That sounds fun. I think you should be able to set all sorts of different noises. I want my car to sound like an X-wing or possibly a lightsaber... I'm sure you can tell what Sci-Fi universe I'm fond of...
Please explain what kind of court case is based on the concept that 1+6=6.
Everyone knows that 1+6 = 6+1 = successor(6) = {6} = 7. But perhaps we should stick to a simpler form of mathematics for your sake.
Now, reading your comment, I have developed a few theories:
1) Since you can obviously read, you are either not an American or have not graduated from High School. Given your gross oversimplification of a variety of issues, it appears that you are American and have graduated from college. (I'm just using the axioms you gave me)
2) Given that law school requires you to go to college and that becoming a judge requires you to go to law school, it is obvious that the judge who dismissed the case you mentioned went to college. Therefore, by your logic, he cannot think. Which leads me to an important question: Why do you appear so triumphant to have someone unable to think agree with you?
"He goes on to explore how this applies to music, movies, books, newspapers and software."
Actually Mike, he does not. Not for software that is:
"Is software a counterexample? People pay a lot for desktop software, and that's just information. True, but I don't think publishers can learn much from software. Software companies can charge a lot because (a) many of the customers are businesses, who get in trouble if they use pirated versions, and (b) though in form merely information, software is treated by both maker and purchaser as a different type of thing from a song or an article. A Photoshop user needs Photoshop in a way that no one needs a particular song or article."
Furthermore, software is one of those areas where I think the model you propose has issues. When it comes to entertainment-type content, you can connect with your fans and make money off of that. Nobody but the artist can connect with the artist's fans. At least, there are some specific things that only the artist can do such as give a live concert or sign a CD. With patents, different thing, but it still works. You have an expertise, and it's going to take a while before somebody can take over and produce the same drug/car engine etc even if they have all the specs... During that time, you have a monopoly and you can hopefully stay ahead of the curve with more research. Now, with software you have a problem. Sure, there might be some scarcities (build the hardware and throw in the software as a bonus, sell tech support, etc...) but they require companies to venture pretty far from their core competence of making software. Furthermore, if you want to keep on making more money off software, you are kept in kind of a bind. You can choose the approach which is to make high value software where you keep things similar so users don't have to constantly relearn to use the latest version and then you get users, or you can make software that is built to require your services (only works on your hardware, or new versions require new training) then you get your money. But it seems like you can't do both. I know you have faith in there always being scarcities, but this is an issue where I for one would really like to see examples of working non-entertainment mass market software development business models that are not based on copyright. (Or just scaring your consumer into believing that copies may have viruses or who knows what) And please nobody toss free open-source as an answer. As much as I love the open-source community and enjoy participating in it, I don't think we can depend on people being nice enough to work for free.
Now, it reminds me of the first Sesscio where the Roman plebians basically went on strike. (or in this case just left the City all together and went to make their own city) They were upset that they kept on being executed or punished for laws which they were actually forbidden to know. So in order to make them come back, the patricians offered to make a new set of laws for the plebians that they would be allowed to know. In fact, the laws were written in a sing-song poetic manner to allow illiterate plebians to memorize them. And ever since then, it has been a general rule that people have a right to know the laws which are applicable to them (Which is why you get Mirandized when you get arrested) until now in Oregon.
I think a big problem is the misconception that people have of value. We see it time and time again when someone claims that because their intellectual monopoly is being violated, value is being destroyed. That is wholly inaccurate. Value is not how much money is made off your product. Value is the total benefit that people are getting off your product. And for most people, that is much higher than the price of your product. For those of you who don't believe me, draw a supply and demand curve. The rectangle formed by the origin and the intersection of supply and demand is the value you capture. But, the triangle above that is the value you do not capture. Intellectual monopolies are about redistributing some of that value that normally goes to the consumers and giving it to the producer. Now, what Mike is talking about complicates things a whole lot as you create more value out of your products but, the more people use your product, the more value is created whether you capture some of it or not. Let me say this again: value does not go away simply because you are not making money...
I looked around at e-book readers... I have a ton of PDFs I own (lots of good free stuff out there) which I would want to be able to bring along and read easily. But no ebook-reader I could find would let me just load up PDFs or just simple text files. This is very annoying. If I download a paper from the web, why can't I put it on my kindle or whatever and bring it on the plane to read? That is just plain stupid...
ebooks do not replace hard cover books. This is not opinion, it's a fact. Very few people are willing to give up buying real books which they can touch. If anything, think of presents... Who the hell wants a stream of ones and zeros on the Internet for their birthday?
Also, the quote about having bestsellers that sell for $10 and freebooks meaning that all books have to be sold between $0 and $10 just shows this man does not understand his industry. You can sell a hardcover for multiples of the price of a soft cover. You can sell non-bestsellers for 20, 30, 50 and people will still buy. His statement is factually wrong.
And you don't have to track circulation for ad payments... You can just do flat rates for ads in specific books.
an injunction against the former employee to stop her from "publishing any more confidential, proprietary information, and any defamatory information on the internet."
Does this even have any effect? I mean, publishing defamatory, proprietary and confidential information is already illegal I believe. So the former employee is simply being told to not do something which he is already required not to do. Unless the injunction mentions a specific information, the former employee could just ignore the injunction and keep publishing the information as long as it is not confidential, propriety or defamatory... Then, if a court asks him, he'll just have to say that the information he is publishing is none of these things...
Well, another option, is to dramatically raise reserve requirements for large banks and drop them for smaller banks... Basically, if you are too big to fail, you are not allowed to risk failing... If you are small enough to fail, go nuts!
And people are not rational. If you study economics beyond econ 101, you will realize that. Behavioral econ has shown it time and time again...
I agree. I think people often forget that competition does not mean meeting some absolute standard for "better." It means meeting your consumer's needs and wants. Before you add a new feature, ask yourself: "Do my consumers want that new feature?" I don't want MP3s because they are "good enough." I want MP3s because I want my music library on my hard drive to not take up the whole hard drive more than I want "CD-quality." They meet my needs even though they do not meet some sort of abstract measure of what is "best."
Actually, lots of things are illegal. Therefore, your equivalence does not hold. Let us apply your logic:
Terrorism is illegal therefore, 'That's terrorism' is the same as 'That's illegal.' And since 'That's stealing' is the same as 'That's illegal', 'That's stealing' is that same as 'That's terrorism.' Now that we have established that theft is terrorism, I suppose kids that steal candies at the supermarket should be sent to Gitmo for sleep deprivation interrogations...
Furthermore, copyright infringement is not theft. That's from the Supreme Court.
I think you have it wrong here Mike. The benefit of surveillance cameras is not that they help solve crimes. It's that they deter crime. Now, they will not deter a bank robbery, or a premeditated murder. If you have the time to plan things out, the camera is just a challenge to overcome like bank vaults and security personnel. But, for things like petty theft or "minor" violence, having the camera there saying: "We're watching" could be a powerful deterrent.
They might not have a monopoly on sports reporting, but they do have a tradition of providing sports reporting which draws a lot of readers to the sports section.
That's why they would have a good shot at sports betting in my opinion.
I think the main problem is that it may be very difficult to develop a policy that will correctly assess what apps should be allowed and what apps shouldn't. I think it's better to just ban it in the policy and then let people get away with it as long as they arn't doing anything harmful/bad. That way, if someone decides that downloading gigs of porn on their harddrive is appropriate use of company bandwidth, you have a policy to act on.
I like the list:
Movie, Music, Pornography and others... Apparently, Pornography is a new form of media, and not a content. Though to be fair, given the bandwidth that P2P apps can take, it might make sense the DoD does not want it taking up the network bandwidth.
Except for the fact that there used to be a lot more of that free service provided.
This story is sickening. Most protectionism we hear about here is about inventors, creators and innovators trying to prevent others from using their ideas. Now, I'm opposed to IP, but at least I can understand the human desire to benefit from what you worked at. It can be tough to invent something and not make anything off it because you didn't have a good business model to go along. But here, this is just plain theft. What's the difference between theft and IP infringement? When someone infringes your IP, you still get to keep the ideas and use them. Here, someone invented something good and useful, and someone else, came along, and took it away from them. This is a morality tale. The asshole always wins.
Apparently, that is what business is these days: Don't try to compete, just use the government to ban your competitors. People who do that should be sued for the harm they do to the economy.
On the post: Nissan To Add Futuristic Sound Effects To Its Electric Car To Keep It From Hitting Unaware Pedestrians
On the post: Paul Graham: Content Really Was Just A Way To Mark Up Paper
Re: Computer user thinking!
Everyone knows that 1+6 = 6+1 = successor(6) = {6} = 7. But perhaps we should stick to a simpler form of mathematics for your sake.
Now, reading your comment, I have developed a few theories:
1) Since you can obviously read, you are either not an American or have not graduated from High School. Given your gross oversimplification of a variety of issues, it appears that you are American and have graduated from college. (I'm just using the axioms you gave me)
2) Given that law school requires you to go to college and that becoming a judge requires you to go to law school, it is obvious that the judge who dismissed the case you mentioned went to college. Therefore, by your logic, he cannot think. Which leads me to an important question: Why do you appear so triumphant to have someone unable to think agree with you?
On the post: Paul Graham: Content Really Was Just A Way To Mark Up Paper
Actually Mike, he does not. Not for software that is:
"Is software a counterexample? People pay a lot for desktop software, and that's just information. True, but I don't think publishers can learn much from software. Software companies can charge a lot because (a) many of the customers are businesses, who get in trouble if they use pirated versions, and (b) though in form merely information, software is treated by both maker and purchaser as a different type of thing from a song or an article. A Photoshop user needs Photoshop in a way that no one needs a particular song or article."
Furthermore, software is one of those areas where I think the model you propose has issues. When it comes to entertainment-type content, you can connect with your fans and make money off of that. Nobody but the artist can connect with the artist's fans. At least, there are some specific things that only the artist can do such as give a live concert or sign a CD. With patents, different thing, but it still works. You have an expertise, and it's going to take a while before somebody can take over and produce the same drug/car engine etc even if they have all the specs... During that time, you have a monopoly and you can hopefully stay ahead of the curve with more research. Now, with software you have a problem. Sure, there might be some scarcities (build the hardware and throw in the software as a bonus, sell tech support, etc...) but they require companies to venture pretty far from their core competence of making software. Furthermore, if you want to keep on making more money off software, you are kept in kind of a bind. You can choose the approach which is to make high value software where you keep things similar so users don't have to constantly relearn to use the latest version and then you get users, or you can make software that is built to require your services (only works on your hardware, or new versions require new training) then you get your money. But it seems like you can't do both. I know you have faith in there always being scarcities, but this is an issue where I for one would really like to see examples of working non-entertainment mass market software development business models that are not based on copyright. (Or just scaring your consumer into believing that copies may have viruses or who knows what) And please nobody toss free open-source as an answer. As much as I love the open-source community and enjoy participating in it, I don't think we can depend on people being nice enough to work for free.
On the post: Oregon: You Have To Pay Us To Explain The Laws To You
On the post: Dear Newspapers: Time To Focus On Enabling The Community; Not Limiting It
What is value
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On the post: Publishers Lashing Out At eBooks
Also, the quote about having bestsellers that sell for $10 and freebooks meaning that all books have to be sold between $0 and $10 just shows this man does not understand his industry. You can sell a hardcover for multiples of the price of a soft cover. You can sell non-bestsellers for 20, 30, 50 and people will still buy. His statement is factually wrong.
And you don't have to track circulation for ad payments... You can just do flat rates for ads in specific books.
On the post: Cash4Gold Sues Consumerist, Complaints Board Over Reports On Cash4Gold Practices
Does this even have any effect? I mean, publishing defamatory, proprietary and confidential information is already illegal I believe. So the former employee is simply being told to not do something which he is already required not to do. Unless the injunction mentions a specific information, the former employee could just ignore the injunction and keep publishing the information as long as it is not confidential, propriety or defamatory... Then, if a court asks him, he'll just have to say that the information he is publishing is none of these things...
On the post: The Good And Bad Of Banks Too Big To Fail Getting Bigger...
And people are not rational. If you study economics beyond econ 101, you will realize that. Behavioral econ has shown it time and time again...
On the post: It's Not The 'Good Enough' Revolution; It's Recognizing What The Consumer Really Wants
On the post: Time For IT Guys To Unshackle Corporate Computers
On the post: US Gov't Briefing For All Employees: All Music Downloads Are Stolen, Risky
Re: Re: Re: Legal
Terrorism is illegal therefore, 'That's terrorism' is the same as 'That's illegal.' And since 'That's stealing' is the same as 'That's illegal', 'That's stealing' is that same as 'That's terrorism.' Now that we have established that theft is terrorism, I suppose kids that steal candies at the supermarket should be sent to Gitmo for sleep deprivation interrogations...
Furthermore, copyright infringement is not theft. That's from the Supreme Court.
On the post: Surveillance Cameras In London Not Very Effective At Solving Crime
On the post: Would Sports Betting Save US Newspapers?
That's why they would have a good shot at sports betting in my opinion.
On the post: Time For IT Guys To Unshackle Corporate Computers
On the post: US Gov't Briefing For All Employees: All Music Downloads Are Stolen, Risky
Movie, Music, Pornography and others... Apparently, Pornography is a new form of media, and not a content. Though to be fair, given the bandwidth that P2P apps can take, it might make sense the DoD does not want it taking up the network bandwidth.
On the post: Taxi Owner Copies Innovative Business Model Of Free Shuttles He Just Forced To Shut Down
Re: you know...
This story is sickening. Most protectionism we hear about here is about inventors, creators and innovators trying to prevent others from using their ideas. Now, I'm opposed to IP, but at least I can understand the human desire to benefit from what you worked at. It can be tough to invent something and not make anything off it because you didn't have a good business model to go along. But here, this is just plain theft. What's the difference between theft and IP infringement? When someone infringes your IP, you still get to keep the ideas and use them. Here, someone invented something good and useful, and someone else, came along, and took it away from them. This is a morality tale. The asshole always wins.
On the post: Taxi Owner Copies Innovative Business Model Of Free Shuttles He Just Forced To Shut Down
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