing his answers verbatim. Additionally, it seems to be very informal, conversational and "off the cuff" (lightweight questions with answers that don't exactly take a lot of forethought.) Nothing wrong with that, but it's not a "professional" style. Why don't you transcribe a casual phone call with a friend and see how "all there" both of you sound?
I guess I can't blame Myspace completely for this phenomenon as it seems to be an attitude that is pervading our entire society: it's better to look good than actually be good. Mspace seems to reinforce that message.
Well, why do you think teens are flocking to it in droves? You think they care more about substance than style? They (and by "they", I don't mean Web 2.0 geeks, I mean the unwashed masses) love it because Myspace is the closest approximation we've seen yet of the (junior) high school experience. Mucking with layout with editors, tacking up animated GIFs and music bits is the not much different than putting stickers or writing band names all over their notebooks and lockers. Sure, it's clunky but isn't everything at that age?
But the real genius of Myspace is the friends system. Friendster missed the mark by making it all-inclusive (if you're one person's friend, you're everyone's friend.) With Myspace, you have to actively collect them (or be so popular that people are asking you.) The friends system is not that much different than the little cliques that form in school-- and the ability to "deny" lets you deal out the sting of rejection with as much pain as in real life. And the "top 8" is like choosing who to sit with at the lunch table (forget the "interests" section, you can gather the most sense of who a person is by seeing who their best friends are.)
Of course it's all very juvenile-- but it's for kids. And for adults who stil have that junior high mentality.
Hopefully this price will come down before Sony releases their eReader later this summer.
Maybe you're new here, but "the price will come down" and "Sony" simply cannot be used in the same sentence.
Im going to completely ignore the typical grammar nazi posts I could throw in...
If you open with that line you should spell check your comment.
Only a two year jail sentence? That seems extremely light, considering that once you have your identity stolen, it can easily take over two years to put everything back in order
Well, first, a victim of ID theft doesn't spend two years of straight time fixing the problem. There's a difference between two years of dealing with bureacracy for a few hours a week and two years of your life spent in a prison cell. I'm not making light of ID theft, I was a victim of it myself and it was certainly a bitch to deal with... But hell, I'd take eight years of doing what you have to do to get everything back in order over eight months of prison time. Prison really, really sucks.
So two years doesn't sound that harsh to me. These guys are not violent criminals. They aren't gang members and will not be at the top of the prison food chain. Those two years will not exactly fly by, and being 19-24 they will lose some of what should have been the best years of their lives. When they get out they will be felons and will lose many rights (including foreign travel), and will have to check in with parole officers, and will find it much harder to find work and a decent place to live. They may even be prevented from using a computer for a period of time. I think losing two years of your life would deter most from d
So I think Apple is screwing themselves by combining the consumer and pro brand into 'MacBook'.
Yeah. They should make a better laptop and call it "MacBook Pro." (cough.)
The Nano, which was clearly designed to cheap and accessible, does not have the ruggedness of the original machines.
As per the name, the Nano was designed to be smaller than the iPod. And it is. "Ruggedness" has nothing to do with it.
Now, the Shuffle WAS designed to be the cheap and accessible iPod. But since it's flash-based, encased in plastic and has no screen, it's actually the most rugged of the three. The only way to kill a Shuffle is to drop it in water.
Seriously, Metro is not a paper of note. It might be picked up for a quick read on the subway or for lunch by some NY office workers but it's certainly not the caliber of other free papers like the Voice, NYPress or even the Onion. I can't imagine it will get Open Office much return for their investment.
Wouldn't that $10,000 be better spent on banner ads on high traffic site or Google adwords? Then they'd reach a worldwide audience, and the reader would be literally seconds away from downloading the suite for themselves.
Don't forget that, even Belgium is a small country, its captial city is Brussels, which is also the capital of Europe.
The EU is an economic agreement, not a country. The UN is in New York, does that make NY the capital of the world?
Also the government of Belgium is a completely different entity than the EU. They have no more power to make this a Europe-wide decision than, say, Austria.
I've said it a thousand times, don't make Belgium more important than it is. It's a nice little country but in the end it's just the Canada of France.
Seems like this could lead to some trouble. Copyright violation is for the most part overlooked on Google and YouTube right now because the videos are amateur, or the clips are uploaded by fans, and anyway who cares because no one is making money anyway. But if uploaders start making a profit you can certainly bet the copyright holders will start to pay attention.
It's not just the RIAA typoes we have to worry about, either-- how many of the subjects of these videos signed releases? If I put up a video on a free site of a frat guy lighting farts on fire he'll probably just laugh it off. If I am making a profit from that video without an agreement with the star he's going to have the right to demand a cut (or even damages for posting his image without permission.)
Also, if there is a violation of copyrights (or use of a person's likeness without permission) under the free model Google can pretty much wash their hands of it and say they don't take responsibility for what is uploaded to their site. If Google is taking a cut of the ad profits, however, aren't they making themselves complicit too?
I know "protecting the children" is a cliche, but doesn't it kind of apply here? Camp administrators are the children's guardians for the time they are there and have as much, if not more obligation as a parent to keep kids safe. They also have an obligation to protect themselves from lawsuits from parents if a fat kid trying to paddle a canoe becomes the next viral video...
As any Slashdot nerd who's been to camp (or gym class, or any other instance where 8-to-18 year olds are thrown together) there is a lot of pranks, hazing and other forms of humiliation that goes on in these environments. I bet the camps are more worried that photos of kids who had the ol' hand-in-warm-water trick pulled on them by their bunk mates will circulate (and then the potential lawsuits from parents afterwards.)
A few months ago someone posted a blog about a Magsafe power adaptor that caught fire. It made the rounds of all the blogs and tech sites. There was wild speculation on the blogs and tech sites, wild exchanges of Apple horror stories and a call for Apple to make a formal declaration and fix the problem. Thing is, it was an isolated incident-- Apple gave the guy a new machine and remained mum, and there have been no similar reports since.
Like any other company that sells millions of units Apple has to protect their own hides. If a problem turns out to be widespread they have to figure out a way to fix it effectively, efficiently and (of course) with minimal expense. If a problem surfaces with a small number of machines they have to repair those and do damage control to keep tens or hundreds of thousands of Mac owners who don't have problems from bombarding their service lines and repair centers who want their machines fixed "just in case", or who think they're seeing signs of problems that just aren't there (just like when a disease is in the news, large numbers of perfectly healthy people think they have the symptoms.)
And when there clearly is a problem, Apple is going to protect their own corporate hides. Here's one of those trademark Slashdot car analogies: Let's say you back into another car in the parking lot and it's clearly your fault. Do you admit blame right away (leaving yourself liable for whatever they demand, including back problems ten years later) or do you exchange insurance information and let them work out a fair settlement? Any sane person would do the latter, and any corporation has an obligation (for the shareholders, as well as their own survival) to wait for the facts come in before they make an official declaration of fault and a plan of attack to fix the issue.
Apple's as good as, if not better than other companies with regards to recalls and repair programs (and again, I don't believe you understand the ramifications of putting such programs into place.) Compared to most other manufacturers they're very good about fixing problems and even giving you a new machine if yours is faulty (sometimes it takes being a "squeaky wheel", but that has as much to do with the actual human you're dealing with as anything.) But really, in the end what people who make comments like yours have to realize that all that really matters is, if the machine YOU own has an issue while under warranty or Applecare it will in almost every case be taken care of in a fair manner.
I'm willing to put $50 down to say that affected manufacturers include my mine./i
So either way, you lose?
Your problem might not be that you're unlucky as much as that you don't know how to gamble.