I disagree -- your argument is essentially the same as the RIAA/MPAA: "Unless we protect music, artists won't get paid and they won't make music anymore". Which is complete & utter bunk, because plenty of artists make music without ever making a cent in profit. People may not continue to do what they currently do -- in fact, a great many (myself included) would not. But we WOULD find things to do instead that we enjoy a lot more, and are probably much better at.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is in effect here -- when basic survival needs are taken care of, then you move up the pyramid eventually getting to esteem & self-actualization, where people WANT to build things, achieve recognition, solve problems, be creative, etc. BECAUSE they want to. BECAUSE they want to "be good people".

Some people do what they need to, because they our society is NOT setup to care for people's basic needs (food, shelter, security, health). And if society did start caring for those basic needs, yeah -- some people would probably just sit around & be lazy, at least for awhile, because they only know how to live in scarcity. Just the way that poor/middle-income people win the lottery & ruin their lives, because they don't know understand how to live with money & security. But within a generation (perhaps less), I think a great creative energy would be unleashed.

I spent a lot of time thinking about this on a recent vacation -- I'm in a comfortable, well-paying job right now, where I'm bored stiff & don't care about the work I have assigned to me. I have lots of fun ideas for apps / projects that I'd love to develop, outside of my current work context. But I spend so much time "at work" that I have comparatively little time left over to work on these projects, and by the end of the day / week not always much mental energy & stamina left either.

My solution may not work for most, but I'm actually quitting over it - I'm tired of dragging myself into a job I'm not engaged with. Fortunately, as I was considering this an old colleague contacted me and is involved in a startup he wanted to recruit me for that's more in-line with the kind of creative development that I want to do. So that's definitely exciting for me and should keep me engaged for awhile. Pay won't be as good / stable, at least initially, but the economic upside is much higher (incentive stock options), and my personal motivation & engagement will be much, much higher as well. I'm willing to take some economic risk for that. Life's too short to waste it doing something you don't love (which I'm slowly learning).

If I were a weaker man, and there are plenty of weaker men, installing Windows would be the 'solution'.

So just to clarify, you are not a "weaker man" because you are choosing a tool that is more difficult to acquire & has no official support... for what purpose again?

Without knowing more about what the ultimate goal is, it seems like you are just being pig-headed & stubborn, pushing your own personal agenda / Windows vendetta over the priorities of The Company.

Is the goal of The Company to be a linux shop?
Or is it merely to have a working desktop environment to do their traditional office tasks (email, calendar, word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations)? If the latter, and you are advocating for linux workstations -- what's your justification? Lower cost of acquisition or lower total-cost-of-ownership (TCO)?
If you have calculated a lower TCO, are you including a fair & reasonable support cost for each option (esp if these are not tech-savvy office people)? If you are just doing this as a favor -- what happens to that TCO if you get hit by a bus and they have to hire/contract a 3rd party linux admin?

Not trying to say going linux on the desktop is wrong, by any stretch -- just that you should clarify the ultimate goals & priorities, and pick the right tool based on that. I would posit THAT is the sign of a stronger man - the right tool for the job.

This. +1

Maybe there isn't anything you can do about it, but maybe there is -- do what you (reasonably) can to stop allowing such sites to host your software. And/or work on your SEO to make sure your site comes up higher in Google rankings then these mass download sites (if its not already). It may not prevent this issue, but hopefully would cut down on it.

And I agree with other posters -- for "premium" customers, have a key or account number or something that unlocks the support number in a Help...Support menu. Don't publically publish the support number on your website (but DO have FAQs, forums, wiki, etc.).

Whenever I am on someone else's computer that does NOT have an ad-blocker installed, I am CONSTANTLY surprised at the infiltration of advertising on many, many sites -- lots of animation within the ad-boxes, animation overlaying & animated over the content itself, and often obstructing or least obfuscating the content.

I don't feel bad about blocking ads. If enough other people do NOT block ads, and that's enough to sustain the business model of the sites I visit. great! If enough people block ads such that ad-based revenue isn't enough to support the sites' business model, then I guess the site owner should change business models. And if i find the content valuable enough, then I may pay for it. If not, well, somehow I guess my life & the world will just have to go on.

If you RTFA, you'd know she's not asking for free, she's asking for information INSTEAD of the royalty:

I wish I could make this demand: stream my music, but in exchange give me my listener data. But the law doesn’t give me that power. The law only demands I be paid in money, which at this point in my career is not as valuable as information. I’d rather be paid in data.

And $1 per play, huh? She wouldn't NEED listener information if she was making that kind of fat cash! Her royalty spreadsheet is linked from the article -- try $1652 for 1.5 million plays over 6 months on Pandora. So you were only off by... 3 orders of magnitude. Thanks for playing, though! Better luck next time in pulling stats out of your ass.

That's exactly what she WANTS -- to have the option to get listener data IN PLACE of royalties. But the law doesn't provide for that currently.

I wish I could make this demand: stream my music, but in exchange give me my listener data. But the law doesn’t give me that power. The law only demands I be paid in money, which at this point in my career is not as valuable as information. I’d rather be paid in data.

And Pandora already reports your listening activity (just not to the artist):

Pandora Privacy Policy
We use the information that we collect for the following purposes:
[...]
* To pay artists and copyright owners for tracks you hear, by reporting listening information to copyright licensing agencies. These reports contain aggregated data only, and do not include your personally identifiable information.

All Zoe is asking for is access to that aggregated listening data, which you've already agreed you are okay with sharing (by using the Pandora service). But the laws do not currently require it, and she doesn't have a way to access it. Seems like a very reasonable request to me.

Her overall argument is that the information is more valuable to her than the $$ paid, and she would rather have the information about her "listens".
She writes she was paid $1652 for 1.5 million listens in Pandora in the first half of 2012, and that dollar amount is that ONLY information she gets.

I wish I could make this demand: stream my music, but in exchange give me my listener data. But the law doesn’t give me that power. The law only demands I be paid in money, which at this point in my career is not as valuable as information. I’d rather be paid in data.

She's not demanding it for free, she just wants access to it.

I've seen Zoe in concert -- she's a cool person & does some awesome stuff with music & technology. She's not a crazy, power-hungry fanatic, she just wants to be able to grow her personal business and make a decent living, and the information Pandora has can help her do that, but she doesn't have a way to get it (instead, Pandora just uses it to try & rescue their failing business model).

I think the artist's attitude is very reasonable -- consider what Zoe wrote:

* Over 90% of my internet radio royalties are from Pandora.
* There is hardly any data. None of the laws require any entity to tell me how many performances I had, and so no one does. It’s nice to know how much money I made, but where did it come from? How can I grow my business on this information?

She recognizes that the business model for music is changing, but the old laws give her the old currency (money), not the new currency (information), and she needs that new currency to build her business. It's not about copyright & artist greed -- she just wants to be paid in the new currency, esp since the old currency isn't very valuable ($1652 for 1.5 million plays on Pandora in the first half of 2012). Pandora already has this information, they just don't give it to the artists, and Zoe wants that to change.

Yes, you are networking. But there's nothing WRONG with that!

"Networking" is just "communicating" -- you are communicating with people (such as blog owners). In this case, your goal is growing your audience, not growing your business or profit. That's fine -- there's nothing WRONG with networking. There's nothing wrong with growing your audience. And I'd also argue there's nothing wrong with growing a business or increasing your profit, if that's what you wanted to do.

Networking seems to get a bad rap when it's sleazy companies selling lists back & forth, looking for new fools to sell their crap too. But it's not networking that's bad, it's being sleazy & selling crap.

Personally, I think if you've got something valuable to offer, and you use networking connections to find the right audience who WANTS what you have -- that's exactly how networking (& capitalism) is SUPPOSED to work. When a blogger I trust & follow suggests something, it's likely
to be something I might be interested in. When I do a google search and find results on squidoo, I run away because 99% of the time, it's sleazy content filled with affiliate links written by people with no real value to offer.

In broad strokes, yes.

I've seen Zoe in concert -- she's pretty awesome! I would like to see her again. But I'm a busy guy, and "sign up on Zoe's website for tour news" usually doesn't bubble up very high on my priority list. If I see a banner or promo flyer, however, I'm more likely to make note of it and maybe actually put it in my calendar to attend. If she knows there's a lot of others listening to her in my region, then she's more likely to schedule another concert here, and do more marketing here. I have no problem with her (& other artists) using anonymized data to help regionally target their sales & marketing.

Likewise, many (paid) apps I install now ask me to submit "anonymous usage data" to help them improve their product. I usually agree to do this, under the assumption that the data is actually anonymous, and that by me giving them feedback, they can make a product that I will find more useful & more appealing. I like programs that work they way I think they should work -- that are intuitive to me, and I'm willing to give up some data about my usage in exchange for that potential.

What I DON'T like is companies that harvest personal, non-anonymous information about me, and then sell that to other companies that I have not expressed interest in. I get flyers in the mail for "Skillpath Seminars", addressed to my small business name. I never attended a Skillpath Seminar under my small business name, nor do I recall ever signing up or purchasing a leadership/management product for my small business that would be relevant to Skillpath. So that means some OTHER vendor I used compiled a list that Skillpath purchased and cold-called (mailed) me. That's not effective for me; in fact, it's irritating because it's more mail I have to sift through & dispose of.

It's not about "solid" vs "not solid", it's about probability.

Someone who has a Stanford CS degree & worked for 4 years at Google has a higher probability of being a good candidate than someone with an IT degree from the University of Phoenix and no GitHub account.

Is it certain? No.
Is it more probable? Definitely.

It's like fishing -- big, prize fish CAN be anywhere in the lake (or river), but there are certain underwater features they prefer. Go where those features are, and you have a higher probability of finding a big fish. If I want a big fish for a reasonable expenditure of time & effort, I'm going to go where my odds are the greatest. And maybe I don't catch the BIGGEST fish, but as long as it's big enough for my needs - it gets the job done.

Guns, knives, fireworks, blowtorches, and chainsaws are dangerous by the very nature of what they are intended to do. Even small children immediately understand their capacity to destroy things.

Apparently not, considering this 6 year old brought a LOADED GUN to kindergarten.

I think the CPSC is over the line, here -- the product is properly labeled & marketed to adults, and it is the adult's responsibility to keep it away from children. Same as kitchen knives, loaded guns, batteries, etc.

I know every time I'm with a young children (not even my own, which I don't have yet), I'm constantly watching to make sure what goes in their mouth isn't [too] dangerous. If other adults aren't doing the same, that's negligence.