Regarding the "pay the artists directly" idea--

However, the artists aren't the only people who worked on and ought to be compensated for the record. Directly or by proxy, the artists in question chose to work with the middlemen and distribution chains that they did. If the artists wished to sell their recordings directly, they would have, and they'd be seeing every piece of the (likely smaller) pie. They, however, decided to cede some control and a cut of the price for the services and abilities of the labels and production companies they went with.

If we're going to preserve the moral balance by paying the artists, shouldn't the artists then be paying their promoters and producers out of that? In that case, the same amounts of money would still be handed out, just trickling the other direction.

Just curious-- do you run them through local copies of the AVs, or use the online multi-scanners?

They're only "Designed by Apple in California". Most of the production is in large overseas factories.

DRM. And that goes for both sides of the argument.

It's like the old anti-DRM argument, though-- it only takes one bright person to crack it. In this case, it only takes one bright person to use the raw data to make the easily-digestible app that provides the right info/interest/ease to get people to start thinking. Not everyone needs to be a developer to be engaged.

I used to use DW (MX from '00-- small company, wouldn't spring for the upgrade) at work, and never touched the WYSIWYG view. The biggest advantage I've seen to DW is that it has a very good pre-generated template language. It allows you to do the sort of template-based sites with reusable snippets that you'd normally use (CMS/PHP/CGI/etc.) for, but allows you to generate them into static HTML files that require no special server-side technology to operate.

Once the charge is made, though, the dealership has their money. The only person the buyer owes money to is the credit card company. Now, there might be some liability there regarding chargebacks, as well as the CC companies taking a cut, versus the financing companies giving one, but that's about all I could imagine.

Both sides of this argument have debatable value.

On one hand, the everyday person is less likely to be the aforementioned power-seeking personality, and has not had to compromise or ignore better values to beat the competition. They did not have to work their way up through the political world, and, thus, they may likely have a less influenced or constricted view of solving problems. They could bring a detached logic to systems and procedures that have gotten too bogged down in themselves.

On the other hand, a more ordinary person, given such power without the preparation or experience of the political world, is likely to become little more than a tool of smooth-talking, manipulative power-seekers. They would not have reliable mentors or experience that would allow them to identify and withstand others' self-serving deception. Experienced politicians fill the same sort of need as having an attorney to guide a person through the maze of legal procedure and argument-- there are plenty of traps and details, both logical and absurd, relevant and irrelevant, that would blindside the average person.

He'd never go for it. I'm sure there'd be an NDA.

Missed that "not".

Could he just rent it to himself? (Although I imagine that would still end up with multiple-dipping losses due to taxes.)

Then you'd just get in trouble for trademark violation-- causing confusion and dilution by using Apple's label on a non-Apple product you're selling.

I believe that in my area you can write in your defense as well, but it goes to the court. I've never done it myself-- all my stops were fair an' square.

Could the (U.S.) legal department weigh in on this...

Where did this whole idea of "you have rights, except in civil cases" come from? Am I missing the part that says "These rights are only valid when defending against police or government accusation, dealing with over $5000 penalty or personal imprisonment."

While it may not be much to some people, my traffic fine is enough of a slice of my personal property to warrant playing by the rules writ in big letters.

I hate to break it to you ... but police get paid for writing tickets. And Ford sells police cars, so they are also getting paid for writing tickets. The better their cars so the cops can catch more criminals, the more they get paid.

So... if we stop paying the cops, and they stop writing tickets...

I could get behind this plan. You should run for office.