Man you got took. It happens. My father once bought a TV on the street in the Bronx and the box just had a couple of bricks. He didn't go around asking strangers to help get his money back.
You gave money to a child for a watch you never saw. You got the watch and didn't like the long wait or the quality of the watch. I don't think that's fraud.
It's very immoral to benefit from the utilities, roads, emergency services, etc provided for by tax money and work very hard to not contribute.
Think starting a business is hard? Try starting a business without any infrastructure.
What's worse is that companies like Walmart get cities and towns to build infra to new Walmart locations and funnel lots of the money away from the areas that provide the infra.
"Why do we convince our selves that these types of drastic measures are worth the capital we expend to make them happen."
My cynical guess? Wealthy people with liberal guilt. As for the companies, more eyeballs == more money.
I agree with you. It's hard to force this. If the underlying infrastructure is lacking (clean water, food, medicine, clothing, safety) then the internet isn't going to take hold.
If the core infra is already in place, they're likely already working on bringing the net in.
I think that's the point. If you only expect to make 500K* from album sales, it makes sense to sell a single copy for 500K to a wealthy fan and let the content leak out to other fans.
Same pay, less work and more happy fans.
* - I don't really know what the numbers are. 500K is just an example.
My guess is that they were being asked by bloggers, journalists, etc who were coming in for SXSW and thought it would be easier to put out an online statement to direct people to.
I don't think this is a high priority for APD.
I don't see the big deal really. I've lived in Austin since 2005 and I've never used a cab service here. They seem pretty useless in this city IMO.
I should also mention that I'm not a fan of Uber. I've been with friends and coworkers using it in San Francisco and always I see 3-4 available yellow cabs go by while we wait for our driver.
I'm in San Fran 1 week a month and when I'm by myself, I just take yellow cabs. They seem to work OK for me.
Perhaps it's a form of copy protection but IMO, without it being digital, DRM isn't possible.
I did purchase this book because the last version has so many good reviews and I too would have preferred a digital copy but to me, calling it DRM is technically incorrect and smells like bait. I'm mostly disappointed that I fell for it.