Jeez, I must love this thread I just read all those new pages
I'll try to generalize comments to certain things
and of course some/most of this is my opinion. I hope I found everything new and don't offend anyone
Can't we just ban him?
For questions like this, sure we could ban the username or the ip or the email. The technical problem is that anyone that's slightly more than just computer literate can get around everyone one of these methods and simply create a new account. The practical issue is that, beyond the aggressive tones which I believe will mostly be contained in this topic and I believe is being toned down some (Thank You people), this is an issue that
should be talked about and if you start banning people that state 'radical' opinions then you never have anything new added to the discussion.
malokin wrote:Now really, Do you really think that a person's personal photos are the same as a peice of music, a movie, or a video game??
I do, it took time to create, though less, and has some value that another person might conceivably want. The actual difference is that most people wouldn't care about any specific photos, even for nude photographs (oh sure they'd make a splash at first but once it became common you'd just say so what. This might even lead to human beings being less critical of others because they are 'ugly' or fat and would certainly reduce the outrage about pornography).
jokes that aren't funny
Actually a lot of them are if you can step back and look at it without the idea of it happening to real people (which cops can not do while on the job, it would risk lives to ignore the chance). That allah one was hilarious (woudn't want to risk doing it but funny as hell). Of course if it's an obscure or radically humorous joke then we can go back to the idea of nonverbal communication, most people won't understand that it's a joke. For those more obscure sayings that aren't jokes, perhaps link to something explaining it
TGS wrote:malokin wrote:The assumption that a creator owns his works outside of any physical copy he keeps for himself is a dogma i will truly never understand.
This pretty much sums up this entire thread. Thank you malokin for finally getting to the point. Something I tried to get out of you over and over and over that you finally got to.
Actually I think malokin has said this before (when you look at everything together) but it is absolutely the clearest statement made thus far
malokin wrote:i'm trying desperately NOT to be shocking until we all get a little mor comfortable with each other
Nice plan
alternative income with digital media
Yes, it is the creator's job to find ways to sell their product (or to at least hire people that know how). It always has been, though there is the chance of appreciative customers marketing for you it should NOT be relied upon. Digital media allows FAR more methods of income than most people think about.
difference in company size and morality
Morally there shouldn't be any difference, logically though a smaller company has less income/reserves to place towards development though you should see the above comment about alternative incomes...
ownership
I believe that if you have obtained possession of something legally (bought, given, etc.) you 'own' it and have the right to modify that product however you like (example if you bought the mona lisa you have the right to draw a mustache on it with a sharpie, would cause outrage from others but you have that right). The creators of that product have the right to sell it so as to make a profit over what they put into it, if people don't like or have no use for the product then it won't sell and the creators (assuming no other income) will 'starve', that's life. If you make a modification you are not allowed to sell that modification as something new unless it is sufficiently different because it would stall further progress (say you have a giant company that made a scalpel, a small company then takes that scalpel and improves it, the first company would likely not have enough money to continue development at their previous rate while the second company likely has less income than the first so it's not as if they can simply replace that company on a 1:1 scale). And this works quite well for physical products (at least until nanobots can duplicate anything you like for little to no cost but that's not here yet, though 3d printers might give some insights). For digital products however the problem is that when you 'give' something to someone else, unless you delete it from your drive afterwards, you are only giving them a copy, meaning you don't have to go and buy that product again after giving it away so only one person would ever have to buy that product which would not come anywhere close to the development costs. It's also relatively easy to modify and resell products and very difficult to prevent (or enforce). Which is where licensing really comes in, when you buy something you must first agree that you will only use it as the developers want you to (usually no reverse engineering to prevent you from taking developments and selling it as theirs), if you do not agree to that then you are legally bound NOT to buy the product. Now the problem is that people do not READ the agreement, they just say whatever and buy it, instead of saying NO I do not agree to these terms and FORCING the creator to revise the license to something people are willing to agree with. Which is where pirates come in, since people do not force the companies to use agreeable agreements the pirates give, those very few people that actually read and refuse the agreements, the ability to use the product without restriction.
All this would be avoided if all developments (games, techniques, etc.) were given to others, but use of them required a payment to the creators
until the costs of development had been recuperated with maybe a bit of profit to help fund future products (they've proven that they have to ability to create innovative and useful products after all). This would lead to everything initially having a price tag but then becoming freeware after x amount of time. It would also practically eliminate the need for anyone to be 'rich' and would thus lower any 'gap' between classes. This would lead to the Library of Humanity that malokin wishes without strangling creators with their own product (unless the products are useless), and I believe would be amazingly profitable to the knowledge and intelligence of humankind. Oh and for those that wonder about the physical improvements of this, in the example of scalpels the first company would receive the majority of the money because they invented it, but the second would get a bit because they improved what is currently being sold, obviously the physical items wouldn't drift to being FREE because there is a constant cost from manufacturing and shipping but it would drift down to a price based on the manufacture and shipping cost. For those items that are "1 of a kind" (art typically), that would require more discussion (do they get just cost of living or do they get an additional profit due to how popular their product is?)
also malokin is right that the cost of digital products is far less than that of other products, in fact the only real cost is what it costs the creators to live (food, shelter, etc.) while creating it and the cost of the hardware (which most people already have!). There are free OSs and free IDEs (even better than just notepad and a compiler) though they might not
always be as good as the commercial versions, most are however open source so you are capable of improving them yourself (if someone else doesn't do so before hand).