Knowing this has been discussed a bunch lately in various outlets, and after reading:
http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2009/07/european-publishers-want-news-access-controls-legislated.ars
Got me wondering.

First point, is real printed news dead? I believe so. Solution, go online which most are.
Which brings up, ok how is this done. Most news outlets that are doing well are TV (local or CNN). Which brings up newspapers and the AP. AP is bitching(not in this article) but they are getting paid for all the news, unless its like CNN covering it. Newspapers are trying to go online, but only have local coverage, which they arnt getting paid for (bought for reprint elsewhere). Plus they are beat by big time conglomerate news sites like CNN and search engines like google and yahoo (I personally love yahoo's news section).

So, who needs to pay for the news is what it comes down to? Readers dont, but they still want their fill of it. Govt dont care, unless it goes away and then they will, as either they then dont have access other than intel sources for stuff, or the people bitch to them.

7/12/2009 1:21:59 AM

i just want to say that i read the printed medias websites and if they go to a pay thing i would literally pay to read them. i don't watch tv. i'm not big on tv news stations websites. i'll go to cnn sometimes but not for in depth topics. i'll read anything that catches my eye on yahoo which is mostly ap, reuters, and politico. sometimes mcclatchy. and rarely like CSM.

[Edited on July 12, 2009 at 2:01 AM. Reason : lots of realclearpolitics stuff]

7/12/2009 1:50:51 AM

Personally I wouldn't mind paying for news websites as long as the cost was similar to their print media. If the N&O tried to charge more for online material than the newspaper forget it.

7/12/2009 2:23:23 AM

I'd like it if they came up with package deals. Pay a certain amount a month/yr and get the print edition of the newspaper delivered to your door, plus exclusive access to certain premium news articles on the website (probably only possible with larger newspapers with certain well-known columnists/editors), plus customizable news updates sent via email or text, plus receive access to a digital newspaper archive where you can download any past printing of a newspaper in PDF format.

This would effectively allow them to embrace modern technology while still encouraging people to read the old print media. They will also likely need to scale down future paper copies of newspapers to reflect the fact that people really don't have any time or any goddamn attention span these days. Some major news stories, classifieds postings, comics, opinion sections, and a page each dedicated to different specialized areas (i.e. movies, daily life, markets, etc) would go a long way towards this. It'd also cut back on how much paper we use and have to recycle (i.e. reduced energy expenditure).

[Edited on July 12, 2009 at 8:51 AM. Reason : 13331, w00t]

7/12/2009 8:41:57 AM

Information wants to be free.

7/12/2009 9:10:56 AM

Collecting and compiling information is not free.

7/12/2009 9:26:26 AM

Both of those posts make a good point.


If the print media, or any media, consistently gave me something other than regurgitated lines from political press offices I'll pay for it. The problem is, nothing defines most press outlets other than geographical orientation. I pay, and pay well, for the Economist every year because it is the tits. I don't pay for local news because they rarely go beyond the what into the why.

A good muckraking investigative journalist could still make money.

7/12/2009 10:50:22 AM

the only times i've read a print newspaper in the past few years is either when i'm at my parents' house and it's on the table during breakfast or while riding the subway in the morning when i was in nyc

7/12/2009 11:24:00 AM

^^^
So? Information still wants to be free.
If someone observes something, records it somehow, then "re-plays" it for others (a journalist,) -- then yes, that is a service that they can choose to charge for. But the information itself is separate, and "wants" to be free.... particularly because it's news, and not intellectual effort/creativity. Certainly the author should have an attribution license to get "credit" for being the original author of any editorial content that accompanies the news... but they shouldn't "own" it. Just because someone reports news, doesn't mean they should have exclusive rights to the publishing of that news. Anyone should be able to re-report the same news to others freely without permission from the original reporter.

7/12/2009 11:29:40 AM

^so what the hell are you arguing? There shouldn't be subscription websites or pay news services?

7/12/2009 12:00:17 PM

^^ Yeah, I don't know what you're getting spun up about. I wasn't disagreeing with you. I was just saying that if an organization can provide me with accurate and timely information, I will pay for that service.

Besides, information neither wants to be free nor wants to be sold. It is an inanimate, intangible, object. It is only what the sender and the receiver want it to be.

7/12/2009 12:32:48 PM

what you're not mentioning here is that newspapers aren't failing for a lack of subscribers (subscriptions rarely covered much more than the costs of printing). they're failing because advertising models have changed and they can't charge as much for ads. that on top of craigslist basically killing the classifieds section.

7/12/2009 1:00:08 PM

Quote :

"so what the hell are you arguing? There shouldn't be subscription websites or pay news services?"

No, those are fine. A service can be a pay service -- that fine. The information is, however, separate from the service. The information should be free. In other words, anyone should be able to re-report the same news to others freely without having to pay or get permission from the original reporter.

Quote :

"Yeah, I don't know what you're getting spun up about. I wasn't disagreeing with you. I was just saying that if an organization can provide me with accurate and timely information, I will pay for that service."

I never disagreed. (There are three carets -- I was addressing A Tanzarian's post... not yours.)

Quote :

"Besides, information neither wants to be free nor wants to be sold. It is an inanimate, intangible, object. It is only what the sender and the receiver want it to be."

It's a saying. Here... let me fix it for you: Information "wants" to be free.

Quote :

"that on top of craigslist basically killing the classifieds section"

There is nothing wrong with providing a service for free -- even if those that were selling the same service can't compete and therefore go under. Know of any good book rental places? Oh wait -- they hardly exist because you borrow books for free from libraries. How dare libraries prevent others from being able to charge for book rental...

[Edited on July 12, 2009 at 1:53 PM. Reason : ]

7/12/2009 1:49:46 PM

Quote :

"The information should be free. In other words, anyone should be able to re-report the same news to others freely without having to pay or get permission from the original reporter."

So are you saying this is the case now or what? or are you arguing against a strawman?

7/12/2009 2:04:36 PM

i think the point you're missing Willy Nilly is that information gathering and aggregation IS DEFINITELY NOT FREE.

to use your Library example further. Sure PUBLIC libraries are free to use, however they aren't free to operate. While there are some volunteers used who work for free, the administration and book purchases are publicly funded. This is because we as a society feel that libraries are a public good and should be accesible to all. There are of course Private libraries which charge a membership fee to use and can't be used by the general public.

Now lets relate back to the news... as a thought experiment, lets think through what happens if the AP, CNN, BBC, and others completely stop covering the news. You will say nothing will happen because twitter and blogs will still continue to cover events. While the "huge" events in which thousands of people are direct witnesses to it will still get coverage from twitter and blogs, the smaller events will get very little coverage because simply few people will twitter or blog about them.

7/12/2009 2:18:55 PM

Quote :

"If someone observes something, records it somehow, then "re-plays" it for others (a journalist,) -- then yes, that is a service that they can choose to charge for. But the information itself is separate, and "wants" to be free.... particularly because it's news, and not intellectual effort/creativity. Certainly the author should have an attribution license to get "credit" for being the original author of any editorial content that accompanies the news... but they shouldn't "own" it. Just because someone reports news, doesn't mean they should have exclusive rights to the publishing of that news. Anyone should be able to re-report the same news to others freely without permission from the original reporter."

Suppose AP sends a reporter somewhere to cover an event. Would it be OK for NBC to read the article on Google News and make a report on the nightly news--with no attribution or compensation to the AP?

7/12/2009 2:27:45 PM

Quote :

"So are you saying this is the case now or what? or are you arguing against a strawman?"

No. The law doesn't allow that. That is not currently the case. (Straw-man? where?)

Quote :

"i think the point you're missing Willy Nilly is that information gathering and aggregation IS DEFINITELY NOT FREE."

Please to read. I clearly fucking said: "If someone observes something, records it somehow, then "re-plays" it for others (a journalist,) -- then yes, that is a service that they can choose to charge for. But the information itself is separate, and "wants" to be free.... particularly because it's news, and not intellectual effort/creativity"

i am not fucking saying that "information gathering and aggregation" is or should be free. I am fucking talking about the information itself. They are mother-fucking separate.

Quote :

"to use your Library example further. Sure PUBLIC libraries are free to use, however they aren't free to operate. While there are some volunteers used who work for free, the administration and book purchases are publicly funded. This is because we as a society feel that libraries are a public good and should be accesible to all. There are of course Private libraries which charge a membership fee to use and can't be used by the general public."

I wasn't only talking about public or private, but all of them. And I never claimed they were free to operate. There are free private libraries, you know... It's called charity. If you want to give a service away for free (free to the patrons -- no shit that it has to be paid for by someone,) that's just fine.

Quote :

" lets think through what happens if the AP, CNN, BBC, and others completely stop covering the news."

I never suggested that. Straw-man much?

Quote :

"You will say nothing will happen because twitter and blogs will still continue to cover events."

Really? I will say that? (put away your fucking crystal ball.)

Quote :

"Suppose AP sends a reporter somewhere to cover an event. Would it be OK for NBC to read the article on Google News and make a report on the nightly news--with no attribution or compensation to the AP?"

Would it be "OK"????
Depends on the license. I mentioned that they could release the report under an attribution license should they want credit for being the author... so if they had that then no -- it wouldn't be okay to re-report the news with no attribution. As for compensation, that is flat-out wrong. Copyright is wrong. You shouldn't be able to force others to have to pay for content. For access? maybe.. For the collecting of the content... sure... But not for the content (or the right to express it,) itself.

[Edited on July 12, 2009 at 3:06 PM. Reason : ]

7/12/2009 3:04:55 PM

"OK" = acceptable for NBC to re-write the AP article and present it as their own.

It seems as if your answer would be yes (provided they didn't lift any editorial content?).

Do you believe patents to be wrong also?

[Edited on July 12, 2009 at 3:18 PM. Reason : ]

7/12/2009 3:16:55 PM

After some further investigation, I've figured out the "argument" in this thread:

Willy Nilly just makes a bunch of airy statements that don't say shit and he hopes that someone latches on to it. It's like a troll except I think he genuinely believes what he is writing is meaningful.

7/12/2009 3:22:27 PM

I think the Triangle Business Journal has a "decent" revenue model. You have the option of paying for it and get a paper copy delivered. Some of their online content is premium content that you can see immediately if you're a subscriber. After about 4-5 days the premium content becomes visible to everyone.

7/12/2009 3:46:52 PM

^^
Dude, what is your fucking problem? Stop fucking trolling me. If I said something you don't understand, specifically ask about it. Being dismissive makes you appear to be the dumb one.

^^^
If they re-wrote it, only using the facts, that's fine. AP doesn't (shouldn't,) own the facts.
If there is editorial content, like I said, it would depend on the license. If AP has an attribution license on the story, then NBC couldn't use it without giving credit -- but they could still use it. If AP doesn't have an attribution license on the story, then yes, NBC could reprint it verbatim as their own. I'd expect that AP and others would choose to release the reports with an attribution license....

Quote :

"Do you believe patents to be wrong also?"

Yes. They are the worst form of "intellectual property". No one, not for one minute, should have a monopoly on a particular invention. If they have a problem with spending 30 years and 30 million dollars coming up with it, only to have others use it freely, then they shouldn't fucking try -- the greedy bastards. You can claim this would stifle creativity, but you would be 100% wrong. It would stifle creativity among greedy bastards that don't give a fuck about making society better unless they get rich off it, but others that care about making society better would gladly volunteer 30 years and 30 million dollars to give the world an invention with no strings attached. The motivation should be benevolence and enjoyment of the process, not money and control. Furthermore, patents are misused. Companies sit on patents that compete with their way of doing things, so rather than society getting the newest and best way, we're often stuck doing things the old way, simply because it's more profitable to the patent holder. Also, perfectly good technologies that aren't patentable or are otherwise in the public domain, often get passed up in favor of new patented technologies that are less effective. Also, life itself is being granted patents. Living things are being invented and "owned". I'm sorry, but if you can't see the clear folly in allowing living things, genes, etc. to be "owned" and controlled solely by a single private entity, then you are hopeless.

Quote :

"After about 4-5 days the premium content becomes visible to everyone."

That's MUCH better than the life of the author plus 70 years....

[Edited on July 12, 2009 at 3:51 PM. Reason : ]

7/12/2009 3:51:12 PM

Quote :

"Yes. They are the worst form of "intellectual property". No one, not for one minute, should have a monopoly on a particular invention. If they have a problem with spending 30 years and 30 million dollars coming up with it, only to have others use it freely, then they shouldn't fucking try -- the greedy bastards. You can claim this would stifle creativity, but you would be 100% wrong."

You are a fucking idiot.

There's a reason that every industrialized country in the world has a patent office, and it has nothing to do with "being greedy". If you take away patents, innovation grinds to a halt. Patents serve two main purposes. 1) As a mitigation of risk of investment versus return. 2) As a common, regulated, open source for sharing innovation.

Without the patent office, and the patents they issue and regulate, there would be no common repository for learning from, improving upon or knowing about innovations.

Without a financial incentive to publish innovation, we would be back to the "trade secret" system. The reality is, if there are no patents, people will hide everything to prevent others from stealing and appropriating their ideas. You think copy protection and DRM is bad today? Remove IP law from invention in general, it will be 100 times worse.

I always find that the people who scream "ALL INFORMATION SHOULD BE FREE", are the ones who make their living through a service. A-la "web designers", engineers, and other white-collar grunts. Without IP protection, the current world would grind to a halt (innovation wise). Every major innovation based company in the world relies on that protection to be profitable.

The abuse of patents (as you claim) is a result of our retarded civil legal system, not because of any flaw in the idea of IP protection. Patents aren't cheap and they aren't bulletproof, and they have a very short lifespan. Unlike copyrights, patents effectively only last a generation.

Now if you want to argue COPYRIGHTS, then I think you have a better case.

7/12/2009 4:12:52 PM

I think the solution here is a new form of the AP.

Journalists need to band together and form their own pooled orgnizations. Consumers can invest in pools, rather than paying for the news delivered to them.

For instance, I have an interest in technology and political corruption. I spend my $19.95 a month to fund a journalist pool to investigate those areas. In return I know I am getting high quality, well sourced and researched publications.

This kind of pooling would allow for the return of longterm investigative journalism, and would allow journalists and their community a way out of the 24hour news cycle that values sensationalism over substance.

It wouldn't take a large user base, and it would be information sharing. When a story is finally released, the author shares ownership with the investors (who are the primary readers). Any money made from that article being licensed or repurposed would go back to the whole organization. Almost a stock market for news, where you invest in the quality of the story, not the story itself.

It would be important to keep these pools large and fairly generalized though, to allow journalists the flexibility to pursue stories of merit and to prevent takeover by special interest.

7/12/2009 4:23:24 PM

Quote :

"The reality is, if there are no patents, people will hide everything to prevent others from stealing and appropriating their ideas. "

our patent laws are so fucked up that companies do hide everything to prevent market infringement. The only people who benefit from our patent laws are the lawyers who make retarded sums of money from turning the whole system into a quagmire and allowing large conglomerates to steal ideas from actual inventors. The whole process is so costly and so time consuming that it can actually stagnate actual development.

While it is true that companies file patents to prevent the competition from stealing their hard work, it is also true that companies are forced to file patents in a defensive manner. If you don't file a patent on your invention, some other company can take your work, patent it, and then force you to pay royalties on the invention.

The concept behind patents seems great until you realize just how bloated the system has become.

7/12/2009 8:06:26 PM

^
Thank you.

The "stealing your work" part may actually be the fucking worst of all. I met one of my sister's former neighbors at one of her house-parties, and he actually, calmly and proudly informed us that his ENTIRE line of work comes from browsing the internet, finding new websites that use unpatented methods, and proceeding to attempt to get the patent himself. I have never come closer to wanting to choke the life out of someone before. I hope he dies of painful ass cancer.

With copyright (which is totally fucked, by the way,) at least it's been ruled that you automatically get the copyright to whatever otherwise uncopyrighted expression you make, without having to register it. Why the fuck they don't do that with patents is clear evidence that the entire system is fucked and only serves the rich-stay-rich corporatist oligopoly. Furthermore, patents are routinely given to way-to-general inventions. For instance, the two biggest toy companies fought over the patent to games involving trading/collectible cards. They both hold virtually identical patents -- one for trading card games, and the other for collectible card games. No one, no one, can design and bring to market their own trading card game without battling one or both of these behemoths. A fucking patent on the mere fucking idea of a ANY card game -- ANY -- that involves cards that are collected or traded??? Fucking crazy. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that there's a patent on the concept of board-games. And I recently heard about someone that patented a rather novel dog toy ( ) the stick. This is fucking madness. I don't care what anyone says.... patent law is 100% fucked.


http://www.google.com/patents?id=hhYJAAAAEBAJ

Quote :

"Look at the picture. The title of this patent is "animal toy," and he says it may be made of "wood" or "wood composites." That's right; the dude is trying to patent the stick. We admire this man's vision. We guess he was just sitting in the park one day with his dog, saw a nearby twig, and had the revolutionary idea to throw the stick and make the dog chase it. We can totally picture the dog bringing the stick back and this guy's eyes going wide. He slowly lifts the stick to his face and says, "EUREKA!" then goes sprinting through the park, waving the stick in strangers' faces and shouting, "Compared to me, Thomas Edison was turds." Now, that may have been reasonable if the above events had taken place in, say, 12,000 B.C., instead of 1999 when the patent was filed. It doesn't matter now, this guy's got the stick patent and soon every forest in the planet is about to be sued out of existence for infringement."

[Edited on July 12, 2009 at 9:02 PM. Reason : ]

7/12/2009 8:56:19 PM

7/12/2009 9:23:42 PM

^^^ Thand ^^ obviously have no idea how patents actually work.

Quote :

"If you don't file a patent on your invention, some other company can take your work, patent it, and then force you to pay royalties on the invention. "

and

Quote :

"calmly and proudly informed us that his ENTIRE line of work comes from browsing the internet, finding new websites that use unpatented methods, and proceeding to attempt to get the patent himself. "

This is absolutely not the case. There are TONS of processes in place to prevent this from happening. If someone attempts to patent your idea, ALL you have to do it prove prior art and file an intent within a year. It costs no money to do this. It's not difficult either. You don't "steal ideas" with patents. You guys are both talking out of your damn asses.

Quote :

"Furthermore, patents are routinely given to way-to-general inventions. For instance, the two biggest toy companies fought over the patent to games involving trading/collectible cards. They both hold virtually identical patents -- one for trading card games, and the other for collectible card games. No one, no one, can design and bring to market their own trading card game without battling one or both of these behemoths"

The patent office is cracking down big-time on these umbrella patents now. And the burden of patent is on the defense. If you want to bring your own collectible card game to market, you can do so, and it is up to the the patent holder to prove you are actually infringing (which is cheap for you, expensive for them).

I'm assuming the patent you are talking about is from Wizards of the Coast, which expires in 6 more years. And you are wrong in your assessment. Anyone can design and bring their own trading card game to market, you just have to pay a licensing fee to WotC. There's a big difference there. You are being greedy because you don't want to pay the guys who paved the way for you. Without them, there would be no TCG market for you to design and sell into.

7/12/2009 10:50:57 PM

Quote :

"Why the fuck they don't do that with patents is clear evidence that the entire system is fucked and only serves the rich-stay-rich corporatist oligopoly. Furthermore, patents are routinely given to way-to-general inventions."

Because the purpose of a patent is to encourage you to open your ideas up to the world in exchange for temporary (albeit ever growing) protection from competition for that idea. Under the current system, if you develop ÜberThing™ you have two options available to you. You can keep the design of the ÜberThing™ to yourself as a trade secret (see KFC spices, Coke recipe etc) and hope that no one is smart enough to reverse engineer your product. This is not an ideal thing for society. Society benefits what inventor time is spent building on other's ideas, not reverse engineering and otherwise reinventing the wheel. Your other option is to file for patent protection. In order to obtain this protection, you must release the full details of your new invention to the public, for scrutiny and duplication purposes. In this case society benefits because while you may have your invention, society has the knowledge that makes that invention to build upon and expand from. Under a system where patent protection is automatic, you would lose this vital trade of information for patent protection. Copyright can be automatic because the very act of publishing your work makes it available for all to read and study, inventions are a different beast, and therefore treated differently.

Now admittedly there are problems with our patent system as it exists, but that does not speak to whether patents themselves are good or evil.

7/12/2009 11:55:06 PM

Quote :

"No one, no one, can design and bring to market their own trading card game without battling one or both of these behemoths"

That's pure bs. You don't have to battle anyone. The only thing you have to do is pay the patent holder a licensing fee and go along your merry way.

7/13/2009 3:04:52 AM

Quote :

"This is absolutely not the case. There are TONS of processes in place to prevent this from happening. If someone attempts to patent your idea, ALL you have to do it prove prior art and file an intent within a year. It costs no money to do this. It's not difficult either. You don't "steal ideas" with patents. You guys are both talking out of your damn asses. "

this is so funny to read from an employee of Microsoft, a company that made its fortunes by doing just this and fucking over actual inventors and pioneeers.

7/13/2009 9:16:39 AM

^you mean by spending more on R&D than any other software company in the world?

Most of our research is published completely publicly, whether or not a patent coincides with it. We also EMPLOY a large number of people who do nothing but innovate for the sake of innovation, not for patents. While it is true that MS has a sizeable patent portfolio, it is not a "patent machine" the likes of which you and Willy are referring to.

Hell, even compared to Apple (which has a relatively small patent portfolio), Microsoft's patents are VERY implementation specific to it's existing products and markets.

Again, I don't think you have any idea what you are talking about. Feel free to peruse the results of 8 billion dollars a year in publicly accessible, collaborative, and shared research here http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/

7/13/2009 9:39:55 AM

how much of that budget is spent on legal teams? until you can answer that, your statement means nothing. Edison could have probably made a similar claim back in the day, yet his entire business model was based around the concept of stealing the work of others for himself.

7/13/2009 12:59:19 PM

Microsoft's legal budget is not tied to it's R&D expenditures. You go look it up, it's all in the SEC filings. You're wrong. You obviously didn't even look at the damn site.

7/13/2009 10:35:06 PM

care to offer any proof that Microsoft's R&D budget doesn't include legal costs for making a clusterfuck out of the USPTO, or do you want me to just believe it for no reason? Is there a reason why microsoft spends so much money on R&D, only to be playing catch-up with Google, Sony, and Apple? Apple gets 10 times more out of their R&D dollars than Microsoft does, which makes you question if that's because Apple does real R&D and Microsoft spends their money stealing R&D from other companies.

7/13/2009 11:40:23 PM

^Dude are you on prescription medications or something?

The proof is in the damn annual report. You are the one making gross accusations, the burden is on you, not me.

From the Annual Report (8.1 billion spent in 2008):

Quote :

"Research and development expenses include payroll, employee benefits, stock-based compensation expense, and other headcount-related expenses associated with product development. Research and development expenses also include third-party development and programming costs, localization costs incurred to translate software for international markets, the amortization of purchased software code and services content, and in-process research and development."

It's painfully obvious that you have absolutely NO DAMN CLUE what you are talking about.

R&D is not about "catching up to" competition. Microsoft is a platform company first, not a product company first. It sells products to support it's platforms. This is decidedly different from Google, Sony and Apple. Google is a services company, while both Sony and Apple are product companies.

Enlighten youself and read the Product Development brief, page 8 http://www.microsoft.com/msft/reports/ar08/downloads/MS_2008_10K.doc

Microsoft doesn't "steal" anything from other companies. Pretty much your entire post is completely ignorant and misinformed. There are companies like you are talking about, but MS is not one by any stretch of the imagination.

7/14/2009 1:12:55 AM

so you're saying that Microsoft hasn't paid out huge settlements for IP theft in the last few years, and that the Microsoft OS isn't riddled with stolen code from linux and sun? I'm glad that you've bought into the company line so hard, but it would be cool to see you post information from somewhere other than Microsoft's own propaganda pages to support your claims.

Quote :

"Microsoft is a platform company first, not a product company first. "

if that is truly the attitude at Microsoft, it's no wonder that the Zune is a total flop and the Xbox 360 breaks when you turn it on.

7/14/2009 9:49:06 AM

Quote :

"I'd like it if they came up with package deals. Pay a certain amount a month/yr and get the print edition of the newspaper delivered to your door, plus exclusive access to certain premium news articles on the website (probably only possible with larger newspapers with certain well-known columnists/editors), plus customizable news updates sent via email or text, plus receive access to a digital newspaper archive where you can download any past printing of a newspaper in PDF format."

Just to jump back to before this thread went all haywire (tm), you can do most of that with the News & Observer right now.

Print subscriber can access the online archives and search for any article written since like 1990 from the N&O or Chapel Hill News or a handful of other small affiliated papers. I used to use it all the time in those stupid sports talk threads on packpride back before I realized I was 100% wasting my time.

7/14/2009 11:41:40 AM

Quote :

"so you're saying that Microsoft hasn't paid out huge settlements for IP theft in the last few years, and that the Microsoft OS isn't riddled with stolen code from linux and sun? I'm glad that you've bought into the company line so hard, but it would be cool to see you post information from somewhere other than Microsoft's own propaganda pages to support your claims."

That is what I'm saying. They've paid out huge settlements for Anti-trust (monopoly + anticompetitive) rulings by the EU and US, but that has literally nothing to do with IP theft. As in, absolutely no correlation whatsoever. The settlements you are referring to come from distribution and OEM bundling, not from IP.

Wait, so now you are saying SEC filings are "propaganda"? Seriously, you just lost any credability ever. And the MS Research portal I pointed you is an index of ALL THE RESEARCH PROJECTS WE FUND, ALONG WITH PUBLIC FINDINGS AND PUBLICATIONS. There is no propaganda there either, retard.

Quote :

"if that is truly the attitude at Microsoft, it's no wonder that the Zune is a total flop and the Xbox 360 breaks when you turn it on."

The Zune isn't a platform [yet]. The first generation was just a general PMP.

Xbox is a platform, and is wildly successful by any measure. Yes they had hardware problems on launch, so MS extended the warranty program free of charge for three years. In fact, we just RMA's our 360 a month ago for the first time (it was one of the original units), and recieved a replacement within a week. That's some good customer service if you ask me.

7/14/2009 6:05:47 PM

i tell you one thing i WONT do is get one of those amazon kindles that ssupposed to beam nyties, wp, wsj etc to your kindle

7/14/2009 6:34:14 PM