@cm said:

hmm - supposing mr. z offers you some sampled instruments made by and for himself for your personal use, because let's say you are a good friend - are you entitled to share them? the rest is tbd - and i think the *d* does not mean discussed [;)]
christian

Good point. But treating customers like criminals is never good policy I think. Look to Steve Jobs as an example of success based on treating customers as customers not criminals.

Evan Evans

Treating customers like criminals???

(he must have forgotten his medication - just when I thought it was working :wink[:)]

@evanevans said:

But treating customers like criminals is never good policy I think. Look to Steve Jobs as an example of success based on treating customers as customers not criminals.

Evan, my brilliant friend, I can't follow this post. 1) if the terms of the lottery were "no shary", then I don't see how that equates to treating customers like criminals. 2) Steve Jobs is a VERY complex, multi-faceted guy; I think he only works as an example if you spotlight a FEW of those facets. As much as I adore OS X and thank him for bringing to life in a few years what Linus Torvalds has never pulled off (despite working at it since the late eighties with programmers from all of the world), who exactly do you think cut the legs out from under Logic PC? It is hard to support the case that he did this purely to liberate Logic PC users from the evils of the Prince of Insufficient OS Quality.

dot

@peter0302 said:

Treating customers like criminals???

(he must have forgotten his medication - just when I thought it was working :wink[:)]

Haha. No. It's just maybe I misunderstood but it sounds like CM was saying something to the effect of if IAN shares the samples with another person, it will be without an attached license, and what happens if that person shares them with someone else? At that point without a license there'd be nothing prohibiting rampant legal distribution of the sounds.

I think I understood that this is what CM was saying quite clearly. And the thing is, if you don't have a license than you are an unauthorized user and hence using it illegally. And it is treating customers like potential people who may engage in potential illegal activity that is NOT necessary by corporations. Yet many still do. If someone want so t do something illegally, making it difficult for them is not going to change their criminal attitude and it's just going to make honest customers feel like a link in the criminal chain.

Enough said. If you don't get it, try reading up on Steve Jobs. An excellent example of someone who tries to treat customers like customers, and let's the law do it's duty in weeding out criminals shoul dit be necesssary. All the necessary protections against illegal activity are protected by law. It is not necessary to create piracy circumvention tools. In fact studies show that such locks foster piracy and an atmosphere of needing things to be unlocked.

Evan Evans

@Another User said:

If you don't get it, try reading up on Steve Jobs. An excellent example of someone who tries to treat customers like customers, and let's the law do it's duty in weeding out criminals shoul dit be necesssary.

Apple's lawyers are no slouches, and know how to be aggressive without necessarily appearing so. If you can show me where the user agreements to which Steve Jobs' customers must assent are substantially more trusting of the customer (in a legally meaningful way) than those of other software companies, then I'll see what you mean.

regards, dot

@dot said:

I think we could dispense with law and government if this were true...
regards, dot

I don't think I made myself clear becuase you seem to have completely misunderstood a fundamental part of what I was saying. I guess I forget to clearly mention it or something.

The contract is ALL that is necessary. The need for serial numbers, copy-protection mechanisms, treating customers like potential larsenists and pirates is all redundant protection. If companies used the law to enforce their licenses more, than they wouldn't have to worry about copy protection mechanisms.

The best case in point is the wonderful, finally someone snapped out of it, legal battle that the RIAA has taken up with end-users. This is the first time that the correct enforcement and copy-protection mechanisms have really been used ... lawsuits.

Lawsuits due to infringement, negligence, and breach of contract are what corps ought to spend 75% of their copy-protection costs on, with the other 25% being spent on making a better more formideable and universally enforceable license/contract.

It all comes down to a simple truth ... if someone does something illegal than they broke the law and can be fined or jailed. Corporations suing corporations is the biggest wrong doing in America. Sue the end-users. As already reported by studies in the RIAA approach, rampant file-sharing has declined nearly 40% in one year!!! Sue. Litigate. Enforce. Copy protection is only as good as how well as it's policed. And all the copy-protection you need can be in a license/contract.

So, Dot, when I said to dispense with treating customers like criminals I wasn't dispensing with the law nor was I saying that we shouldn't have contracts or license.

[:)]

I loved your detailed response though.

Peace,
Evan Evans

Do you know how much it actually costs to prosecute a civil lawsuit? Thousands, if not tens of thousands, just for the simplest copyright infringement actions. The only reason RIAA is succeeding is because people are caving before the cases get to court.

Besides, this all assumes that you can even find out who is distributing the files. A lot of these files are shared on IRC and newsgroups - not just KaZaA. How do you track those types of uploads? It's extremely difficult to enforce, even with lawsuits.

Anyway, does VSL even have copy protection? I don't think it does. So the whole discussion is pointless wrt VSL.

Peter0302,

Indeed. All said and done VSL is doing a great job! We just hit a tangent.

[:)]

Now, let's get back to being excited for IAN!!!

Ian, you are one lucky guy!

Evan Evans

yeah - thanks [:)]

(woa - what was all that about?!)

1) Ian won a sampling session.
2) VSL elected not to authorize free distribution of the resulting samples among customers.
3) I took issue with the claim that this VSL decision treats customers "like criminals", as well as with the claim that Steve Jobs would be a good role model to teach VSL to treat customers less like criminals.

I won't post again on this subject in this thread. IMHO, the legal universe in which these problems exist isn't well understood or explained here. I thank peter0302 for starting to address the economics of content defense via the law. It's an intricate subject. If we're honestly going to further discuss how this affects VSL, we need a new thread! I apologize for my contribution to the drift.

Over and out,

dot

Wow! [[:|]] all this discussion for samples that haven't not even been chosen! sounds like an heritage struggle between relatives, lawyers and neighbours to me!