Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 21 Apr 2012 @ 4:03am
Re: Crap Hole
spend the money on something else.
Didn't get given the choice and thank you so much for bringing up such a painful subject. While you're at it why don't you give me a nice paper cut and pour lemon juice on it? :-)
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 21 Apr 2012 @ 3:06am
Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on Apr 20th, 2012 @ 7:12pm
The other side of this debate is populated by people who have built billion-dollar industries, employee thiusands, and created much of the "culture" you enjoy. To many people, that's a pretty good indicator that they did something right.
Is is? By that rational the railroad barons of early America were also doing "something right" and so is the Chinese government.
Money is not the scorecard for "right" in the sense of "moral" or "good for society" that you seem to be trying to imply. Appallingly opressive behaviour can also promote progress, but that doesn't mean it's the best way to do it. Wars are well known for advancing technology, but I would hope it would not be the method of choice.
Me, I don't blame the corporations as much as I blame governments that are supposed to be democratic allowing the coprporations to set society's agenda.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 20 Apr 2012 @ 11:59am
Re:
They need not hold their breath, I won't be coming to this, nor the next as long as it is done that way.
Not that you really had a lot of option.... the whole ticketing system appeared to be a huge back-hander to Visa, combined with a huge stroke-job to the "important" people rather than, you know, letting the british public watch the games they paid for.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 19 Apr 2012 @ 8:56am
Re: Re: Re:
People would speed less if the fine for getting caught was $1,000,000.
And it's fairly easy to tell if you're speeding since the law mandates and accurate speedometer in a motor vehicle, whereas curiously there is often no clear way to tell if you are in fact infringing copyright.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 18 Apr 2012 @ 11:45am
Really? Let's hope
This means that they need a Plan C. And the only viable Plan C, for breaking Amazon's death-grip on the consumers, is to break DRM.
The cynic in me says there will be a plan D that goes the other way, but we can hope.... it'd certainly be better for them. I might be interested in buying books again if I can buy one that does what I want and I'm sure I'm not alone.
Well the bit I left out is that contention ratios these days are usually set throttles for QoS rather than absolute limitations of the infrastructure...
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 18 Apr 2012 @ 4:18am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Books don't cost all that much to print.
I have still never been shown how DRM harms the informed consumer. You wouldn't buy a phone that doesn't work in your country, and you shouldn't buy a product that doesn't do what you want it to do.
How are you defining "harm"? DRM makes products more expensive because the technology adds to the costs to produce the content and can increase device costs because it allows lock-in to specific devices for specific content. That "harms" the consumer.
We increasingly live in a "global village" so I can have friends in the US that I can see and talk to whenever I want essentially for free, but I can't read the book they are reading because it's "not available in my country"? That "harms" the consumer and more to the point it harms the publisher because they've lost a sale for no reason.
"Harm to the consumer" includes anything makes the product cost more, removes consumer choice or makes the product less valuable than it should be. Technology is supposed to improve not regress. When you move from an old technology to a new and make the new iteration less useful and functional than the original that very much "harms the consumer" informed or otherwise if for no other reason than it transforms the truly "informed" customer instantly into a criminal.
Oh, and country-locked phones? That's kind of the point. Technical progress - I expect to be sold a product that will operate to the limits of technical possibility. 10 years ago I'd buy a phone that operated in my country perhaps. Now if I buy a phone I expect it to work in almost every country or I'm not interested. More to the point these days I don't expect to pay more for one that can because in a global market it's actually cheaper for them to manufacture a single device that works everywhere than it is to create and support multiple versions.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 18 Apr 2012 @ 1:57am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Nobody Needs To Know
I'll say it again: if you are willing to consumer the same amount of data as you did in 2000, then your bits have near-zero marginal cost, and your argument is good.
Except that's not how it works. Even if the ISP got no more customers over that time and charged no more they would have to refresh their network to keep everything supportable if nothing else and that would have to be built into the operating costs otherwise they'd go out of business. A gigabit switch now costs in real terms less than a similar 100 meg switch would in 2000. There's a 10x speedup right there and 10Gb is getting way down in cost too. Costs for the curently accepted technology tend to remain roughly the same over time.
In terms of, say, a dedicated leased line from an ISP, I can get a 1Gb link for about what I paid for 10Mb in 2000 (in the UK at least - might be different in the US where you seem to have less competition) and leased lines have no data caps. Do you think the ISP's could or would do that if increased capacity really cost so very much to provide?
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 17 Apr 2012 @ 12:25pm
Re: Re: Re: Data caps harm economies & education
Then explain to me why your speed drops when everyone in your "neighborhood" is downloading stuff? Cable internet is a "shared" resource among "nodes" You share your connection with 8-15 other people. DSL is unicast, which is why thier speeds are more constant (although slower)
Wrong use of terminology. broadcast and unicast are to do with the addressing of recipients of a packet. What you're talking about is contention ratio, which is the number of users that share bandwidth on a single uplink from the local exchange. It's the same as if you have 20Mbps multiple computers in your house. They are all sharing the same 20Mbps line even though they are all looking at seperate things, they don't get 20 each. Trunk links in the providor network do the same thing - the one that affects you most is the aggregation at the local POP (where all the local connections for that providor enter their main network.) DSL is usually a small ratio or 1-to-1 at that level, which is part of the reason it's usually more expensive.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 17 Apr 2012 @ 12:09pm
Not really
Jack Valenti, President of the Motion Picture Association of America once said: “A public domain work is an orphan. No one is responsible for its life…it becomes soiled and haggard…” Jessica Litman, Digital Copyright 77 (2001). Before digital technology, Valenti may have had an argument – one could argue that it was so expensive to store, reproduce, and distribute physical works that keeping them out of the public domain may have resulted in more availability than letting them in.
Even before the "digital age" there were plenty of examples of fans caring more for older works than the copyright holder. Take the BBC Doctor Who archives for example.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 17 Apr 2012 @ 12:03pm
Re: War on Piracy
Every single time I hear a pol say "War on..." I cringe because every single time it's a largely artificially created, unwinnable "war" the chief effects of which are to remove civil liberties and cost the public coffers hideous amounts of money that could be used for somethign better than giving politicians something to rant about.
On the post: London 2012 Olympics Win Gold Medal For Cluelessness By Banning Video And Photo Uploads To Social Media During Games
Re: Curse them
On the post: London 2012 Olympics Win Gold Medal For Cluelessness By Banning Video And Photo Uploads To Social Media During Games
Re: Crap Hole
On the post: The Difference Between Nuanced Discussion And The Evil Underbelly Of The Internet Is Apparently A Fine Line Indeed
Re: Re:
On the post: The Difference Between Nuanced Discussion And The Evil Underbelly Of The Internet Is Apparently A Fine Line Indeed
Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on Apr 20th, 2012 @ 7:12pm
Money is not the scorecard for "right" in the sense of "moral" or "good for society" that you seem to be trying to imply. Appallingly opressive behaviour can also promote progress, but that doesn't mean it's the best way to do it. Wars are well known for advancing technology, but I would hope it would not be the method of choice.
Me, I don't blame the corporations as much as I blame governments that are supposed to be democratic allowing the coprporations to set society's agenda.
On the post: Too Much Copyright: This Generation's Prohibition
Re:
On the post: London 2012 Olympics Win Gold Medal For Cluelessness By Banning Video And Photo Uploads To Social Media During Games
Re: Re: Re: So why bother watching then?
On the post: London 2012 Olympics Win Gold Medal For Cluelessness By Banning Video And Photo Uploads To Social Media During Games
Re:
On the post: London 2012 Olympics Win Gold Medal For Cluelessness By Banning Video And Photo Uploads To Social Media During Games
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: EU Commissioner Kroes Speaks Out On Internet Openness; Says We Cannot Allow ISP Disconnects
On the post: Ridiculous Statutory Damages Rules Mean Judge Regretfully Awards $3.6 Million For Circumvention Of DRM
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Ridiculous Statutory Damages Rules Mean Judge Regretfully Awards $3.6 Million For Circumvention Of DRM
Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: If Publishers Can't Cover Their Costs With $10 Ebooks, Then They Deserve To Go Out Of Business
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: If Publishers Can't Cover Their Costs With $10 Ebooks, Then They Deserve To Go Out Of Business
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Clearly you haven't looked too hard.
On the post: Did The Publisher's Own Insistence On DRM Inevitably Lead To The Antitrust Lawsuit Against Them?
Really? Let's hope
On the post: The Stupidity Of Data Caps: No One Knows What A Megabyte Is
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Data caps harm economies & education
On the post: If Publishers Can't Cover Their Costs With $10 Ebooks, Then They Deserve To Go Out Of Business
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Books don't cost all that much to print.
We increasingly live in a "global village" so I can have friends in the US that I can see and talk to whenever I want essentially for free, but I can't read the book they are reading because it's "not available in my country"? That "harms" the consumer and more to the point it harms the publisher because they've lost a sale for no reason.
"Harm to the consumer" includes anything makes the product cost more, removes consumer choice or makes the product less valuable than it should be. Technology is supposed to improve not regress. When you move from an old technology to a new and make the new iteration less useful and functional than the original that very much "harms the consumer" informed or otherwise if for no other reason than it transforms the truly "informed" customer instantly into a criminal.
Oh, and country-locked phones? That's kind of the point. Technical progress - I expect to be sold a product that will operate to the limits of technical possibility. 10 years ago I'd buy a phone that operated in my country perhaps. Now if I buy a phone I expect it to work in almost every country or I'm not interested. More to the point these days I don't expect to pay more for one that can because in a global market it's actually cheaper for them to manufacture a single device that works everywhere than it is to create and support multiple versions.
On the post: The Stupidity Of Data Caps: No One Knows What A Megabyte Is
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Nobody Needs To Know
Except that's not how it works. Even if the ISP got no more customers over that time and charged no more they would have to refresh their network to keep everything supportable if nothing else and that would have to be built into the operating costs otherwise they'd go out of business. A gigabit switch now costs in real terms less than a similar 100 meg switch would in 2000. There's a 10x speedup right there and 10Gb is getting way down in cost too. Costs for the curently accepted technology tend to remain roughly the same over time.
In terms of, say, a dedicated leased line from an ISP, I can get a 1Gb link for about what I paid for 10Mb in 2000 (in the UK at least - might be different in the US where you seem to have less competition) and leased lines have no data caps. Do you think the ISP's could or would do that if increased capacity really cost so very much to provide?
On the post: The Stupidity Of Data Caps: No One Knows What A Megabyte Is
Re: Re: Re: Data caps harm economies & education
On the post: Is The Supreme Court Just Completely Out Of Touch On Digital Copyright Issues?
Not really
On the post: Copyright Maximalists Try To Regroup And Figure Out How To 'Fight Back' Against The Public
Re: War on Piracy
Next >>