joel_ms

Copyright is the monopoly here. It's an exclusive right to control the distribution of a particular work. The onerous contract is what transfers the monopoly from the artist to the record company.

The problem is the cumulative power that the big four record companies wield, due to the sheer amount of rights they control. It allows then to arbitrarily dictate prices and conditions, because if you don't accept their terms, they can lock you out from their entire catalog. Since they have exclusive rights, no one can start a competing service with more favorable terms or a more economical business model. Which is why these four even have the ability to try to keep their pre-digital business model. If there was any real competition here (not saying I have an answer to how that would work), these companies would have been ground into dust ten years ago. Instead they have manage to either litigate away or drown in fees, any possible successor to their antiquated way of distributing music.

There are of course independent labels, free music, creative commons and so on, but that's competing distribution models for the artist, and offers no possibility for the consumer to "vote with his money". The only choice is to get a different album/song from a different artist, which doesn't make much sense to me. If I want to listen to "The Chronic" by Dr. Dre, I might also want to listen to "Illmatic" by Nas, but they're not interchangeable competing goods in a free market.

You did start the comment with "My reaction is: so?", a statement seemingly directed at the actual content of the article, not the (largely irrelevant in the context of the article) content of the button.

People got confused by your somewhat unclear (at least to some people), off-topic comment, and you started ranting about people not using their brains, lacking reading comprehension, being lazy and small-minded.

Wouldn't it suffice to point out that you were commenting on the content of the button, without attacking the people confused by the comment?

Kinda. Apple require in-app subscriptions prices to be the same or less than what the subscription costs if bought elsewhere.

A possible solution could be to offer a separately priced subscription for people who want iOS access in addition to what's normally provided, and then keep the prices consistent in-app and outside. But I'm not sure how Apple would feel about a solution like that, it would be the closest thing to an explicit Apple tax we've seen, and it directly hurts the consumer (which Apple seem to care more about than hurting developers/"app store-vendors").

They actually state both "same (or better) offer" and "same price or less" (just not what I wrote :P).

But I still think the idea is to avoid what would be perceived as an Apple tax when buying subscriptions in-app.

The guidelines stipulate that the in-app price must be the same or less than your regular offer.

(You could possibly have a separate offer with iOS availability at a price that compensates for Apple's cut, which means you would get Apple's cut from everyone buying iOS availability outside the app.)

>My only point: pirating is not a valid form of protest, because it is actually about you satisfying your wants.

How does the second follow from the first?

I'm reluctant to pay for music when I know that a large portion of the money is going towards the record industry, which essentially means that I'm contributing to efforts like ACTA, IPRED, attacks on net neutrality and the gradual shift to blaming the ISPs. To me this is far worse to society than anything allegedly caused by piracy.

Considering how little money the average artist get from record sales, I would rather protest the record companies by pirating the music and spending money directly on the artists through live venues and merchandise.

"Norwegian universities and state university colleges as a rule do not charge tuition fees for international students. However, you should take into consideration that living expenses in Norway are higher than in many other countries." http://studyinnorway.no/sn/Tuition-Scholarships

You do need a student visa, and there are other requirements pertaining to language and bringing the student up to par with what Norwegians learn in secondary school. (As I understand it, our last year of upper secondary school (videregående) is more similar to what is taught freshman year at an American College.)