The first thing Dan Bull says is that he is not a full time musician. Another thing he says is that he does not play live.Is this really a good example of your new business models?
for real. the only way music ever gets made is by full time artists who tour and do nothing else.
it's physically impossible to make music when you have a day job and are not actively touring because the act of playing live and not having a job is what activates the midichlorians that make music possible.
clearly dan bull, mike masnick, and all of techdirt know nothing about how music gets made. thank god you stepped up and set things straight.
You would not believe the difficulty of getting the average end user to a webpage to download a driver for their printer/scanner/camera/whatever.
i have a similar problem getting corporate users to connect to our remote support website so i can take over their PC's.
about 20% of them can't tell the difference between outlook and internet explorer, and probably another 20% don't understand that you can type a URL into an address bar. they just search MSN or yahoo or whatever the start page is for their browser, and since our site isn't the first search result, it can take some time to walk them through finding the address bar and typing the URL in.
I'm pretty sure moral rights are supposed to develop from existing mores.
and existing mores come out of the existing environment. the social mores that surround ownership are primarily based on physical property. the mores that surround intellectual property are based on respect for authorship and helping the author to earn a living.
digital goods are a new institution that society hasn't clearly defined mores for just yet. a lot of the thinking that surrounds digital goods is a hold over from physical goods.
bits are not atoms. the physical laws that govern them are vastly different so the social and moral laws that govern them should be different as well.
So, while one might argue that space-shifting should be acceptable, it is still the case that very few people REALLY make "backup" copies, so that argument should probably not be trotted out first in just about every pro-copying piece.
that's great, but being able to space/time/format shift copies for personal use is important to consumers when they are buying media. people who buy your stuff will be more likely to keep buying when they can shift it to suit their needs.
this doesn't apply at all to piracy since space/time/format shifting a pirated copy is effortless.
this punishes paying customers and has zero effect on piracy.
And since when do people "lend" digital copies? First of all, how is it "lending" when you make a copy and then send that copy to someone else, while you retain the original? What have you "lent"? And how many people follow up on that a few days later to remind the friend that he/she should delete the copy if they do not intend to make good on it by purchasing it legitimately within a reasonable time?
the point in the article is that it's acceptable to lend physical copies but not digital ones. people who buy your stuff will be more likely to keep buying if they can lend copies. people who borrow copies are more likely to buy your stuff as well.
this too affects the consumer, but not the pirate. lending pirated copies is also effortless.
again, this hurts the paying customer but not the pirate.
One might argue whether a copyright holder should be able to withhold some of those rights in a transaction for the sale of a copy of the movie on a DVD or Blu-ray, but, for the time being, they do have that right, and, so, use of that content outside of the terms of that sale IS "stealing".
that's an oversimplification. IP either IS like physical property and can be stolen, or it isn't like physical property and therefore cannot be stolen. IP maxmalists want to have a bunch of rights and controls which are not possible with physical property, yet they want to be able to enforce those rights with penalties commensurate with the theft of physical property. that doesn't really work since you cannot have it both ways.
if IP is like physical property, then YES, unauthorized distribution is stealing, but then content creators have to extend physical property rights to the consumer, like the doctrine of first sale. consumers would then be afforded physical property rights for digital goods that they don't have now, like being able to sell, rent, or lease their copies.
if IP is not like physical property, then you can license it instead of selling it, and take action when that license is violated, but you can't call violating that license "stealing". it is a violation of an agreement and should be treated in a vastly different manner than the theft of physical property.
Granted, some examples of stealing are way worse than others, and it is also certainly possible that content owners are cutting their own throats by annoying their customers with such restrictive policies. However, thsoe content owners have the right to cut their own throats, and it is not up to us to save them from themselves.
that may be true, but the ways that content owners want to help themselves is by changing laws and law enforcement in ways that will erode consumer rights, fair use, the public domain, and possibly even civil liberties such as free speech. these changes will continue to be in place long after the businesses they were enacted to protect have ceased to exist, due largely to the self-inflicted throat cutting that you described.
that is the issue: the market changed and there was a sudden leveling of the playing field that shifted power to the consumer at the expense of the intellectual property rights holder. the response from the rights holder has been to lobby for changes to legislation that will control the market artificially, rather than adapting to the change by finding new ways to compete.
No Mike, in my opinion, that is not what you're doing here or if you are, your approach is weak. You generally use arguments of semantics to duck the real debate. That's what pisses me off so much.
yeah, you want to get into some emotional morality play when it just doesn't apply.
you want to make digital copies for free, sell them for the same price or more than the physical copy, and you are mad that consumers have found a way around. file sharing is easy, fun, and completely unstoppable. there is no moral or emotional argument that can change those facts.
you can whine and cry about artists and stealing but it doesn't change the fact that nothing can be done to stop unauthorized distribution. people that want to make money from content have to find another way to do it.
you are wasting your time and digital ink arguing against this absolute certainty.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Copying and lending are different.
Rock and roll! Doing illegal drugs and paying for prostitutes and trashing hotel rooms! Rock and roll! Stick it to the man! Rock on!
Copyright infringement is illegal and that's wrong.
cocaine be expensive, yo. so do rehab. and lawsuits from hotels for doing shit when i was high on cocaine. alimony is expensive too. and child support for paternity cases. and lawyers to protect you from lawsuits and alimony and child support.
so don't steal my shit yo, i need the money to support my lifestyle.
You really stretched this out in order to reach your political motive...
i don't think it's stretched out. i think that jobs are a political football and both sides have really rosy outlooks on how to create jobs: one side wants to pull the restraints off of capitalism so businesses can grow and create jobs. the side wants to restrict big businesses so new markets can be created and entered into. nether side will ever succeed so it's all going to stay the same: business will go unchecked until it causes huge problems, then it will be checked in misguided ways that cause other more severe problems.
I'm guessing you don't work for USPS or GM and I'm also guessing you haven't struggled to pay bills/find work...Good for you...
a lot of technology types, myself included, got wiped out in the last bubble-burst cycle and ended up looking for work and not finding it until the tech sector got back on its feet.
Second, and bear with me here, it's possible that there's a *very good reason* that they simply cannot tell us....They can't release those numbers because it would show just how many people don't like America (and because it wouldn't really stop anyone complaining)
then why do they trot out every little thing that *might* remotely resemble terrorism? why do they make a big deal out of things like shoe bombers in the media?
90% of Linux software is written using a set of unwritten rules;
writing them down sort of stops them from being unwritten.
also, your list of complaints must be at least 15 years old. if we are going to have a 15 year old argument you should explain to me why windows NT isn't plug and play.
1. Ready to run binaries should never be provided, always make the user compile their own.
BS. the apt and rpm systems install ready to run binaries, and apt will even down load it for you.
and 99% of the time compiling your own is just typing 3 commands:
./configure
./make
./make install
the process is positively onerous.
2. Every Linux program must require at least two other programs/packages to be installed first.
BS. on windows you almost always need a .NET runtime, some sort of VB, MFC, visual studio runtime, or a java VM to run a program.
3. No linux program should ever be written to do in one step, what the user can be made to do in two or more steps. Having 3-5 steps that must be performed manually is the preferred average. For example: No archive program should ever perform both the functions of joining files together and compressing them. Separate programs must always be used for both steps.
BS. windows still can't open tar or rar files to this day without additional software. the -z and -Z options for tar are at least 15 years old.
4. Whenever possible, programs should be command line and/or hotkey controlled only. If a GUI is required it should be written by a different author and installed separately, preferably following rules 1-3.
BS. firefox is the gui frontend to what program? open office is the gui front end to what program? gaim is the gui frontend to what program?
how do you graphically release and renew the IP in windows? oh that's right winipcfg disappeared after win95. what is netsh and why doesn't it have a gui?
5. Every program must have at least 3-4 different ways of enabling or disabling every option. For example: During compiling, via a command line option, via a config file, via an option inside the program, via a user's global config, or via a system's global config. Accordingly, there must be a confusing list of which options override which others.
BS. what is the windows registry for? what are all those folders in your windows user profile? local settings? application data? surely those don't affect things in strange and arbitrary ways, right? why are there all those .inf and .ini files there?
6. A list of command line options can be provided for small programs, but under no circumstances shall detailed help or instructions be included with the program. The only permissable form of more indepth help is either a web page on the net (must be at least 2 versions behind the current release) or a bare-bones "Wiki" written by advanced users of the software who will gloss over all the details that beginners are looking for.
BS. you want me to post a hijackthis log to the internet?
7. If a program is anything larger than a small command line program, the authors will under no circumstances, provide a direct method for getting in touch with them. All bugs reports will handled through trackers. The only help that should be provided to end users is a forum where other users can answer the easy questions and completely ignore any users who have a genuine problem that doesn't qualify as a bug.
BS. you know the guy who wrote active directory? yeah, me neither, and i damn sure don't know how to contact him. how about the guy that wrote internet explorer? i would *REALLY* like to talk to that guy.
You can spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on a license for a software program, which has zero marginal cost. Nobody bats an eyelash, including, I imagine, readers of techdirt.
ha ha she's right techdirt, you all whine about the price of music and then spend all your money on software. that's ironclad evidence that you're all anti-intellectual hypocrites who hate books.
open source? what's on earth is that?
Also, it's not "made up" pricing. Guys like Sargent have at their fingertips all kinds of marketing research, where they survey people and ask them (for example) how much are you willing to spend on an ebook?
I haven't seen the data myself, but it's clear that you don't have any data at all.
ooh, another zinger. the logic is bullet-proof: sargent is a CEO, so clearly he knows everything. none of you techdirties are CEOs, so clearly you know nothing.
that's it techdirt: you just lost the game. close your browsers and go buy some CD's.
Also, maybe you ought to take a basic economics class.
ZING! we all know economics is about making money, not aggregate outputs, or the efficient allocation of scarce resources. no one here wants anyone to make money so clearly you don't know anything about economics.
On the post: Indie Artists Discuss Dealing With File Sharing
Re: More nonsense from Masnick
for real. the only way music ever gets made is by full time artists who tour and do nothing else.
it's physically impossible to make music when you have a day job and are not actively touring because the act of playing live and not having a job is what activates the midichlorians that make music possible.
clearly dan bull, mike masnick, and all of techdirt know nothing about how music gets made. thank god you stepped up and set things straight.
On the post: Ad Age Explains How Copyright Is The Buggy Whip Of The Digital Age
Re: Tango Delta Company....Fall In!
On the post: Canon Becomes The Online Equivalent Of Madonna Or Prince, Becoming The First Single Word Domain Holder
Re: I wish...
i have a similar problem getting corporate users to connect to our remote support website so i can take over their PC's.
about 20% of them can't tell the difference between outlook and internet explorer, and probably another 20% don't understand that you can type a URL into an address bar. they just search MSN or yahoo or whatever the start page is for their browser, and since our site isn't the first search result, it can take some time to walk them through finding the address bar and typing the URL in.
On the post: Peeling The Layers Off 'Piracy'
Re: Re: Re: hmm...
and existing mores come out of the existing environment. the social mores that surround ownership are primarily based on physical property. the mores that surround intellectual property are based on respect for authorship and helping the author to earn a living.
digital goods are a new institution that society hasn't clearly defined mores for just yet. a lot of the thinking that surrounds digital goods is a hold over from physical goods.
bits are not atoms. the physical laws that govern them are vastly different so the social and moral laws that govern them should be different as well.
On the post: Peeling The Layers Off 'Piracy'
Re: Peel back some pro-copying arguments, too
that's great, but being able to space/time/format shift copies for personal use is important to consumers when they are buying media. people who buy your stuff will be more likely to keep buying when they can shift it to suit their needs.
this doesn't apply at all to piracy since space/time/format shifting a pirated copy is effortless.
this punishes paying customers and has zero effect on piracy.
And since when do people "lend" digital copies? First of all, how is it "lending" when you make a copy and then send that copy to someone else, while you retain the original? What have you "lent"? And how many people follow up on that a few days later to remind the friend that he/she should delete the copy if they do not intend to make good on it by purchasing it legitimately within a reasonable time?
the point in the article is that it's acceptable to lend physical copies but not digital ones. people who buy your stuff will be more likely to keep buying if they can lend copies. people who borrow copies are more likely to buy your stuff as well.
this too affects the consumer, but not the pirate. lending pirated copies is also effortless.
again, this hurts the paying customer but not the pirate.
One might argue whether a copyright holder should be able to withhold some of those rights in a transaction for the sale of a copy of the movie on a DVD or Blu-ray, but, for the time being, they do have that right, and, so, use of that content outside of the terms of that sale IS "stealing".
that's an oversimplification. IP either IS like physical property and can be stolen, or it isn't like physical property and therefore cannot be stolen. IP maxmalists want to have a bunch of rights and controls which are not possible with physical property, yet they want to be able to enforce those rights with penalties commensurate with the theft of physical property. that doesn't really work since you cannot have it both ways.
if IP is like physical property, then YES, unauthorized distribution is stealing, but then content creators have to extend physical property rights to the consumer, like the doctrine of first sale. consumers would then be afforded physical property rights for digital goods that they don't have now, like being able to sell, rent, or lease their copies.
if IP is not like physical property, then you can license it instead of selling it, and take action when that license is violated, but you can't call violating that license "stealing". it is a violation of an agreement and should be treated in a vastly different manner than the theft of physical property.
Granted, some examples of stealing are way worse than others, and it is also certainly possible that content owners are cutting their own throats by annoying their customers with such restrictive policies. However, thsoe content owners have the right to cut their own throats, and it is not up to us to save them from themselves.
that may be true, but the ways that content owners want to help themselves is by changing laws and law enforcement in ways that will erode consumer rights, fair use, the public domain, and possibly even civil liberties such as free speech. these changes will continue to be in place long after the businesses they were enacted to protect have ceased to exist, due largely to the self-inflicted throat cutting that you described.
that is the issue: the market changed and there was a sudden leveling of the playing field that shifted power to the consumer at the expense of the intellectual property rights holder. the response from the rights holder has been to lobby for changes to legislation that will control the market artificially, rather than adapting to the change by finding new ways to compete.
On the post: Peeling The Layers Off 'Piracy'
Re: Re: Re: Copying and lending are different.
yeah, you want to get into some emotional morality play when it just doesn't apply.
you want to make digital copies for free, sell them for the same price or more than the physical copy, and you are mad that consumers have found a way around. file sharing is easy, fun, and completely unstoppable. there is no moral or emotional argument that can change those facts.
you can whine and cry about artists and stealing but it doesn't change the fact that nothing can be done to stop unauthorized distribution. people that want to make money from content have to find another way to do it.
you are wasting your time and digital ink arguing against this absolute certainty.
On the post: Peeling The Layers Off 'Piracy'
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Copying and lending are different.
Copyright infringement is illegal and that's wrong.
cocaine be expensive, yo. so do rehab. and lawsuits from hotels for doing shit when i was high on cocaine. alimony is expensive too. and child support for paternity cases. and lawyers to protect you from lawsuits and alimony and child support.
so don't steal my shit yo, i need the money to support my lifestyle.
On the post: Jaron Lanier Says That Musicians Using Free To Succeed Are Lying
Re:
On the post: Brazil Moves Forward With Plan To Ignore US Patents And Copyrights After US Refuses To Abide By WTO Ruling
great, when do we invade?
the idea isn't quite as far-fetched as it may seem, after all, intellectual property is the oil of the 21st century.
On the post: Society Doesn't Know How To Deal With Abundance
Re: Re: Re: I agree to a point...
i don't think it's stretched out. i think that jobs are a political football and both sides have really rosy outlooks on how to create jobs: one side wants to pull the restraints off of capitalism so businesses can grow and create jobs. the side wants to restrict big businesses so new markets can be created and entered into. nether side will ever succeed so it's all going to stay the same: business will go unchecked until it causes huge problems, then it will be checked in misguided ways that cause other more severe problems.
I'm guessing you don't work for USPS or GM and I'm also guessing you haven't struggled to pay bills/find work...Good for you...
a lot of technology types, myself included, got wiped out in the last bubble-burst cycle and ended up looking for work and not finding it until the tech sector got back on its feet.
On the post: Where's The Outrage Over The Gov't Brushing Mass Privacy Violations Under The Rug?
Re: Warning: Large amounts of Idealism ahead
then why do they trot out every little thing that *might* remotely resemble terrorism? why do they make a big deal out of things like shoe bombers in the media?
On the post: RealNetworks Agrees To Pay $4.5 Million In Legal Fees To Hollywood Over RealDVD; Gives Up
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
check.
On the post: Can You Still Say DRM Is Effective When It Creates Security Vulnerabilities, Performance Degradation, Incompatibilities, System Instability And 'Other Issues'? [Update]
Re: Re: *snort*
wow, i hadn't thought of that. when you put it that way it seems so obvious:
if you make games that aren't worth stealing, then no one will steal them.
BRILLIANT!
On the post: RealNetworks Agrees To Pay $4.5 Million In Legal Fees To Hollywood Over RealDVD; Gives Up
Re: Re: Re: Re:
i like the assumption that a company trained it's users to begin with.
On the post: RealNetworks Agrees To Pay $4.5 Million In Legal Fees To Hollywood Over RealDVD; Gives Up
Re: Re: Re: Re:
microsoft file types would be standard if you hippies would quit using everything things other than windows and office.
On the post: RealNetworks Agrees To Pay $4.5 Million In Legal Fees To Hollywood Over RealDVD; Gives Up
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
writing them down sort of stops them from being unwritten.
also, your list of complaints must be at least 15 years old. if we are going to have a 15 year old argument you should explain to me why windows NT isn't plug and play.
1. Ready to run binaries should never be provided, always make the user compile their own.
BS. the apt and rpm systems install ready to run binaries, and apt will even down load it for you.
and 99% of the time compiling your own is just typing 3 commands:
./configure
./make
./make install
the process is positively onerous.
2. Every Linux program must require at least two other programs/packages to be installed first.
BS. on windows you almost always need a .NET runtime, some sort of VB, MFC, visual studio runtime, or a java VM to run a program.
3. No linux program should ever be written to do in one step, what the user can be made to do in two or more steps. Having 3-5 steps that must be performed manually is the preferred average. For example: No archive program should ever perform both the functions of joining files together and compressing them. Separate programs must always be used for both steps.
BS. windows still can't open tar or rar files to this day without additional software. the -z and -Z options for tar are at least 15 years old.
4. Whenever possible, programs should be command line and/or hotkey controlled only. If a GUI is required it should be written by a different author and installed separately, preferably following rules 1-3.
BS. firefox is the gui frontend to what program? open office is the gui front end to what program? gaim is the gui frontend to what program?
how do you graphically release and renew the IP in windows? oh that's right winipcfg disappeared after win95. what is netsh and why doesn't it have a gui?
5. Every program must have at least 3-4 different ways of enabling or disabling every option. For example: During compiling, via a command line option, via a config file, via an option inside the program, via a user's global config, or via a system's global config. Accordingly, there must be a confusing list of which options override which others.
BS. what is the windows registry for? what are all those folders in your windows user profile? local settings? application data? surely those don't affect things in strange and arbitrary ways, right? why are there all those .inf and .ini files there?
6. A list of command line options can be provided for small programs, but under no circumstances shall detailed help or instructions be included with the program. The only permissable form of more indepth help is either a web page on the net (must be at least 2 versions behind the current release) or a bare-bones "Wiki" written by advanced users of the software who will gloss over all the details that beginners are looking for.
BS. you want me to post a hijackthis log to the internet?
7. If a program is anything larger than a small command line program, the authors will under no circumstances, provide a direct method for getting in touch with them. All bugs reports will handled through trackers. The only help that should be provided to end users is a forum where other users can answer the easy questions and completely ignore any users who have a genuine problem that doesn't qualify as a bug.
BS. you know the guy who wrote active directory? yeah, me neither, and i damn sure don't know how to contact him. how about the guy that wrote internet explorer? i would *REALLY* like to talk to that guy.
On the post: RealNetworks Agrees To Pay $4.5 Million In Legal Fees To Hollywood Over RealDVD; Gives Up
Re: Re:
On the post: Apple May Anger The Antitrust Gods: Pressuring Labels To Stop Participating In Amazon Daily MP3 Deals
Re: Re:
your mom.
On the post: Dear Macmillan, You Don't Embrace The New By Trying To Protect The Old
Re: Re:
$30 + 12-18 months.
On the post: Dear Macmillan, You Don't Embrace The New By Trying To Protect The Old
Re: Oh come on now.
ha ha she's right techdirt, you all whine about the price of music and then spend all your money on software. that's ironclad evidence that you're all anti-intellectual hypocrites who hate books.
open source? what's on earth is that?
Also, it's not "made up" pricing. Guys like Sargent have at their fingertips all kinds of marketing research, where they survey people and ask them (for example) how much are you willing to spend on an ebook?
I haven't seen the data myself, but it's clear that you don't have any data at all.
ooh, another zinger. the logic is bullet-proof: sargent is a CEO, so clearly he knows everything. none of you techdirties are CEOs, so clearly you know nothing.
that's it techdirt: you just lost the game. close your browsers and go buy some CD's.
Also, maybe you ought to take a basic economics class.
ZING! we all know economics is about making money, not aggregate outputs, or the efficient allocation of scarce resources. no one here wants anyone to make money so clearly you don't know anything about economics.
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