Ciao,
James
Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Programming a computer is as hard for most musicians as playing guitar is for you. There's nothing special about it.
In other words, even for most people who develop this specialization, it's still a losing economic proposition. Sounds like de-valuing it further isn't likely to make things any better.
Giving something away doesn't devalue it at all. In many cases it makes the thing more precious; a Christmas gift from a loved one is far more valuable than the same object if you'd bought it yourself.
It doesn't hurt a musician a bit to spread his music around, unless he sucks at it. Nobody ever went hungry from piracy, but many have starved from obscurity. Read the forward to Cory Doctorow's best selling novel Little Brother. You can buy it at Amazon or Barnes, read a copy checked out of the library for free, or just go to his web site, he has all his books posted there, for free. Because he understands (and explains) that getting your stuff in front of people is the only way to make money off of it.
The more you give the more you get. If I hear a great song I'm going to look for another one. Two great songs? Time to buy the album. Read a great library book? Time to buy another one from that author.
If all you're about is money, stay away from art. Even though art costs money, the two should never be together. You may make money making art, but you can't make art by trying to make money.
Agree that he should sue, but he should get back more than what he put into it, without knowing the specifics I can't say he should get 166 million, but if it was posted on the machine that the max jackpot was 166 million he should get it. It is the responsibility of the casino to ensure their machines work. However if the maximum jackpot listed on the machine was 99K then that's what he should get, as that is the max amount that he had a reasonable expectation to win.
Ok, let's apply this logic to the real world on a bigger level.
Some would say the US supports thermonuclear war because it has missiles. The obvious way to show support for world peace would be to get rid of our nukes, right?
When you understand that, you will understand why OIN, Redhat, and others have large patent portfolios and actively purchase them even though they have no intention of ever enforcing them against the average schmuck.
skype on windows has become a piece of shit! The linux version does everything except for SMS messages and hasn't become a UI nightmare. let's keep it that way
That all depends on your industry/area of research.
ah, i see, it depends on your niche...
I tried to post the above in Chrome but it failed to work. The Submit button just kept on saying to try again later. So I then tried in Safari. The Submit button still did not work but it did display a countdown. This countdown was not visible in the Mac version of Chrome.
So I guess I'm saying that if you use the Mac version be prepared for some issues.
1 Mole = 007 Secret Agents