Tag: copyright

Mac vs Pc: Who stole from who more?

The rap on Microsoft is that they started out stealing from Apple and continue to look out their Windows onto the Apple orchard for things to take and implement into their own products. The worst and most obvious example is the Zune. I mean, comethefuckON Microsoft… MP3 players existed for a few years before the iPod and Microsoft didn’t want in until Apple revolutionized the market with something unique and game changing. Instead of entering with something also unique and game changing, the Zune was a straight up clone of the iPod complete with click wheel. Apple responded by immediately dropping the click wheel format, making it obsolete and punking Microsoft – a move siblings have been using for decades (“younger sister trying to copy you? completely change your style so all the things she bought to look like you no longer look like you. take THAT, bitch”).

But going back to the basics: isn’t it true that Microsoft stole the start of Apple and built a billion dollar corporation on it? For the answer, I turn to Hollywood. I skimmed the the made for tv movie The Pirates of Silicone Valley a few years ago and it appears to conclude that Steve Jobs got punked by a crafty Bill Gates.

The reason I’m writing this article however is that I saw this slideshow of Top 10 features that Apple stole from Windows.

Not all of these are steals. some of these things were just computer things that the Windows operating system made popular and then mac adopted. like how Microsoft “stole” the mouse. Apple didnt invent the computer mouse but no one used them in their hardware besides like…idk…NASA until apple started manufacturing them. Some in the list seem like stretches to label as stolen. like “control panel“. Apple had separate control panels, named as such, fist – then Microsoft stole the name and put them in one area – then Apple let Microsoft have the name and put their control panels into one System Preferences window. That’s marked as Apple stealing from Micro. and that’s a stretch.

Some might be valid steals that i guess that i didnt really think about before because i grew up using Windows first before i joined the cult of fruit but it still comes off as a little weak only because the features seem more common and not Microsoft-exclusive. Things you’d find in video game menu’s or software across all platforms or in Linux or in movies where they’re faking an operating system. but those are most likely Microsoft imitations as well, so it’s not really a valid argument. There is a Top 10 features Microsoft stole from Mac OS X too.

The recent copies are what I noticed, because Windows Vista came out right when I made the switch to using Apple for my main computing needs and I was just like “whoah… really??”

Steve Jobs on the trouble with Microsoft:


and yet…

Why do we STILL have to sit through FBI warnings on DVDs?

A writer sends this to Tech columnist David Pogue and it says it all. There is nothing to add. There can be nothing to add. I can’t, Pogue can’t – this sums up the insanity pretty perfectly:

Why, why, why is it still necessary for every single DVD that I buy to have the F.B.I. warning at the beginning? Why can’t they just put the warning on the DVD box? Oh wait— they already do. So why, EVERY TIME I want to watch a movie or TV show that I legitimately purchased, do I have to spend 30 seconds being told yet again that, if I choose to copy the DVD, the F.B.I. is going to come after me?

It’s an odd way of saying, “Thanks for buying this DVD.”

Incidentally, I live in Canada. The F.B.I. can’t do anything to me anyway. Still, the warning is on every disc I buy.

VHS tapes had this warning, too, but at least you could fast-forward through it. With DVDs, you can’t skip or even fast-forward through the warning. You have to watch it every single time you watch the disc. Click Menu during the warning, and you’re told that “this operation is not available.” If I fall asleep watching a movie, and the DVD player shuts itself off, I have to watch the warning all over again. If I buy a DVD set of a 24-episode TV show, I have to watch the warning 24 times (unless I watch multiple episodes in one sitting).

It’s a good thing the music industry doesn’t do the same thing. Imagine if every time you wanted to listen to a CD or a song from iTunes, you had to sit through an announcement about the consequences of illegal sharing.

Okay, I exaggerated the “no more to say” part cuz Pogue does add this bit which I’ve been saying for at least a decade:

I don’t understand why some movie studio doesn’t decide to become the Good Guys of the industry. Get rid of all those annoyances, all the lawyer-driven absurdities, and market the heck out of it. Be like the breath-of-fresh air new airline (as JetBlue was in its day) or cellphone company (like T-Mobile, the only company that drops your monthly rate after you’ve repaid the subsidy on your phone). Dare to be different — and win a lot of customer loyalty as a result.