BlueTear

If people were actually silly enough to eat 10 hamburgers, and then call the emergency services because their tummy hurts, the law would be motivated. I don't really mind having people who choose not to wear their seatbelt die or get hurt - call it modern darwinism - my problem is that the severity of the injuries or deaths are, one way or the other, costing other people money. Whether it's a state run healthcare system, or insurance premiums for health insurance, the fact is that the guy wearing the seat belt is unlikely to bear the full cost of his own idiocy. It's really a societal paradox; Ultimate individualistic liberty will not function in a collective society based on compassion. If you, by law, can't turn people down in the emergency room at a hospital, there's a bunch of stupid [cabbage] there's just no way you can allow. (And having said that, even if you somehow manage to crash in water more often than crash at ejection speed - which I sincerely doubt, considering the high % of roads nowhere near water - as someone pointed out earlier, wearing a seatbelt increases the chance of entering the water conscious and alert rather than having banged your head into the exploding airbag. Similarly, if your crash is violent enough to set the car on fire, or flip, or whatever, the seatbelt helps ensure that you're in a state where you can move in the first place.)

An auto-immune disease is when the immune system of an organism goes berzerk and attacks the organism's own tissue. Being infected with a virus that kills of your immune system so a common cold kills you ain't quite the same thing. The fact that viral infections are by and large untreatable via chemicals - anti-virals are nowhere near as awesome in their killing power as penicillin on bacterial infections - still makes viral infections very dangerous, but uncureable is a bit of a stretch.

And yet, you sit here today, surronded by technology created by a collective. Almost everything you own, everything you use, evertything you eat, can be traced to the organization of the collective and the knowledge aquired by said collective. You're at the pinnacle of an evolution of a collective society - several collective societies really - and you criticize the collective that got us here. Or to be blunt; You're perfectly free to praise the power of the lone individual, but if you think we'd have gotten where we are today without the organizing into religious, national, cultural or even hunter-gatherer collectives you're sort of missing something vital along the way. Having said that, I think Bari provided an excellent technical reason for progressive taxes, and 1_man provided an excellent philosophical dito.

So you're basically arguing that the people who do get the money to spend on stuff, should spend it on digital entertainment, causing production of digital entertainment, which can then be freely distributed based on need to the people who can't pay. Because if no one paid, there'd be no production, so there wouldn't be anything to download in the first place. So someone has to pay. But not the people without money. Other people pay their entertainment for them. Is that about the gist of it?

I'm with Lateralus on this one, it's ultimately our responsibility. If it didn't work, companies wouldn't do it. It's stupid as hell, but it's a bit silly to blame the advertisers putting out what works. The sad part is, as a collective, humans are genetically hardcoded to shoot for "average" because "average" means "less genetically deviant from the succesful formula". Darwin's cousin (no joke) figured that out in, like, 1890s by accident; Averaging facial features will appear more attractive than the individual faces used to compose it. Secondly, I think it's pretty funny that they've taken things so far that when they start photoshopping someone who's face you recognize from a movie (where they're in makeup), the photshopped result comes out looking like someone else. Maybe I'm just paying an unnatural amount of attention to people's faces *cough* but I've seen several pictures that are so obviously photoshopped it doesn't look like the "original person" at all. I remember this exceptionally scary example of Oprah where they'd adjusted (among other things, no doubt) the distance between her eyes. Not only did it not look like her, it looked vaguely non-human.

While the study was certainly a good read, let's not overreach. In referencing several other studies, it brings up many good points, but it also points out that it's result differ from previous studies. Calling it undisputable when the thing itself says "this is different from this or that previous study" is, well, selective? It is also - when compared to, Idon'tknow, the internet - limited in scope in only examining Canada, with a distinct set of laws and as well as a culture. And calling it free, effective advertising also appears somewhat overstated. "no direct evidence to suggest that the net effect of P2P file-sharing on CD purchasing is either positive or negative." Maybe I'm being old fashioned here, but how is it effective if there's no result in sales? "Oh, but they get more exposure!" Yeah, and what do they do with the exposure? "Sell stuff! Make money! I'M REALLY DOING THEM A FAVOUR HERE". Hrm. Yes. Wait, what? Didn't they conclude, just now, that the aggregate effect was neither positive nor negative? "But the more downloaders download, the more they buy! It says so right there!". But the net effect is still neither positive nor negative? That only works out to sense if you start taking population segments into account (which, unless I'm misreading, is what the study has done - the downloads-increase-sale effect does not actually reach out of the population segment that downloads frequently) and if you do that... The problem with file sharing and piracy is quite neatly demonstrated in the study. They talk of substitution - that's downloading instead of buying - and sampling - that's downloading and then buying. They note that, according to their study, taken togheter, the two appears to arrive at the [wagon]-covering statement "neither positive nor negative". Right. So what stops it from going negative? What happends when the digital divide - also mentioned at several points in the study - shifts? When the people who frequently download things off the internet grow up, become the majority of the population? The internet continues to spread and expand? It's not a sustainable system for ensuring production*. Screw "it's free advertising!"; You will not finance any form of digitial entertainment with your entire consumer base advertising it to eachother. Someone still has to pay, and as is that someone is selected not by ability to pay, absolutely not by consumtion of product but by, dare I say it, honesty. A willingness to do right**. I'm tempted to call it a digital-consumerized-communism; Instead of need and ability, it's desire and, well, choice, but the fact is that it's so unsolidary it'd be misleading. *Yes, I realize and aknowledge the theoretical argument that live performances would still ensure some form of production. That, however, does not apply to every form of digitial entertainment subject to filesharing. **'Fear of the law' doesn't have same ring to it, but nevertheless, it's there.

The most important thing in my opinion is based on the followign: No true democracy can exist without providing free education in a way that ensures that everyone, regardless of medical or financial background of their parents, can attain the educational degree they want. This is the basic minimum and it covers everything from making sure your parents can feed you while you go to school - regardless of your parents current employment status - to paying healthcare for you and your parents. Once that's covered, it's really up to what works with the people you apply it to. If they're willing to pay more to get more, sure thing, if they're not willing to pay more then that's fine to. But equal opportunities needs to be covered.

As I said, the current model is broken, outdated and dying. Record companies, if we focus on music, are basically making money acting as a middle man that is, more or less, no longer neccesary thanks to advances of technology. Whether it's distribution or advertising, the internet offers to tools for a lot cheaper than most record companies come near. They're like the producers of typewriters when computers game around; Their original product is not needed, and if they do not adapt they will die. Legislating to maintain their corporate integrity is ridicolous, doing so by setting aside civil liberties is worse. Having said that though, I think people are grossly underestimating how much work a record company puts into "grooming" artists. I think people are grossly underestimating the number of artists who didn't sell a considerably portion of their future income to a record company because they could, but because without an initial investment, they didn't really have a choice. Yeah, sure, the internet offers excellent advertising and even better means of distribution compared to record companies (though freakishly enough, real advertising agencies working the internet still do a better job that most laymen today). But NIN can do it in no small part because they've already broken the initial barrier where you can quit your day job and live of your music. Without the record companies, that barrier is going to get higher. I'm perfectly fine with the resulting decrease in musical production, as I suspect most people are. Not because of some fantasy about "commercialized production being less pure" - give me a break, everyone needs to eat - but mostly because I don't really think I'd notice it. And because I don't care for the alternatives. My problem, which is more or less related to the "side" I'm on, is the fact that neither the record companies nor the file-sharers represents sustainable systems with workable solutions that ensures "reasonable compensation"and maintains a steady production. Setting the music aside and moving back to games; I'm assuming that if no one pays for the game, the game won't be produced. "But I don't think it's worth paying for, so I wouldn't pay for it anyway." We're all very impressed by the moral courage to never download a game you think is worth paying, but we're also assuming A) That a significant portion of any file-sharing is done by people with a similar morality B) That you're able to properly identify a games "worth". The first, and this goes directly to what I said about sustainable system, is like leaving your front door open and unlocked because "you wouldn't break into anyone else's home". It's naive. You will not build a sustainable platform of digital entertainment on an un-enforceable "gentlemans agreement". To be completely honest, and no I'm not doing a Goodwin here, it's like communism. It would work just fine if we could rely on people do their bit for the collective - in this instance, paying for a sufficiently large portion of their "cultural consumption" to keep the production going - but there's a pretty extensive track record for how that goes. Not well for production. And secondly, is the idea - and this traces right back to music - that you as a consumer gets to decide to what the product is worth in the first place. Zierro said that artists deserves "reasonable compensation". I think everyone wants that. But who ensures it? Who pays? Who makes sure the money ends up in the right place? Steam, regardless of how nice it is, sure as hell takes a cut. Is that cut reasonable? Who says it's reasonable? Why do they say it? You can build a charity around that, sure, but not a financial system working at peak effeciency. And that's completely ignoring the whole argument around whether the makers of a intellectual entertainment product has a right do that product or not (which, in turn, is separate from the makers of medical intellectual products). Don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying I don't believe you. I'm not saying that, assuming I do believe you, I consider the way you file share amoral. I'm saying that it's not a sustainable way to organize intellectual property within a society. There's no checks, there's no balances to keep the entire thing from falling the [bleep] over and production of digital entertainment to just, dwindle due to a lack of funding. I'm fine with that, the only form of digital entertainment I'd miss is subscription based since well over a decade anyway. Their bases are covered. The question that the digital entertainment heroinist tends to forget about is whether they're fine with it. If I get to choose between civil liberty in the form of a non-infrastructural internet, one of the proposed ways to deal with file sharing, and the formation of a new Beatles, I'll keep my civil liberties, thanks. So, to sum it up and reconnect with the thread at hand; The record companies are idiots trying to defend a business model that's dying, but the woman who lost in court got what she deserved. If you think it's too expensive, don't use it. It's a luxury product. You will not "suffer" in any significant way for not using it. At least the and record companies, outdated as they may be, are fighting for their livelyhood. (There's also an amusing thing to consider with the whole "reasonable compensation" argument, mainly that it is not beyond you to go out of your way to do your bit for it. Take a bill. Put it in an envelope. Send to artist, or creator, or producer. Just skip the distributor. "That's a sustainable way of doing things!". Nope. But then again, I'm not the one trying to hide behind "I'd pay, just not this much". Say you spend 5 hours a game on games you wouldn't have bought at their asking price. Where's the renting treshold? A fifth of what the game costs currently? So buy every fifth game then. Or tenth. Or twentieth - though I think that's probably pushing it considerably due to money-per-hour-of-entertainment. For a rental service - or a streaming service - to function financially over file-sharing there needs to come a point where you'd pay. If you wanted to, you could pay up to that point today. It'd be a bit of a blunt instrument, but you can easily match your expenditures on your consumption to "reasonable compensation". I've got no stakes in this discussion, I'll never know whether anyone lies or tells the truth about what they'll do, this is just a nice way for me to force myself into formulating what I think into coherent arguments. But to yourself, no need to talk about it here, would you do it?)

Yes, living off of wellfare while producing digitial entertainment from the goodness of their hearts. Come. On. The vast majority of the digital entertainment consumed by what we'll sloppily refer to as "the masses" is produced with a clear commercial purpose, funded by commercial interests. That means that that song you downloaded, or the game, or the movie, the soundtech ensuring a proper digital copy, had a salary. He was paid. Or the actor. Or the quest designer. Or the graphical artist. It's their respective livelyhoods (notice again how we're neatly ignoring the whole "musicicians can perform for their money!" argument by focusing on other forms of digital entertainment). Gina the Graphical Artist might be able to survive without the money her studious latest game would have brought in, but she sure as hell won't be making money as a graphical artist. And while you might get by just fine without her game, she probably needed that salary to buy lunch. Someone still has to pay. There's plenty of ways to organize that payment - the current mostly used system being old, outdated and dying - but you'll never get around it. Games do not spring into being because a richass board of directors chanted satanic verses for 21 days, they're produced by people with salaries. Salaries someone has to pay. And realistically speaking, how many songs worth of sales via, say, iTunes were the record companies awarded in fines in this lawsuit? How much money are they making from essentially legalized extortion from people who'd they'd get squat from if they didn't act like they heroinists who NEEDS THEIR FIX PLZ? Fueling their fires.

A) "theoretical infinite supply" is [cabbage], more or less. The creation of an additional copy is practically free, sure, but that first item that is being copied still has a production cost. A game - which is considerably easier to use as an example because we don't have to deal with the whole "but artists can make money from performing" - still has a development cost assosciated with it. Someone has to pay that cost, and the idea that file-sharing is fine is either incredibly naive (you don't really see that someone needs to be paid) or incredibly arrogant (you see that someone has to pay, but it sure as hell ain't going to be you). You can argue that the current costs are not reasonable, and I'll agree, you can argue that the current business model most commonly employed will never be able to charge reasonable prices, and I'll agree again. But someone, somewhere, still has to pay for this "theoretically infinite" supply. B) It's still a luxury product. Even if there was only one company in the entire world that produced music (or movies, or games) and sold it for five billion dollars a piece, you'd still survive without it. They're not selling air. They're not selling water. They're not selling food. Raving about how expensive it is is pointless; If it's too expensive, don't use it til they get the hint. The fact that you complain that it's too expensive and then consume it anyway just fuels their fires through lawsuits like this. Imagine how quickly they'd founder if all the people going "it's too expensive" would just stop using their products.

The record companies ("the selfish nazi's") want more money than they can get. You want more digital entertainment than you can pay for ("fourteen year old without money"). Greed's greed. Since survival without more digitial entertainment than you can pay for is still perfectly possible, I fail to see any argument in regards to the record companies greed that couldn't be turned against you. I mean, [cabbage], if you break copyright on a textbook or two to further your own education, that's one thing. But music? Video games? Movies? They're luxury products. Not a neccesity, and certainly not a right.

To make a long story about my confusion short, I'm looking for a remix of the song Cities of the Future by Infected Mushroom. The problem is I can't figure out what it's called, because I can't find it except in semi-dodgy youtube links (including an AMV of Advent Children of all things) or being streamed from some random online streaming side I stumbled on. But they're all trying to pass it off as "just" Cities of the Future, but it doesn't match the Cities of the Future version that appear on Infected Mushroom's own homepage. Confuses the hell out of me, and in all honesty I've now spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to find it named _anywhere_ so I know where to get it. The remix is 8.12 long (+- 2 seconds) unlike any of the named remixes I've found or the original, according to their own homepage. It can be found, among other youtube links, here. Does anyone recognize this and can put a name on it? And since the music might be a bit to narrow for people to recognize even in a community of this size, does anyone have any general tips on how to what I could do to track it down?

Unlike a foetus, who'll when left alone develop into a human being completely unaided. Might want to think that one through a few times.

Let's say you take a drug that impairs your judgement - we could really just use alcohol for this example. Let's say you overdose, or wander into traffic, or does something exceptionally stupid hurting yourself or others, or destroy something that shouldn't have been destroyed. No matter how you slice it, this is likely to cost someone money, or possibly hurt, or if you were really, really stupid, their life. I don't think anyone really gives a [cabbage] about what you do with your own life or money, the problem lies in the various drugs that'll cost other people money. "Take what you want, and pay for it". Find a way to guarantee you're the one paying for it, and knock yourself out.

In the unless-the-head-is-separated-from-the-body-only-a-properly-trained-professional-may-call-time-of-death sense of the phrase. Or possibly we-need-a-court-order-to-shut-of-the-respirator-and-probe-feeding-to-end-the-vegative-state. I don't know though... I'm still boycotting SOE over SWG, and LucasArts ain't that far behind on my personal [cabbage]list due to a strong suspicion that they meddled too much in the development. In favour is the fact that an Old Republic setting means they've got more a creative license to adapt to playability, always a plus. The focus on "story" sounds a bit funky, AFAIK SWG did contain an ongoing plotline with new quests and whatnot at regular intervalls, I know Asheron's Call certainly did. WoW is still playing around with advancing the Warcraft lore - they're know making their own money by publishing some of it in comics and books. I don't really see how you could possibly focus more on "story" than previous games without [bleep]ing the MMO qualities of the gameplay; WoW is pretty much treading the line already.