Ya, because he thinks about things (like consequences of his actions) he should be reviled by everyone. Perhaps you would rather someone without the basic intelligence to foresee that curing malaria would earn him brownie points in charge of finding a cure for malaria, or ~90% of the world's operating systems.
Me, I'm just happy that these things are getting done.
Three strikes is actually a good idea for stopping infringement. It's pretty fair. It allows for mistakes to be made without them being life-ruining, while still effectively enforcing the law. So long as the methods for determining copyright infringement are effective and empirical enough, this could be quite useful.
amoral seems a strong word for copyright infringement. You can view morals as something handed to us from God, or a set of instincts designed for species protection, but in either case how does driving commercial entertainment workers out of business apply?
You've missed one category: society's values. In fact, I would actually argue that the morals handed to us from God are part of society's values. These values are derived from what helps society function, and what helps societies improve. Most of the morals "handed to us from God" had (and many still do have) directly positive effects for our society. Anyway, I'm getting off topic.
The point is that copyright helps us function. It encourages the production of culture, which we, the people, enjoy. It (hopefully) ensures the wealth gained from producing a work is proportional to its popularity (i.e. however many people appreciate it), which is consistent with the principles of the free market and capitalism. The act of denying compensation to someone who has worked to contribute something positive to society is considered amoral. That's sort of covered in the Eighth Commandment though.
... and when asked (repeatedly) to stop distributing those maps, he laughs, calls robbing banks "free expression" or some such crap, and declares himself a defender of "free expression", all the while making an assload of money off the whole sordid affair.
It's up to him. If he wants his album to be distributed that way, that's up to him, not to people who think "That's stupid; it's free!", and download it anyway. Besides, he may have some kind of deal with the Daily Mail whereby he gets a cut of the profits, or even just a favour for helping sell the newspaper. Either way, unless he specifically says that you may share it, you may not share it.
So you're saying there's little profit motive, right? So you're saying that he holds very little weight (at least with the younger generation)? It sounds to me like a relic like him wouldn't be worth the money to publicly shill for the RIAA. This is probably just his opinion.
When are these environmentalists and climate change freaks going to stop with the bullshit and leave us alone?
I'm guessing either when people stop fucking up the planet, or when the planet is far too gone to save.
Or maybe they'll become less shrill when people start listening to them, rather than dismissing them just because they can't pay attention, or don't like being told what to do.
The economics haven't changed here, it's just that we're allowing the commercial value of the artwork itself drop to practically zero instead of propping it up with some scarcity. The artwork is distributable for free, and any company may publish it, tailor it, provide help for it. There's plenty of room for competition, so inflated prices (for example, to cover for and incentivise production costs) would not be tolerated. It's the same economics, it's just now that everything between the covers of your book is now commercial dirt. Suddenly artists/publishers are now no longer in the business of selling art to the public, but in making flashy versions of existing artworks (since that's where the money comes from), and artist question the necessity of actually bringing their own works to the table.
The money DOES go to the people doing the work. Except the 'work' is the not necessarily the people who made the original work but the people who are adding value through immediacy, personalization, interpretation, authenticity, accessibility, embodiment, patronage, and findability.
The majority of the work done (hopefully) will be in the creation of the work, yet it's not the creation of the work that's being even indirectly rewarded here. It's all the other services that adorn the work that you are paying for, and the market value will reflect that. We're essentially asking the artist to create the work for free, and if he wants money, well, he'll have to work for it another way (i.e. by providing those services).
In addition, because there'd be no restriction on who can provide those services, the artist would be forced to compete with absolutely no advantages against other people providing the same service with his creation. The only difference between them is that the creator was burdened with cost of production.
Basically, we might as well tell artists to find a real job while in between their art creation.
Not exactly. Any game (within hardware limits) can be created, but market forces determine which would be profitable. Perceived profitability is correlated so strongly with production in this capitalist society that you'd be remiss not to assume the path of supply and demand. But perhaps you are referring to the slight discrepancy between profitability and the wants of the potential consumer? Supply and demand still works, just with the caveat that the consumer has to be prepared to pay a fair price for the product. That caveat is absolutely necessary, because otherwise almost everything would be in demand, it's just that not everyone would be prepared to pay for it.
well, if the types of games we get are reflections of market forces, then you are not really getting many choices; most of the games will be permutations of a precedent.
You take for granted that the market won't change. Different things will be profitable at different times, not least affected by what's been released previously. Therefore, the games produced should be (at least slightly) different from the last. And you also seem to be assuming there's one market for gaming; there isn't. Flooding the most popular market with similar products, no matter how initially popular, will quickly diminish the popularity of the said products, while leaving gaping demand for other products, so we have different markets to find the perfect balance to receive the most profits.
If the demand and that profitability goes down significantly in any of those markets in the video game industry, you can expect with a fair degree of certainty that that market will suffer, possibly even die, no matter how fun the residual members of that market find the games.
If there's a demand for games, more games will be made. If there isn't, there won't. We can go around and around on whether X is as popular as Y or is it as popular as B? Who cares?
Who cares? Gamers do! The games industry do! Whether they're popular or not strongly affects our chances of playing video games in the future. Even if there is demand, the more demand we have, the more choices we will get in which games we want to play. In other words, popularity is everything to the future of gaming.
How can you trust news from people stupid enough to annoy their audience?
Because they're reporters and editors, not marketers?
I guess they also recognise the trade-off between annoying your customers and making money via advertising, and even though you personally happened to feel annoyed, perhaps they were making more money of the impressions they did get.
Every day they have to go to work and pretend that they are doing something positive for a company that pretends to sell quality products. They pile fantasies on fantasies. They live in a world of unreality.
But they are doing something positive for the company, and Microsoft does make some quality software. It's just much of what they tout as quality software isn't nearly as good as they say it is.
You do realise that out of the three sentence fragments of your comment, not one of them is at all accurate, right? I'm not trolling,/. is nothing more than a pass-time and decides nothing, and out of the multimillion dollar resources that/. possesses I'm using only a tiny portion of it, and there's plenty for everyone else. I do have to ask though, do you just think anyone who disagrees with you is a troll? Because, if that's the case, and if you want any respect from your/. peers, you may need to revise that policy.
The whole purpose of the copyright is to ensure progress, not individual riches.
Most artists don't actually gain many individual riches from single bodies of work. Some do but most don't. And if those artists aren't with (or at least weren't previously with) a label distributing far and wide, they can just forget it. They're almost certainly doomed to a life of poverty, where the incentive to produce is very weak. Shortening copyright lengths may not actually be that bad, it's just we'd have to accept that much of the commercial indie sector would stop producing.
They would be free to switch to a higher bidder or better marketer, a freedom which in itself would cause an increase in worth for their product.
The artists already have that option. If they don't feel that deal is fair for their copyrights, they can sell them elsewhere. The fact is that the ability to sell actually increases their value. It adds security to the agreement, and security is a big player when making the kinds of investments that the labels make.
Slashdot Mirror
Ya, because he thinks about things (like consequences of his actions) he should be reviled by everyone. Perhaps you would rather someone without the basic intelligence to foresee that curing malaria would earn him brownie points in charge of finding a cure for malaria, or ~90% of the world's operating systems.
Me, I'm just happy that these things are getting done.
Maybe the ISPs will shut down business, sell their assets, and buy the spectrum for us, if we ask very nicely?
Yeah, but if we don't have the bandwidth excuse, how else are we going to justify AdBlock Plus?
May there be a niche market of stupid rich guys waiting for you up in heaven.
Three strikes is actually a good idea for stopping infringement. It's pretty fair. It allows for mistakes to be made without them being life-ruining, while still effectively enforcing the law. So long as the methods for determining copyright infringement are effective and empirical enough, this could be quite useful.
The point is that copyright helps us function. It encourages the production of culture, which we, the people, enjoy. It (hopefully) ensures the wealth gained from producing a work is proportional to its popularity (i.e. however many people appreciate it), which is consistent with the principles of the free market and capitalism. The act of denying compensation to someone who has worked to contribute something positive to society is considered amoral. That's sort of covered in the Eighth Commandment though.
... and when asked (repeatedly) to stop distributing those maps, he laughs, calls robbing banks "free expression" or some such crap, and declares himself a defender of "free expression", all the while making an assload of money off the whole sordid affair.
Yeah, I don't really like TPB. Sorry.
It's up to him. If he wants his album to be distributed that way, that's up to him, not to people who think "That's stupid; it's free!", and download it anyway. Besides, he may have some kind of deal with the Daily Mail whereby he gets a cut of the profits, or even just a favour for helping sell the newspaper. Either way, unless he specifically says that you may share it, you may not share it.
So you're saying there's little profit motive, right? So you're saying that he holds very little weight (at least with the younger generation)? It sounds to me like a relic like him wouldn't be worth the money to publicly shill for the RIAA. This is probably just his opinion.
... y'know, you could just stop.
Patent Troll medical school? That gives me an idea for a patent!
Have your bank details ready when I get back.
Or maybe they'll become less shrill when people start listening to them, rather than dismissing them just because they can't pay attention, or don't like being told what to do.
The economics haven't changed here, it's just that we're allowing the commercial value of the artwork itself drop to practically zero instead of propping it up with some scarcity. The artwork is distributable for free, and any company may publish it, tailor it, provide help for it. There's plenty of room for competition, so inflated prices (for example, to cover for and incentivise production costs) would not be tolerated. It's the same economics, it's just now that everything between the covers of your book is now commercial dirt. Suddenly artists/publishers are now no longer in the business of selling art to the public, but in making flashy versions of existing artworks (since that's where the money comes from), and artist question the necessity of actually bringing their own works to the table.
In addition, because there'd be no restriction on who can provide those services, the artist would be forced to compete with absolutely no advantages against other people providing the same service with his creation. The only difference between them is that the creator was burdened with cost of production.
Basically, we might as well tell artists to find a real job while in between their art creation.
If the demand and that profitability goes down significantly in any of those markets in the video game industry, you can expect with a fair degree of certainty that that market will suffer, possibly even die, no matter how fun the residual members of that market find the games.
I guess they also recognise the trade-off between annoying your customers and making money via advertising, and even though you personally happened to feel annoyed, perhaps they were making more money of the impressions they did get.
Yeah, but the question is does the price rise faster than inflation?
You do realise that out of the three sentence fragments of your comment, not one of them is at all accurate, right? I'm not trolling, /. is nothing more than a pass-time and decides nothing, and out of the multimillion dollar resources that /. possesses I'm using only a tiny portion of it, and there's plenty for everyone else. I do have to ask though, do you just think anyone who disagrees with you is a troll? Because, if that's the case, and if you want any respect from your /. peers, you may need to revise that policy.
Because they can't get paid upfront, unlike the work done by most people.