You're getting it confused. It's doctors with the conflict of interest. Insurance providers want you to feel healthy, but always be afraid of becoming sick, so you pay for, but never actually use, their services.
These "articles" are nothing but baseless slander! These reporters can't even stand behind their lies enough to leave the question marks out of their titles!
The fat white guy in the suit that steals every penny that is supposed to go to that artist occasionally throwing them a bone so they don't die and dry the revenue stream. RIAA/MPAA mouthpieces claiming we are "hurting" the artists are hypocrites, they themselves have stolen more money from the artists than any loss of sales could ever have amounted to.
You know what? I've come across this viewpoint before, and it's always struck me as patronising, to the extent that it makes me feel sick. Why do so many pirates seem to know what's best for artists, businesses, and everyone else, considerably more than the people themselves?
Artists choose to sign with publishers. There's no duress involved. They have a choice between organising everything themselves, with great effort and expense, or signing with a label for a significant share of the profits. And yeah, sometimes artists make choices that you don't like, but it's none of your fucking business! If you don't like their choice, then don't buy from them. It's certainly not up to you to choose for them.
Some artists need to sign with a publisher. Many artists have no startup money, and so without publishers, they'd be forced to never distribute their works. What's your plan for liberating those works, huh?
And besides, labels are sometimes the smart choice financially, even if you have ample funds. You may only receive only a tiny fraction per sale of what you could have gotten independently, but the publishers know how to maximise sales. Artists often don't know the first thing about publishing themselves, and so they end up with something unpolished, unsuccessfully marketed to a comparatively tiny group of people. This means the artist ends up with less money, and most people never hear of their work. What's your plan for liberating works that neither you, nor anyone else you know, have ever heard of?
To judge the publisher arrangement only by per-sale profits is one-eyed and narrow-minded. To judge call it hurting or stealing is idiotic. To justify selfish and destructive behaviour like piracy with such a flimsy pretext, well, that's just greedy.
Sorry, but from now on, we're foes. I don't friend people who support nanny states, especially if its to arrogantly support their own selfish habits.
And liberating you are drawing attention to the cause. When you go to court you maximize the pomp and circumstance and be sure to provide all the people on the web who share an interest in this topic the blow-by-blow details.
Sure, it draws attention to your cause. It also draws attention to their cause, and also the fact that you are an idiot. The **AA will simply draw up a reasonable argument, possibly along the lines of the ones that I gave.
Didn't you read my previous post? Piracy damages your position. All the **AA would have to do is ask that one, simple, very reasonable question: "why didn't you just boycott?" You haven't managed to satisfactorally answer that. You could have easily gotten exactly what you wanted, without breaking the law, yet you chose, for some reason, to do it illegally for no additional benefits. What judge, jury, or even general public audience, would sympathise with that?
The fact that you can't answer that leaves one plausible conclusion in the minds of judge, jury, and me: that you chose to pirate simply because you enjoy it. It's not to say that your complaints are not genuine, just that you're such a sell-out that you can't even partially deprive yourself of entertainment. It shows that, despite your emotive language, you actually can't seem to live without these people that you're ripping off. This just contributes to the overall impression of the piracy movement; that they're a bunch of entitled whingers who loudly complain about the system while being totally dependent on it.
It also may be a comfort issue. Perhaps apple believes that it's unreasonable to expect non-smokers to work in a smoky environment for hours at a time, health hazards or not.
In fact, piracy does more or less exactly the damage of boycotting, as I said. Piracy hurts artists because it diminishes legitimate demand, but then again, boycotting does exactly the same thing! So, if boycotting is ineffective, then so is piracy.
Because as another stated the boycott is only legal because it is ineffective.
What? Boycott is legal because it's your right to choose what you spend your money on. It's ineffective because most people don't give a crap; they're happy to just buy, or at least pirate.
In fact, piracy does more or less exactly the damage of piracy, as I said. Piracy hurts artists because it diminishes legitimate demand, but then again, boycotting does exactly the same thing! So, if boycotting is ineffective, then so is piracy.
So, the question is, why not just boycott instead of pirate? Piracy just makes it look like you're more interested in the free entertainment than any morality issues, and it makes the copyright holders look like victims. After all, here they are risking their savings in creating entertainment, and the people in return are just taking it for free.
In fact, I would (and often do) go so far as to say that pirates are responsible, in part, for these copyright extensions and the political muscle that the entertainment industry has gathered over the years. They have knowingly and willingly flouted the law, damaging the industry's revenues (while still benefiting from their contributions), and in doing so, have provided a strong platform for pushing legislation like the DMCA and even copyright extensions. Not that the industry is by any means blameless, but the significant role of the pirates is so often ignored.
So, yeah, you may not care anymore, but just know that what you are doing is actually hurting your cause far more than it's helping it.
Pardon me, I mistook you for someone who can maintain an intelligent discussion. Apparently, if someone opposes your view, you resort to calling them names, so allow me engage you at your level:
Do you have any proof these constructs don't exist?
I have absolutely no idea. Evidence suggests no, but I have no proof of my ability one way or the other.
/being intentionally dense
Notice that I said "no immediate instances", that is, the mathematics was created before any instances were discovered, if they were discovered at all.
Honestly, what are the chances that someone from the electric company is going to monitor your house, waiting to rob it? OK, now how much greater are they with this smart meter? If I worked at the electric company, and I wanted to rob your house, all I'd need is your address, and I could physically monitor your house to see when you're on vacation.
In fact, this kind of reminds me of the xkcd comic:
Whatever the answer is, it's either simple and elegant or complex beyond imagination.
Actually, if you believe this guy, it's not only complex beyond imagination, it's complex beyond any possible finite representation, that is, it's unprovable.
Actually, mathematics is considerably more than a model for our universe. We can (and do) study mathematical objects which have no immediate instances in the universe.
Content implies the medium contains something, like information (eg, to examine the contents of a box, the box must contain something to be examined). The fucking garbage that spews out of these studios en masse can hardly be considered substantive.
There is still such a thing as art and entertainment. Yes, it's nice when people communicating with each other choose meaningful words. "Content providers" provide nothing but commercialization and indoctrination into the world of force fed capitalism, which IMHO lacks "substance."
That's quite a generalisation there. It's not even a generalisation based on truth. It's a generalisation based on advertising (i.e. lies;). Unfortunately, I can't really provide a specific example without knowing what you're tastes are, but what I do know is that there is a lot being produced, with a lot of variety, and the pop/blockbuster stuff that's advertised the most by no means makes up even a majority of what's produced.
And that's only the big content providers. They don't have to be signed, or even commercial (although, it's generally accepted that it refers to commercial artists, unless specified otherwise).
Oh, and there's no such thing as force-fed capitalism. If you don't like it, turn the TV or radio off. If you happen to be in one of those public places where it's blasted obnoxiously loudly, then find somewhere quieter.
Perhaps it's time to get back to the basics of running a business: when your model fails to meet public acceptance AND projected revenue, CHANGE YOUR BUSINESS MODEL!
I'm sure they'd love to. Nobody likes to use a business model with that amount of maintenance. The problem is, though, that nobody has actually thought of a business model that works better than the current one. There have been some short-lived proof-of-concept trials, but nothing that actually allows new artists to break into, and stay in, the field.
Perhaps it's time to get back to the basics of running a business: when your model fails to meet public acceptance AND projected revenue, CHANGE YOUR BUSINESS MODEL!
Well, if their "customers" were stealing from them, and there was a way to selectively spoil food, it would serve as a neat deterrent. Especially if traditional enforcement wasn't working so well.
Someone please explain to me why China is getting treated with kid gloves?
Without knowing the specifics, no. However, I can tell you that, in international relations, your goals are achieved, far more often than not, through not approaching the problem with all guns blazing.
It's not like society, where the enforcers and enforcees are clearly defined and the enforcers have considerably more immediate power.
Seems to me once social welfare becomes comfortable, it has gone too far. It needs to be UNcomfortable by design, so people do their damnedest to get up, out of, and beyond it, rather than slouching into it as a permanent way of life.
I agree that social welfare can't be made comfortable, but there's a limit as to how uncomfortable it should be that transcends economic concerns. We can set minimum conditions of living to be so cheap, yet so unbearable, that it becomes cruel to force people to live by them, even if they are only enduring a temporary setback. Social welfare is our lifestyle insurance. It makes sure that we don't have to suffer unbearably from a setback.
Besides, the same problems with no welfare scale to cruel welfare. If welfare becomes cruel, then charity will pick up the slack, and the economy will be drained all the same.
And, of course, as you say, we have invest enough to make it useful to those trying to get back on their feet.
Slackers get dumped, which is as it should be... We can't save everyone, it's just not practical; and not everyone is worth saving
We absolutely can't save everyone, but we can keep everyone living. I hope you realise that, even those who squander benefits, we can't allow to simply crawl into a gutter and die, right? Sure it costs us, but gives us a sense of security, and, by the same reasoning I've used over and over, letting them die won't actually positively impact on the economy. It certainly won't impact positively on our consciences.
Is that "content" enough for you? Would you prefer the term "entertainment", or "art"?
Please don't tell me that you're one of those people who insists that we can't "provide" or "produce" anything intangible, because the so-called distinction is so artificial and transient that "a line in the sand" barely suffices.
Actually, there's something very interesting to see here. This is may be the first time that early termination of copyrights has been viewed as a viable option for artists, and for consumers. If artists are prepared to agree to terminate their copyrights early, we can make our choices based on how long artists will hold their creations. We can choose how long we have to wait before redistributing. Before, it was an option between no time at all, or some undetermined amount of time, at least 75 years post creation.
If we buy only works with reasonable term lengths, then long copyright terms will die.
The person or group who works towards a goal in incremental steps (each of which has an excuse or plausible deniability) over longer periods of time is much more likely to get what they want than the person or group who goes for a short-term, win-or-lose, once-and-for-all type of showdown. That's particularly true when what they want to get is illegal, immoral, or goes against things like tradition, social convention, or public opinion. Recognizing this reality is the first step towards truly understanding business and politics.
The problem with long shot is that it requires patience, secrecy, and the perfect organisation of groups of individuals, if applicable. It also requires people to not work against you, or carry out their own conflicting secret plans. Typically, the larger the scale, the more people (and enemies) to organise. This is something that conspiracy nuts tend to miss.
That said, I think that a stunt like that is not implausible. It's legal and relatively easy to conceal, especially with some NDAs involved. The real question is, "is it worth it?"
I will then use multiple computers/servers spread around the globe to pirate every fucking thing I can get my grubby ex-consumer neo-pirate hands on, even if it means going to jail.
Doesn't work like that I'm afraid. Piracy damages your demand. If you have no demand, then you're doing no significant damage. Stick with the previous steps, and you'll do just as much hurt to those producers.
"content providers" (I really fucking hate political incorrectness...)
Out of curiosity, if "content providers" is politically correct, then what would you call them? I say "content providers" because saying "movie studios, movie makers, recording labels, recording artists, authors, book publishers, visual artists, etc" is far too long-winded, and leaves out so many categories.
Well, I brought it up in response to someone looking for a "fix" to piracy. This system eliminates piracy as well as the need to worry about piracy: you can't copy something that hasn't been written yet, and if you've already been paid for writing something, you don't need to care who copies it.
Fair enough, but what I'm saying is that there are some serious questions about its suitability as an alternative. I would suggest cold turkey, or exclusively using free (libre) content, before engaging in risky reform, especially if it's paired with discarding copyright.
The market can only work if demand exists, i.e. if people know they want something and are willing to spend money on it.
In your hypothetical scenario, demand temporarily vanished: people stopped being willing to pay for the creation of new content (presumably because their desire for entertainment was satisfied by existing content).
That assumes that demand can be satisfied a trivial amount of time after it arises. Your system forces the X + Y month pause in between demand and production, which could very plausibly form a boom-bust cycle.
As an analogy, imagine if you tied a ball to a short piece of elastic to your hand (say, 1 cm), and wave your hand about, the ball will pretty much follow your hand. If you tie a longer piece of elastic (say 10cm), then wave your hand about, the ball will follow a comparatively long way behind the hand, and the ball will fling to larger extremes. There's a significant response time between the ball and the hand, just like there's a significant response time between demand and supply.
On the contrary, I'd say they're more of a burden. Every copyrighted work that's released is a new restriction on speech, and every dollar of royalties that goes to a publisher is another dollar to be used lobbying for longer terms, harsher penalties, and more restrictions on technology.
No, I have to disagree with you there. What about the copyright on the Linux kernel? Is that a restriction on speech, another dollar of royalties to a publisher lobbying for longer terms, etc, etc? How about any copyright to an indie artist who can't afford to protect their copyrights? What about the copyrights that aren't bought by anyone? Do they contribute lobbying dollars?
My point is that it's not copyright, it's the people we choose to buy from. In fact, this is an invariant under any system; if you want moral behaviour out of your supplier, you have to be prepared not to buy from them.
If anyone can make a fair amount of money from your system, as you claim that they can, then it stands to reason that the people to blame for your current complaints could also profit from the system, and use the money for their nefarious purposes. Your system wouldn't really fix anything.
Sure, but that finite amount is still beyond the ability of most people to pay. I don't necessarily want to hear all 10 million songs that iTunes has to offer, but a quick glance at any P2P user's shared folder will reveal that people commonly consume more entertainment than they could afford.
Fair enough, but I still reckon that, for most people, there's a far cry between an "inability to enjoy", and "ability to enjoy only what you can afford". It just means you have to pick the top 100 or so titles, rather than the top 1000.
Sure, 90% seems like a huge cut down, but given that most people tend to spend 90+% of their free time in a core 5-10% of their general interests, it's not such a bad deal.
You can be sure he didn't, couldn't, and wouldn't spend that much on music. If he had no option to download those tracks for free, he'd end up listening to less music.
Well, it depends if everyone were playing on a level playing field. If everyone were able to do what he is doing, then there's absolutely no guarantee that those tracks w
Slashdot Mirror
You're getting it confused. It's doctors with the conflict of interest. Insurance providers want you to feel healthy, but always be afraid of becoming sick, so you pay for, but never actually use, their services.
*rolls eyes*
When you stop sympathising with stupidity, you start thinking as an idiot.
(My sympathies on the diagnosis, BTW)
These "articles" are nothing but baseless slander! These reporters can't even stand behind their lies enough to leave the question marks out of their titles!
*facepalm*
You know what? I've come across this viewpoint before, and it's always struck me as patronising, to the extent that it makes me feel sick. Why do so many pirates seem to know what's best for artists, businesses, and everyone else, considerably more than the people themselves?
Artists choose to sign with publishers. There's no duress involved. They have a choice between organising everything themselves, with great effort and expense, or signing with a label for a significant share of the profits. And yeah, sometimes artists make choices that you don't like, but it's none of your fucking business! If you don't like their choice, then don't buy from them. It's certainly not up to you to choose for them.
Some artists need to sign with a publisher. Many artists have no startup money, and so without publishers, they'd be forced to never distribute their works. What's your plan for liberating those works, huh?
And besides, labels are sometimes the smart choice financially, even if you have ample funds. You may only receive only a tiny fraction per sale of what you could have gotten independently, but the publishers know how to maximise sales. Artists often don't know the first thing about publishing themselves, and so they end up with something unpolished, unsuccessfully marketed to a comparatively tiny group of people. This means the artist ends up with less money, and most people never hear of their work. What's your plan for liberating works that neither you, nor anyone else you know, have ever heard of?
To judge the publisher arrangement only by per-sale profits is one-eyed and narrow-minded. To judge call it hurting or stealing is idiotic. To justify selfish and destructive behaviour like piracy with such a flimsy pretext, well, that's just greedy.
Sorry, but from now on, we're foes. I don't friend people who support nanny states, especially if its to arrogantly support their own selfish habits.
Sure, it draws attention to your cause. It also draws attention to their cause, and also the fact that you are an idiot. The **AA will simply draw up a reasonable argument, possibly along the lines of the ones that I gave.
Didn't you read my previous post? Piracy damages your position. All the **AA would have to do is ask that one, simple, very reasonable question: "why didn't you just boycott?" You haven't managed to satisfactorally answer that. You could have easily gotten exactly what you wanted, without breaking the law, yet you chose, for some reason, to do it illegally for no additional benefits. What judge, jury, or even general public audience, would sympathise with that?
The fact that you can't answer that leaves one plausible conclusion in the minds of judge, jury, and me: that you chose to pirate simply because you enjoy it. It's not to say that your complaints are not genuine, just that you're such a sell-out that you can't even partially deprive yourself of entertainment. It shows that, despite your emotive language, you actually can't seem to live without these people that you're ripping off. This just contributes to the overall impression of the piracy movement; that they're a bunch of entitled whingers who loudly complain about the system while being totally dependent on it.
It also may be a comfort issue. Perhaps apple believes that it's unreasonable to expect non-smokers to work in a smoky environment for hours at a time, health hazards or not.
Fixed that for me.
What? Boycott is legal because it's your right to choose what you spend your money on. It's ineffective because most people don't give a crap; they're happy to just buy, or at least pirate.
In fact, piracy does more or less exactly the damage of piracy, as I said. Piracy hurts artists because it diminishes legitimate demand, but then again, boycotting does exactly the same thing! So, if boycotting is ineffective, then so is piracy.
So, the question is, why not just boycott instead of pirate? Piracy just makes it look like you're more interested in the free entertainment than any morality issues, and it makes the copyright holders look like victims. After all, here they are risking their savings in creating entertainment, and the people in return are just taking it for free.
In fact, I would (and often do) go so far as to say that pirates are responsible, in part, for these copyright extensions and the political muscle that the entertainment industry has gathered over the years. They have knowingly and willingly flouted the law, damaging the industry's revenues (while still benefiting from their contributions), and in doing so, have provided a strong platform for pushing legislation like the DMCA and even copyright extensions. Not that the industry is by any means blameless, but the significant role of the pirates is so often ignored.
So, yeah, you may not care anymore, but just know that what you are doing is actually hurting your cause far more than it's helping it.
So why not just boycott them? It does all the damage of piracy without giving them any of the moral and legal high ground.
Perhaps you could start by letting me know what I'm telling people to do. Wars have been started over miscommunications by dumbfucks. Just sayin'.
Oh, and, "'No you are a child' times infinity billion plus one".
Pardon me, I mistook you for someone who can maintain an intelligent discussion. Apparently, if someone opposes your view, you resort to calling them names, so allow me engage you at your level:
"No, you are!"
and if you think of a snappy retort, try this:
"'No, you are!' times infinity!"
I have absolutely no idea. Evidence suggests no, but I have no proof of my ability one way or the other.
Notice that I said "no immediate instances", that is, the mathematics was created before any instances were discovered, if they were discovered at all.
Honestly, what are the chances that someone from the electric company is going to monitor your house, waiting to rob it? OK, now how much greater are they with this smart meter? If I worked at the electric company, and I wanted to rob your house, all I'd need is your address, and I could physically monitor your house to see when you're on vacation.
In fact, this kind of reminds me of the xkcd comic:
http://xkcd.com/538/
Actually, if you believe this guy, it's not only complex beyond imagination, it's complex beyond any possible finite representation, that is, it's unprovable.
Actually, mathematics is considerably more than a model for our universe. We can (and do) study mathematical objects which have no immediate instances in the universe.
Even here this tag is unwarranted. In fact, these events have the opposite effect to those described in idiocracy.
That's quite a generalisation there. It's not even a generalisation based on truth. It's a generalisation based on advertising (i.e. lies ;). Unfortunately, I can't really provide a specific example without knowing what you're tastes are, but what I do know is that there is a lot being produced, with a lot of variety, and the pop/blockbuster stuff that's advertised the most by no means makes up even a majority of what's produced.
And that's only the big content providers. They don't have to be signed, or even commercial (although, it's generally accepted that it refers to commercial artists, unless specified otherwise).
Oh, and there's no such thing as force-fed capitalism. If you don't like it, turn the TV or radio off. If you happen to be in one of those public places where it's blasted obnoxiously loudly, then find somewhere quieter.
I'm sure they'd love to. Nobody likes to use a business model with that amount of maintenance. The problem is, though, that nobody has actually thought of a business model that works better than the current one. There have been some short-lived proof-of-concept trials, but nothing that actually allows new artists to break into, and stay in, the field.
Well, if their "customers" were stealing from them, and there was a way to selectively spoil food, it would serve as a neat deterrent. Especially if traditional enforcement wasn't working so well.
Without knowing the specifics, no. However, I can tell you that, in international relations, your goals are achieved, far more often than not, through not approaching the problem with all guns blazing.
It's not like society, where the enforcers and enforcees are clearly defined and the enforcers have considerably more immediate power.
Naturally. There's no other possible explanation.
I agree that social welfare can't be made comfortable, but there's a limit as to how uncomfortable it should be that transcends economic concerns. We can set minimum conditions of living to be so cheap, yet so unbearable, that it becomes cruel to force people to live by them, even if they are only enduring a temporary setback. Social welfare is our lifestyle insurance. It makes sure that we don't have to suffer unbearably from a setback.
Besides, the same problems with no welfare scale to cruel welfare. If welfare becomes cruel, then charity will pick up the slack, and the economy will be drained all the same.
And, of course, as you say, we have invest enough to make it useful to those trying to get back on their feet.
We absolutely can't save everyone, but we can keep everyone living. I hope you realise that, even those who squander benefits, we can't allow to simply crawl into a gutter and die, right? Sure it costs us, but gives us a sense of security, and, by the same reasoning I've used over and over, letting them die won't actually positively impact on the economy. It certainly won't impact positively on our consciences.
Okaay. How about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U40xBSz6Dc
Is that "content" enough for you? Would you prefer the term "entertainment", or "art"?
Please don't tell me that you're one of those people who insists that we can't "provide" or "produce" anything intangible, because the so-called distinction is so artificial and transient that "a line in the sand" barely suffices.
Actually, there's something very interesting to see here. This is may be the first time that early termination of copyrights has been viewed as a viable option for artists, and for consumers. If artists are prepared to agree to terminate their copyrights early, we can make our choices based on how long artists will hold their creations. We can choose how long we have to wait before redistributing. Before, it was an option between no time at all, or some undetermined amount of time, at least 75 years post creation.
If we buy only works with reasonable term lengths, then long copyright terms will die.
Yeah. Nothing changed. :-(
The problem with long shot is that it requires patience, secrecy, and the perfect organisation of groups of individuals, if applicable. It also requires people to not work against you, or carry out their own conflicting secret plans. Typically, the larger the scale, the more people (and enemies) to organise. This is something that conspiracy nuts tend to miss.
That said, I think that a stunt like that is not implausible. It's legal and relatively easy to conceal, especially with some NDAs involved. The real question is, "is it worth it?"
Doesn't work like that I'm afraid. Piracy damages your demand. If you have no demand, then you're doing no significant damage. Stick with the previous steps, and you'll do just as much hurt to those producers.
Out of curiosity, if "content providers" is politically correct, then what would you call them? I say "content providers" because saying "movie studios, movie makers, recording labels, recording artists, authors, book publishers, visual artists, etc" is far too long-winded, and leaves out so many categories.
Fair enough, but what I'm saying is that there are some serious questions about its suitability as an alternative. I would suggest cold turkey, or exclusively using free (libre) content, before engaging in risky reform, especially if it's paired with discarding copyright.
That assumes that demand can be satisfied a trivial amount of time after it arises. Your system forces the X + Y month pause in between demand and production, which could very plausibly form a boom-bust cycle.
As an analogy, imagine if you tied a ball to a short piece of elastic to your hand (say, 1 cm), and wave your hand about, the ball will pretty much follow your hand. If you tie a longer piece of elastic (say 10cm), then wave your hand about, the ball will follow a comparatively long way behind the hand, and the ball will fling to larger extremes. There's a significant response time between the ball and the hand, just like there's a significant response time between demand and supply.
No, I have to disagree with you there. What about the copyright on the Linux kernel? Is that a restriction on speech, another dollar of royalties to a publisher lobbying for longer terms, etc, etc? How about any copyright to an indie artist who can't afford to protect their copyrights? What about the copyrights that aren't bought by anyone? Do they contribute lobbying dollars?
My point is that it's not copyright, it's the people we choose to buy from. In fact, this is an invariant under any system; if you want moral behaviour out of your supplier, you have to be prepared not to buy from them.
If anyone can make a fair amount of money from your system, as you claim that they can, then it stands to reason that the people to blame for your current complaints could also profit from the system, and use the money for their nefarious purposes. Your system wouldn't really fix anything.
Fair enough, but I still reckon that, for most people, there's a far cry between an "inability to enjoy", and "ability to enjoy only what you can afford". It just means you have to pick the top 100 or so titles, rather than the top 1000.
Sure, 90% seems like a huge cut down, but given that most people tend to spend 90+% of their free time in a core 5-10% of their general interests, it's not such a bad deal.
Well, it depends if everyone were playing on a level playing field. If everyone were able to do what he is doing, then there's absolutely no guarantee that those tracks w