Apparently, it is.

If they thought about it, it's obvious that this isn't going to recover money. As the thread title says, it's about heads on pikes. The aim is to scare people into not downloading.

Of course, even that is not really the aim. The argument actually goes like:

• 1. We used to make lots of money
• 2. We don't make as much as we used to (actually, we don't think we are making as much money as we think we should be)
• 3. The kids are downloading it and not paying us
• 4. Let's count every download as a lost sale...There! that's where our money went
• 4. If we can stop downloading, people will buy the music instead
• 5. We can afford to spend a few megabucks if it stops piracy
• 6. PROFIT

It's further complicated by a sense of moral outrage from point 3. They are CRIMINALS. It is our DUTY to PUNISH them.

And then they sign off on their advertising budgets and promotions and schmoozing and expense accounts, because that's just a legitimate and accepted cost of doing business. Sure, it'd be nice to cut those costs, but "spend a dollar, get two back" is good financial math.

So, the finance guys accept the cost, because of points 5 and 6.

They won't, they can't think of downloading as a legitimate business expense, despite strong indications that downloaders spend MORE money on purchases. They refuse to consider that, maybe, their business model is broken.

The music industry does not want to think of themselves as being like Polaroid, or Kodak, or Atari, or Nokia.

Their finance people may be smart and competent, but right now that equates to an optimal deck-chair rearrangement, whereas what's needed is a course change away from the iceberg.

To be pedantic, the patent system was created to encourage the production of more useful stuff. As I said, it's the production bit that's important, otherwise there is no point. A patent for an invention that is never produced is, by definition, useless. So a patent that prevents a useful thing being produced is worse than useless.

A consequence of the patent system was that it tended to encourage (but did not enforce) a separation between invention and production, but that was not the intent.

Yes, markets are often a good thing. However, back to trolls. In practice trolls don't actually produce anything. A NPE doesn't seek to make the invention. The troll doesn't seek to sell the invention to someone to have it made. The troll waits under its bridge until someone tries to to make something useful and then slithers out and demands protection money.

We can look at that and decide that trolls are bad, but as you say, they are just a consequence of the rules we made. We can try to create anti-troll regulations—which just evolves smarter, tougher trolls—or we can go back to first principles and try a different way.

I think the term Patent Troll is more exactly defined than that, and divorced from the subjective judgment of "Good" or "Bad" patent. A Patent Troll is a non-practicing entity (NPE). The sole aim of a patent is to encourage the creation of new inventions. The mechanism to do that involves remuneration, but that's not the aim. A NPE doesn't produce anything, so it doesn't encourage the creation of new inventions. It sure encourages the creation of new patents, but is doesn't encourage the creation of new 'things'.

You might argue over the goodness/badness of Amazon's 1-click patent, but Amazon at least provides a useful service using the process for which they hold a patent and isn't, in my opinion, a patent troll.

I disagree with you only over the term 'troll'. Otherwise, you've got to the nub. Patents and copyright exist only to benefit society. "We, the people" created them solely to benefit us. If the economic burden of the current copyright and patent system outweighs its economic benefit—which numerous studies have indicated is so—we need to uncreate them

That may seem naive, but OTOH, simply nuking software and business patents would go a huge way to fixing this, and that does seem to be the worldwide trend.

PowerPoint was originally a Mac program too.

Why? Or, why Antigua? Why doesn't the USA just get over it and follow the law?

Not a good analogy. Neither American nor local companies can sell alcohol in such countries. The beef is that the USA is protecting its local gambling but forbidding international competition, which it has agreed not to do through its membership in the WTO

Copyright in stuff you write only extends outside the USA because of agreements with other sovereign nations. If the USA unilaterally breaks those agreements, then it's reasonable for the other parties to reciprocate. And yes, that means YOU got screwed. By your government. Not, actually, by the other nation. Direct your bile accordingly.

Well for NAT, it has a lot to do with quality, just not in any positive sense. :)

In fact, many people in the IETF prefer the name LSN (Large Scale NAT) to CGN. Or CHN (Carrier Hosted NAT). "Carrier Grade" carrys an implied endorsement. "Carrier Grade Routers", "Carrier Grade NAT". Oooh, shiny, it must be good.

If Dilbert is most relevant, time to change employers.

After discovering that I was living a Dilbert cartoon, I left that job, and once I'd healed, vowed that if my life ever again imitated that particular piece of art, it was time to leave. Thus far I'm pleased to say I've been OK.

Except that in at least some if not all of those countries, the phone dial went 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9. Looks sensible does it not? But, as dialled, 0 = ten clicks, then 1 was 9, etc. That meant that 111 was VERY unlikely to be dialled by accident---and I believe that was also the reason the the U.K. adopted "999", with the dial running 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1.

This is an early example of someone making the decision that the 'user interface' (the order of the digits on the dial) should be as the user might expect (ascending order, starting at 0) rather than reflecting the underlying hardware peculiarities.

Of course, with keypad entry, different criteria apply. We want something short and easy to remember that can't easily be dialled by accident. The latter rule argues against three digits the same, hence 112.

Wikipedia also has an article which includes information on why 911 was chosen for the U.S.

Oh, you are referring to the theft of the laptop, aren't you?

I've got mod points at the moment, but rather than oblivionate the current pathetic trolls, flamebait and fr1st p0st crap, I'd rather encourage some thought.

The local time varies with longitude.

If you are a programmer, think of it as cathacking. It works, as long as you work within the limits of the programming environment.

Prior Art still exists. That has not changed at all.

Not everyone any more. According to wikipedia, Pandora is now available in Australia and New Zealand. They apparently negotiated deals with the local licensing bodies.