Apple TV now available for preorder, first deliveries arrive Friday

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  • Reply 141 of 173
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    rogifan wrote: »
    Why did Apple need Beats? I think they easily could have stood up a good streaming music service without spending $3B on Jimmy Iovine.

    You think.
  • Reply 142 of 173
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    sog35 wrote: »
    You are missing my point.

    Apple bought back about 12% of the shares.
    They can easily issue those 12% again.

    They do this by employee compensation and buying companies with shares.

    So Apple bought 12% of the company with shares costing about $85.
    Now they can issue shares at $110+ for employee comp and buying companies.

    They will likely issue some shares foe employees. But the entire point of retiring such a vast amount of shares was to increase equity per share. You can bet that they will not issue anywhere near that number, just a fe tens of millions worth, assuming they need them.

    But Apple can't issue share just sit like that. They need permission of shareholders.
  • Reply 143 of 173
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    It must be kinda vexing that the stock market doesn't follow your cute rules of thumb, eh?

    Value (stock price) is a function of two things: profits (EPS) and P/E. The latter, in turn, is  function of the market's perception of Apple's growth opportunities. So, even if profits go up, but for whatever reason, the market's perception of Apple's ability to create value from future growth dims, value will not go up to the same extent that profit does.

    I personally think that companies such as Google, Amazon, and Tesla do a really good job of managing market perceptions, and that Apple could be doing a better job (spare me the brickbats: yes, I mean you @Slurpy). That has to start with managing information flows better. There is no other way around it. It's more than a call to Jim Cramer about China (which, btw, was a wonderful and important thing to do).

    That's exactly right, and it's something I keep trying to explain to people. It's why Amazon has such a crazy P/E. Bezos is great at convincing Wall Street that major profits are just around the corner (they're not).
  • Reply 144 of 173
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    I keep asking, and no one seems to know... is there a case that settles this? If so, can you provide a link?

    This is settled. There is no question about it.

    http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/technology/articles/2009/09/30/is-it-legal-to-copy-a-dvd

    This PS4 is a very good introduction to copyright law and history. I highly recommend it:

    https://www.publicknowledge.org/files/CopiesRightsCopyrightsPKThinks2013.pdf


    I took this from the PDFs above:

    "33 RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia Sys., 180 F.3d 1072, 1079 (9th Cir. 1999). “The Rio merely makes copies in order to render portable, or “space-shift,” those files that already reside on a user’s hard drive. Such copying is paradigmatic noncommercial personal use entirely consistent with the purpos- es of the Act.”.
    34 Arguing for the recording industry before the Supreme Court, Donald Verrilli conceded that ripping audio CDs into mp3s was likely a fair use: “The record companies, my clients, have said, for some time now, and it’s been on their Website for some time now, that it’s perfectly lawful to take a CD that you’ve purchased, upload it onto your computer, put it onto your iPod. There is a very, very significant lawful commercial use for that device, going forward.” Transcript of Oral Argument at 12, MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. 545 U.S. 913 (2005). Later statements from the industry, though, have attempted to back away from this. See, e.g. Ryan Singel, RIAA Believes MP3s Are a Crime: Why This Matters, Wired Threat Level, Jan. 9, 2008, http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/01/riaa-believes-m/."
  • Reply 145 of 173
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    alandail wrote: »

    Why should a buy back make the company worth more?  if anything, a buyback on it's own makes the company itself worth less since those bought back shares don't count in the market cap and the money spent is gone.  It's those profits that helped the company offset that and maintain it's market cap.  And it's not like the company hasn't been worth more during that period, it was worth 700 billion easier this year.  Stock prices fluctuation for many reasons.

    The theory behind it is that with fewer shares, each share is worth more, so the share price will rise to meet that higher level of worth. In actually, it doesn't really work. Those who benefit from this mostly consist of those who bought at a drop in price, and who sell as the shares go up briefly at the announcement of the buyback, or when it occurs.

    So for Apple, its shares had dropped because of a slight drop in profits for the year, two years ago, and with few new product announcements, it was believed by these investors that Apple's growth had mostly ended. As P/E reflects what investors think WILL happen, rather than what is happening in the present, the shares dropped quite a bit.

    So Apple began to offer huge buybacks with the encouragement of large investors. The price began to rise significantly. But not as a resu,t of the buybacks, but as a result of rising salea and profits, with the result of investors again thinking that Apple's future was better than they had thought.

    Now,, it's believed that iPhones sales will be flat, iPad sales will continue to drop, Apple Watch sales aren't known, and so some think the worst, and a small supplier,s sales went up "only" 18%, so the thought is that Apple's sales won't be as good as thought.

    Apple better really beat the street tonight. They also need to offer good guidence. If not, the stock will drop.
  • Reply 146 of 173
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    sdbryan wrote: »

    What nonsense. Stealing the discs from a store would be illegal. But buying them and watching the content in the privacy of your own home however you wish to do so could only be considered illegal by someone drinking an unhealthy dose of the koolaid. I know the media conglomerates have been trying to buy such laws from compliant legislators, but I don't know of any dreadful results so far. There is even a company (kaleidescape) that makes a device that handles DVD's and now BluRay discs by putting them on a massive server. Many Hollywood big names have the device in their homes. There will always be greedy people trying to buy laws to prop up their failing business model. That doesn't mean we have to treat their claims with undeserved respect.

    Whether you like it or not, it is illegal. There have been court case involving copying to servers, in ththe case of DVDs, and the cases went against the server manufacturers. Read the PDF I linked to above. It will explain a lot to you, including the history of first sale, and what it really means.
  • Reply 147 of 173
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by melgross View Post



    This is settled. There is no question about it.



    http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/technology/articles/2009/09/30/is-it-legal-to-copy-a-dvd



    This PS4 is a very good introduction to copyright law and history. I highly recommend it:



    https://www.publicknowledge.org/files/CopiesRightsCopyrightsPKThinks2013.pdf





    I took this from the PDFs above:



    "33 RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia Sys., 180 F.3d 1072, 1079 (9th Cir. 1999). “The Rio merely makes copies in order to render portable, or “space-shift,” those files that already reside on a user’s hard drive. Such copying is paradigmatic noncommercial personal use entirely consistent with the purpos- es of the Act.”.

    34 Arguing for the recording industry before the Supreme Court, Donald Verrilli conceded that ripping audio CDs into mp3s was likely a fair use: “The record companies, my clients, have said, for some time now, and it’s been on their Website for some time now, that it’s perfectly lawful to take a CD that you’ve purchased, upload it onto your computer, put it onto your iPod. There is a very, very significant lawful commercial use for that device, going forward.” Transcript of Oral Argument at 12, MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. 545 U.S. 913 (2005). Later statements from the industry, though, have attempted to back away from this. See, e.g. Ryan Singel, RIAA Believes MP3s Are a Crime: Why This Matters, Wired Threat Level, Jan. 9, 2008, http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/01/riaa-believes-m/."

    The first link says: "So it's illegal to copy a DVD? Interestingly, no. Judges have said that consumers have a right to copy a DVD for their own use—say, for backing it up to another disk or perhaps watching it on another device, such as an iPod. That's the same "fair use" rule that made it legal to tape television shows for watching later, perhaps on a different TV. The problem is that consumers can't duplicate DVDs without software tools that get around the copy protection on those disks. It is those tools that Congress outlawed."

     

    So, it's still confusing to me (or I am dense). It's OK to copy a DVD, but not using an 'outlawed' tool to decrypt? But since you can't copy a DVD without said 'outlawed tool, it is de facto illegal? Yet, the first part of the answer is, "interestingly, no"!?

  • Reply 148 of 173
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post





    This is settled. There is no question about it.



    http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/technology/articles/2009/09/30/is-it-legal-to-copy-a-dvd



    This PS4 is a very good introduction to copyright law and history. I highly recommend it:



    https://www.publicknowledge.org/files/CopiesRightsCopyrightsPKThinks2013.pdf





    I took this from the PDFs above:



    "33 RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia Sys., 180 F.3d 1072, 1079 (9th Cir. 1999). “The Rio merely makes copies in order to render portable, or “space-shift,” those files that already reside on a user’s hard drive. Such copying is paradigmatic noncommercial personal use entirely consistent with the purpos- es of the Act.”.

    34 Arguing for the recording industry before the Supreme Court, Donald Verrilli conceded that ripping audio CDs into mp3s was likely a fair use: “The record companies, my clients, have said, for some time now, and it’s been on their Website for some time now, that it’s perfectly lawful to take a CD that you’ve purchased, upload it onto your computer, put it onto your iPod. There is a very, very significant lawful commercial use for that device, going forward.” Transcript of Oral Argument at 12, MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. 545 U.S. 913 (2005). Later statements from the industry, though, have attempted to back away from this. See, e.g. Ryan Singel, RIAA Believes MP3s Are a Crime: Why This Matters, Wired Threat Level, Jan. 9, 2008, http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/01/riaa-believes-m/."

     

    That case doesn't have anything to do with the DMCA because the media in question had no DRM to circumvent.  Or do the PDFs talk about something else, your quote talks about CDs.

  • Reply 149 of 173
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by melgross View Post





    The theory behind it is that with fewer shares, each share is worth more, so the share price will rise to meet that higher level of worth. In actually, it doesn't really work. Those who benefit from this mostly consist of those who bought at a drop in price, and who sell as the shares go up briefly at the announcement of the buyback, or when it occurs.

    Apple better really beat the street tonight. They also need to offer good guidence. If not, the stock will drop.

     

    That is what happened, though.  While the company is worth the same, the individual shares are worth significantly more. Which is why I don't understand what sog35 is complaining about (which isn't the first time).

  • Reply 150 of 173
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sog35 View Post

     

     

    Yet Microsoft showed a 13% drop in revenue and the stock exploded 10%

    Yet Google provided ZERO guidance and the stock exploded 10%

     

    No matter what Apple does it can drop. Its total and utter bullshit. 


     

    Apple is the most valuable company in the world.  Their stock clearly hasn't always dropped.  Here's a chart from earlier this year.

     

    image 

     

    and a 10 year comparison of the performance of Apple, Google and Microsoft from earlier this year

     

    image

  • Reply 151 of 173
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anantksundaram View Post

     

    The first link says: "So it's illegal to copy a DVD? Interestingly, no. Judges have said that consumers have a right to copy a DVD for their own use—say, for backing it up to another disk or perhaps watching it on another device, such as an iPod. That's the same "fair use" rule that made it legal to tape television shows for watching later, perhaps on a different TV. The problem is that consumers can't duplicate DVDs without software tools that get around the copy protection on those disks. It is those tools that Congress outlawed."

     

    So, it's still confusing to me (or I am dense). It's OK to copy a DVD, but not using an 'outlawed' tool to decrypt? But since you can't copy a DVD without said 'outlawed tool, it is de facto illegal? Yet, the first part of the answer is, "interestingly, no"!?


     

    It pretty much comes down to if it has encryption or not.

     

    If a movie studio put out a DVD/Blu-Ray/digital copy, etc without any encryption on it, you would be free to copy it for your own use as you want.  You still wouldn't be able to sell those copies, upload them to the internet, etc.  They would only be for your use while you own the disc.  If you sell the original disc you are supposed to delete any and all copies you made.

     

    If a movie studio puts encryption on their DVD/BluRay, digital copy etc. it is illegal for you to circumvent that copy protection to make a copy.  Also, according to the Kaleidescape case it is even illegal for you to make a bit for bit copy of the disc including the copy protection.

     

    Pretty much all commercial DVD/Blu-Ray/Digital copies have encryption on them, so you can't legally copy them.

  • Reply 152 of 173
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    sog35 wrote: »
    If Apple is really serious about going private they would stop the buyback and hoard their cash.  If they stop the buyback they would have about $350 billion in cash in a couple of years.

    To go private the buyers don't need to buy ALL the shares.  Only the shares of stockholders that want to sell.  IMO, most won't want to sell because they know the stock is undervalued.  The steps to go private are very simple.

    1. Stop buyback and hoard cash for the next 3 years.
    2. This will probably cause the stock to fall. Which is good for going private.
    3. Take a vote to going private.
    4. Shareholder have the option to sell their shares at a 35% premium.
    5. If Shareholders don't want to sell they can have their public shares converted to private share.
    6. IMO a small percentage will elect to sell their shares ( 15-25% will choose to sell)
    7. With $350 billion Apple can easily buyout the shareholders that want to sell.

    Now here's the tricky part.

    8. Apple will hire several large mutual funds to 'buy' the remaining shares ( 85-75% shares) for $500-$600 billion. Please note these mutual funds don't actual have to come up with $600 billion. They will simply act as a trust to convert the shares from public to private. They would be acting like an escrow account.
    9. At that point Apple would have gone private, taken off of the public stock market.
    10. Immediately after this the mutual funds would 'sell' the shares to the shareholders who choose to convert their shares to public shares.
    11. On the stockholder books the owners of record would be a couple dozen mutual funds. But their would be thousands of 'shareholders' who invest in these mutual funds.

    You can't actually do it that way, but ok.
  • Reply 153 of 173
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    sog35 wrote: »
    They don't need permission.

    They are authorized to issue 3 billion additional shares according to the SEC report.  Look at Google.  They have issued millions of shares the last 5 years without authorization from shareholders.

    That's not true. All share issuance must be approved by shareholders. Google has a limited class of shares that the "owners" hold, and so they can do what other companies without that dual structure can't.mmapple received permission for that already.
  • Reply 154 of 173
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    sog35 wrote: »
    Yet Microsoft showed a 13% drop in revenue and the stock exploded 10%
    Yet Google provided ZERO guidance and the stock exploded 10%

    No matter what Apple does it can drop. Its total and utter bullshit. 

    Microsoft showed that the initiatives in the cloud were growing at a high rate, which was higher than exp cited. I think that their poor performance in other areas has already been discounted.

    As far as Google goes, right now, they're the darling. But rememberer that for years, their stocks performance wasn't anything to write home about. It took some time for that.
  • Reply 155 of 173
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    The first link says: "So it's illegal to copy a DVD? Interestingly, no. Judges have said that consumers have a right to copy a DVD for their own use—say, for backing it up to another disk or perhaps watching it on another device, such as an iPod. That's the same "fair use" rule that made it legal to tape television shows for watching later, perhaps on a different TV. The problem is that consumers can't duplicate DVDs without software tools that get around the copy protection on those disks. It is those tools that Congress outlawed."

    So, it's still confusing to me (or I am dense). It's OK to copy a DVD, but not using an 'outlawed' tool to decrypt? But since you can't copy a DVD without said 'outlawed tool, it is de facto illegal? Yet, the first part of the answer is, "interestingly, no"!?

    It's still illegal to break the encryption. But really, it's up to the Librarian of Congress to make the decision, not a judge.
  • Reply 156 of 173
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    alandail wrote: »
    That case doesn't have anything to do with the DMCA because the media in question had no DRM to circumvent.  Or do the PDFs talk about something else, your quote talks about CDs.

    Are you following the discussion? That reply was referring to why CDs can be copied.
  • Reply 157 of 173
    msanttimsantti Posts: 1,377member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by melgross View Post





    Are you following the discussion? That reply was referring to why CDs can be copied.

    How is this evn a discussion of Apple TV.

     

    Holy off topic Batman!

  • Reply 158 of 173
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by sdbryan View Post

     

    I know the media conglomerates have been trying to buy such laws from compliant legislators, but I don't know of any dreadful results so far. There is even a company (kaleidescape) that makes a device that handles DVD's and now BluRay discs by putting them on a massive server. Many Hollywood big names have the device in their homes.


     

    Not only has "Big Media" been trying to buy laws, they have been successful. Hence the dreadful DMCA which makes breaking encryption illegal.

     

    Any DVD or Blu-Ray player obviously needs to decrypt the disk while playing it. The license requires legal players to have the disk in the player. This disallows any system that can rip the disk, let the user remove the disk, and then play the video later. Kaleidescape sidesteps the copying issue, the disk server has a "vault" that you put the disk in, it copies the disk image, and then "stores" the disk in the vault. You can only play a video if the corresponding disk is still in the vault. (It might not be playing from the disk, but the disk is in the player!) If you remove the disk (i.e., lend it to a friend), you cannot watch the video until it is put back. The benefits are pretty minimal, and IMO only viable for wealthy videophiles (the aforementioned Hollywood big names).

  • Reply 159 of 173

    Quote:

     

    ...so I'm not feeling guilty...

    regardless its still illegal.  You broke incryption which is illegal.  



    He said he's not feeling guilty.  You're arguing legality; he's arguing conscience.  

  • Reply 160 of 173
    sdbryansdbryan Posts: 351member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post





    Whether you like it or not, it is illegal. There have been court case involving copying to servers, in ththe case of DVDs, and the cases went against the server manufacturers. Read the PDF I linked to above. It will explain a lot to you, including the history of first sale, and what it really means.



    This gets close to the crux of the matter. The Constitution provides for a mechanism for a limited period monopoly to encourage the production of works that eventually enrich the public domain. Using encryption to lock up copyrighted products and then pass laws to make decryption illegal is just a way to make a mockery of the intent of the Constitution. I know that they have sued some companies out of existence and create ongoing legal expenses for companies like Kaleidescape. As a result, their schemes deserve no respect and I offer none. It is all just too corrupt.

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