Exactly this. Microsoft was dragged over the coals for offering products for free that competitors were charging for because it was abuse of a monopoly position. Someone wants to have their cake and eat it.

The new EU rules specifically ban thermal energy being required to change the battery.

Then get a USB DAC if you care about the quality or a cheap USB -> 3.5mm adapter if you don't. While I appreciate it may be an inconvenience to you, the functionality just isn't needed by the vast majority these days.

It does create a floor in the length of a book however. I will very rarely (realistically only on big recommendations) use a credit on a book that is less than about 8 hours in length. The vast majority of the books in my Audible library are 16+ hours long.

The crooks watch the Feds while the Feds watch the crooks who watch the Feds go by...

It depends if they made any edits when they transferred from film to VHS. The act of format shifting in and of itself wouldn't create a derivative work, but if they altered the substance of the film by removing or reordering scene then they'll have created a derivative work, which creates a new copyright.

Because this IS how Sovereign nations negotiate treaties. Not the secret aspects necessarily, but that isn't part of the fast track process. A treaty involves give and take, there will be stuff in there that's not in the interest of every state in the US. What Congress needs to do is to look at the treaty on balance and decide if the upsides are worth the downsides. The point is that you can't send your delegation back over every minute detail you don't like, because those will have been given as concessions to get what your negotiators wanted. You either take the deal as negotiated or reject it entirely. I'm not advocating for the secrecy of the negotiations, merely that the fast track procedure is the only way international negotiation can work.

Whatever the content of the treaty the fact that TPA is just standard procedure. You can't hammer out an agreement between multiple different countries only for a national legislature to take issue with a single concession that was won by another country and agreed to by the delegates. The negotiators are there to get the best possible deal for their country. Congress then gets to decide whether or not the deal is good enough, they can't unilaterally renegotiate it.

Ultimately the whole thing boils down to enforcement. If there were no consequences to me walking into a shop, picking up a laptop and walking out why would I ever pay for one? The same is true for software, if everyone could pirate software with no consequences at all then there would be no disincentive everyone not to do it. You could argue that if everyone did this then everyone would lose out as the developers would go out of business and there would be no software for anyone, however that's just an example of the tragedy of the commons.

The situation we have now is one of Risk vs Reward, if you can't afford something you could try and steal it and you might get caught, as you can't afford it your only choices are to take the risk or not have it, the willingness to take the risk vary depending on perceived need. Whereas if you can afford it, but choose to steal it so you can spend the money on something else then you are taking a bigger risk because the consequences to you are more severe, after all you can't take money away from a beggar that has none.

Back to my original point, the BSA and their ilk are there to make sure the people who DO buy the product continue to do so rather than try and cut corners. They make the big noise about lost revenue because they need those figures to make sure they can convince governments to keep the consequences harsh.

Brick and mortar game retailers have been the architects of their own demise on this one. For years they have devoted the majority of their stores to the various different console platforms and their customers upped sticks and left. I've watched the PC section in my local Game store go from 8 panels back in the days of the XBox and Playstation to 2 panels today. Why would I want to buy a game from a store like this? The choice is more or less limited to the latest chart games and new releases. Steam lets me choose from a vast catalogue and find the games I want to play. The convenience of the games stores was their main driving force, if I wanted a game I had only to go into town and buy it. It was faster than Steam and you also got a nice box and manual, or at least you used to. These days if you want a boxed PC game you have to order it online as the local shop won't have it in stock. If you're going to have to order it online, you might as well use Steam, you'll get it faster.

The upgrade route is all well and good, but as you can't upgrade from x86 to x64 then the upgrade route isn't really encouraging people to finally make that leap, something which really should be encouraged for those with capable hardware. Otherwise we're going to find ourselves in the two tier system of DX9 and DX10+ all over again when programs want to take advantage of extra memory.

May I refer you to the case of Arkell v. Pressdram. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Eye#Litigation

That system wouldn't help you I'm afraid. Standard forensics procedure is to make an image of your disk and work off that (to preserve the evidence in the original disk). So if you give them the destruct key they'll just reimage and come talk to you again.

The Judean People's Front?