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Except that is not at all close to what happened here. If you follow the frigging hypertext reference trail (FTFHTRT, pronounced "fit fa hit rit"), you will read that the girl

admitted to using KaZaA as well as downloading and sharing music over the P2P network, but said she didn't realize what she was doing was wrong.

So she admitted to knowingly sharing files over the Internet; she just thought it was legal to do so.

So, as I characterized earlier, her "innocent infringement" defense was nothing more than "I didn't know what I was knowingly doing was against the law."

You are so naive. The internet providers will sue your city and lobby the legislature to ban cities and counties from "competing" with them even when they refuse to provide the service themselves. http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2010/07/north-carolina-kills-moratorium-on-muni-broadband.ars In this link there was a small victory, but the battle is far from over. Note the states - VA, PA and NV that have defacto bands on city/county internet. These guys enjoy being monopolies without fulfilling the responsibilities that go with it. They've even successfully argued both sides of the common carrier tag - I can choose what content to transport, but don't hold me responsible for any of it. Where there are monopolies and the market has high barriers to entry such as this one - it needs government regulation. You could argue that the cable distribution network should be spun off as a regulated monopoly and then let all the ISPs share its use and compete freely and I'd agree with you, but that's not happening.

No I have just read through the cases and can see that they did not target p2p pirates at random. It makes sense to go after the heaviest p2p pirates first and that is what they did.

But I can provide links if you would like. Take the case of Tenenbaum who admitted to having 800 files in his shared Kazaa folder but was only prosecuted for 30. It's just a legal strategy to focus on a subset of files.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/tenenbaum-takes-the-stand-i-used-p2p-and-lied-about-it.ars

I don't work for the RIAA, I'm just intellectually honest. Sorry if that bothers you.

for sharing 572 tracks on the P2P network, including tracks by 50 Cent and Usher. After Crain denied engaging in file-sharing and rejected the RIAA's $4,500 prelitigation settlement offer, the RIAA filed suit. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2007/12/riaa-versus-grandma-part-ii-the-showdown-that-wasnt.ars

Sharing 572 tracks with the world != downloading a couple songs. Her name was tied to the Kazaa account as well.

Bullshit.

BSOD on a Mac almost always means there's a hardware problem, usually RAM. Knowing graphic designers, I'm sure your friend bought the cheapest RAM possible and it's now giving him issues.

And, no, it's not pretty standard in the Mac world. I regularly service people still running hardware 7+ years old, with equivalent OS and it still lets them work every day. Most of the time, they just want me to make their computer faster. Which is hard with 7+ yr old hardware...

And most people still run WinXP, which still regularly gives BSODs, especially when it's virus infected.
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/04/windows-7-surpasses-10-market-share.ars

don't knock QT Quick so quickly :)

ahem, ok - I read this article on ArsTechnica about QML, the author describes an app he's written that was partically all QML and "It was a weekend project that required surprisingly little effort. These kinds of applications are trivially easy to make with Qt.

Ok, he hasn't done the full write up yet, but there's enough tease in that article to make you think QT is going places.

The Android platform is quite fragmented (many forks, without source available), because so many vendors have had so many different phones and they've generally all made CLOSED proprietary changes. The Apache license doesn't require the carriers to make their user-space code available to users or Google or anyone. (The Linux part is still GPLed, but that is only part of Android).

http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2007/11/why-google-chose-the-apache-software-license-over-gplv2.ars

Users generally have crippled control of their devices since generally only the carrier has the source to what they're using. Building from other source is possible, but will likely introduce other problems and cause loss of features added by the carrier. It's not the same as with the many Linux distributions because those generally each have the full source available.

Some carriers wouldn't like the openness, but if Google switched to the GPL for future releases, users could likely see community fixes/enhancements long after the carriers moved on.

Carriers CAN release under the GPL. Users should demand it. The current situation also makes it unlikely that work done by each carrier will go upstream to improve things for everyone.

Ars summed it up nicely, their launch numbers are not as bad as some are making it sound, certainly not horrible Windows phone 7 launch numbers explained.

They have a lot to add to this new OS to catch the competition, but they know that, they simply had to ship. Overall it is a very well laid out OS with some great ideas. In the big picture the smartphone market is still very young. Microsoft has a lot of talented people, and backed into a corner Balmer might just let them perform. It is way too early to start pointing fingers and snickering.

Indeed.

EU parliament http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/09/european-parliament-passes-anti-acta-declaration.ars

Hmm, no mod points today for me. Otherwise +1 Informative.

Even more insidious is the claim made here at Groklaw that Microsoft never actually transferred the copyrights in Xenix to SCO. Now that Novell is pretty clearly the owner of the copyrights to SVR4 UNIX®, how much of *nix does Microsoft own now, or at least litigate over?

It's not hard to imagine a scenario where Google+Android is the target of choice here.

What I'm wondering is, are they going to have some sort of compatibility testing done, to ensure that the app will actually run on the phone? Rovio's going to develop a lightweight version of Angry Birds for slower phones; will there be some way of automatically testing the phone to see if it's compatible, or will there just be a whole load of programs that you'll never know if you can run or not? If it's the later, I can't see this venture being very successful.

Protip: If you want to avoid blackmail, avoiding doing overtly illegal things is probably a good place to start. Especially overtly illegal things that have enormous civil penalties.

Overtly illegal? Like operating a bit-torrent tracker, or downloading from peers connected to said trackers?

MediaDefender mistakenly attacked Revision3's legitimate bit-torrent tracker.

It's not "avoid doing overtly illegal things", but instead, "avoid using technology that big corporations don't like, and the courts and juries don't understand".

You can use the defense: Guns aren't only used to kill people, just because I have a pistol doesn't mean I kill people; It's a much easier defense than: Torrents aren't only used to download content illegally, just because I use torrents doesn't mean I commit copyright infringement.

You can use the defense: The bank-robbers asked me for directions to the bank, they didn't look like bad people to me so I gave them directions. It's not my fault the bank got robbed, I didn't help rob a bank!
A much more difficult defense: We only tell downloaders where the content is, we can't tell by IP if it's illegal for them to download the content, we assume they are innocent unless proven guilty. It's not my fault someone else committed copyright infringement, we don't actually help them copy the data!

Judges and jurors understand guns and maps; They don't understand torrents, trackers, transient IP addresses, etc.

Proof is only valuable to those who understand the nature of the evidence.

Education is the answer. I would like Judges and Jurors to have to take a quick quiz on the basic technology in use in these types of trials. Fail the test, you're not qualified to make a judgment.

IMO, the important thing about this article is they finally reveal the source document their claims came from. This is important, especially because of the kind of comments the last Ars Technica article about this lawsuit had.

I guess it would be a quick way to add storage to a server that has a bunch of unused memory sockets. And the design uses off-the-shelf components which is always nice.

But there was getting to be a need for a proper SSD package, as sticking them inside HDD housings was both limiting and an inefficient use of space. Viking's solution probably won't take off, though, since Apple/PhotoFast/Toshiba just stole their thunder.

No that's not what he said;

Pistole said he "understood" the concern (and he added that children under 12 weren't subject to the enhanced pat-down). When one senator asked if this "understanding" meant changes were coming, Pistole was direct. "Am I going to change the policies? No." TSA boss: Our pat-downs turn up "artfully concealed objects"

(emphisis mine)
so my understanding is children under 12 will be given the normal pat-down rahter than the enhanced pat-down. These guys are pros at saying things so that you'll believe they said something they didn't.

I just read on Ars that the head of the TSA testified to Congress that children under 12 were not subject to enhanced pat-downs. I'm shocked, shocked to find that he may have been lying!

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/11/tsa-boss-our-patdowns-turn-up-artfully-concealed-objects.ars

Wrong. They chose to respond to piracy with DRM. It has been showed repeatedly that even in the time of internet file sharing, DRM-free content sells better than their counterparts.

"The stupid response to X caused Y" does not mean "X caused Y"

Building this map may result in the shortening of the life span of the universe.

Although Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) document format became an ISO standard two years ago, the company still hasn't built any software that truly complies with the standard.

Maybe it's fixed now in MS Office 2010, that article was from April 2010 after all.
IMHO it was a very appropriate "lol" :-)

Of course, if you buy Android you'll be using the extremely standards-compliant WebKit engine Apple put together to view the HTML5 content that Apple has been pushing over proprietary Flash/Applet models...

Unless of course you install Firefox or Opera:

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/reviews/2010/11/hands-on-latest-firefox-mobile-beta-is-svelte-and-smooth.ars
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/11/hands-on-opera-mobile-101-beta-for-android-a-smooth-ride.ars

Personally, I use Firefox 4 on my Nokia N900. You can't install Firefox or full Opera on the iPhone which is one of the great evils of Apple.

Of course, if you buy Android you'll be using the extremely standards-compliant WebKit engine Apple put together to view the HTML5 content that Apple has been pushing over proprietary Flash/Applet models...

Unless of course you install Firefox or Opera:

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/reviews/2010/11/hands-on-latest-firefox-mobile-beta-is-svelte-and-smooth.ars
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/11/hands-on-opera-mobile-101-beta-for-android-a-smooth-ride.ars

Personally, I use Firefox 4 on my Nokia N900. You can't install Firefox or full Opera on the iPhone which is one of the great evils of Apple.

Yeah, and the EU is still harassing them about it to this day. Here's a hint - the EU doesn't require Apple to have a ballot for *it's* browser, only MS.

First and foremost... by "cacasion" assume you meant "Caucasian", because using the root of "caca" that would be implying you think that robot looked like shit. (I mean this in the most humorous/friendly of ways haha)

Secondly, if you want to know, certain studies have shown that it is easier to recognize people that share (your) same race. It is not racism, it is art...if you were surrounded by people that were purple for most of your life, you'd likely model a purple robot with purple skin and purplish features - it is what you are most familiar with...

Jumping to conclusions and saying that the Japanese creating a Japanese look-alike robot is "self-inflicting" racism seems like a bit of a stretch to me...hell I'd say rather their artists are likely the majority Japanese that's all. America on the other hand generally has a more diverse workplace and may have a more diverse line of robots...if Androids were popular here.

Just my take, that's all.

Iljitsch van Beijnum (the Ars Technica columnist) reported the bug to Apple some time ago. After more then a year, there's been no apparent movement on the issue.

Sure thing. Oh wait, Microsoft already paid it for anyone running a Windows OS. Too bad, so sad... for you.

Microsoft doesn't pay for it. The end user pays for it when they buy a Windows OS. When even Microsoft cries foul over H.264 licencing costs you have to wonder why anyone bothers with it at all:

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/11/microsoft-sues-motorola-over-excessive-wifi-h264-pricing.ars

That's the delightful mess that proprietary codecs bring you. The smart move for Microsoft would be to properly support WebM.

The bug in question is the one reported here; and the problem clearly can't be in Darwin, since command-line programs aren't affected, only Aqua apps. (And apparently the last update did nothing to fix it.)

If you're ok with using a domain that is governed by the rules of a company or government in a foreign country, and you abide by their rules, then what is wrong with that?

Because many people who grab these domains don't understand what "their rules" are, or even that they are dealing with the rules of another country. They just think the TLD sounds cool. And the registrar (who doesn't want to lose a sale) doesn't do anything to explain it to them. Which leads to situations like this.

Have a look:
http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2009/06/10-companies-agree-to-standardized-mobile-phone-charger-in-eu.ars

Not long before that, they've forced mobile providers to drop roaming costs to 70 cent max. Now tell me how bad the government imposed competition and "regulation in general" is.

Replying to myself may be a sign of mental breakdown, but I did want to point out the following web page, listed under Google as having only appeared an hour ago (2300h UTC) stating everything that the main article says, with the addition of:

"Microsoft is not amused by the open source software community's effort to build its own Kinect drivers. The company says that it doesn't condone reverse engineering and has vowed to use technical and legal measures to prevent unauthorized third parties from repurposing the Kinect camera."

There is no attribution and I don't know where they got the statement. I guess as time goes on we'll find out.

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/11/microsoft-not-amused-by-open-source-kinect-drivers.ars

So, I guess I should go buy one.

There are cases of government initiatives working really well though. Take, for example, the anti-currency DRM they have installed in every (?) consumer-grade printing device.

When it *really* matters to them, the government can be highly effective.

Or the dot patterns laid down by color printers as a watermark...

Our typewriters are already registered?

It must be good if Slashdot felt the need to shit on it so quickly just because it's a Microsoft product.

Let's see what a site with quality editorial content says:
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/11/windows-phone-7-already-doomed-dont-let-early-sales-fool-you.ars

Popular students go to more parties, where they can booze, blaze, and bang? Groundbreaking. Even more astounding

On the bright side, the survey found that almost a quarter of students engaged in zero texting (22.5 percent) or social networking (22.2 percent), and that they likewise had better health.

Unpopular kids don't get the chance to play with the cool kids.

Why do we have to worry so much about all Windows software running on Linux?

Windows software doesn't run on the average Mac either - and that hasn't stopped Apple from selling lots and lots of laptops. The US PC market share is over 10% already. Laptops I know is higher but can't get a current figure, in 2007 it was already over 17%. Not bad at all, and they still don't run Windows software.

So obviously running Windows software is not necessary any more. Just make sure you have your own set of software - and that it works well, that's more than good enough. Forget about Windows, just like Windows doesn't run Linux or OS-X applications.

we can thank the EU for that: http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2009/06/10-companies-agree-to-standardized-mobile-phone-charger-in-eu.ars

So, I went and read much of the excellent Ars history, plus other relevant articles.

At no point was the Amiga considered a "huge" commercial success. It was a huge technological success and, at times, a mild commercial success in the home computer market, moreso in Europe than in the U.S. According to the chart here, Amiga appears to have had as much as 5% of the personal computer market at one point. So I'll face-palm myself for being wrong. It did better than I thought. And Commodore may have killed it through bad management, though there were other problems too.

the wiki even points out that the mac had crappy sales in the 80s, and well into the 90s.

Compared to the Amiga, the Mac of the 80s was nothing more than an over priced door step that few really paid any attention to.

I loved the Amiga, but it didn't beat the Mac in market share, even in the '80s.

http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2005/12/total-share.ars/5
http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2005/12/total-share.ars/6

the wiki even points out that the mac had crappy sales in the 80s, and well into the 90s.

Compared to the Amiga, the Mac of the 80s was nothing more than an over priced door step that few really paid any attention to.

I loved the Amiga, but it didn't beat the Mac in market share, even in the '80s.

http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2005/12/total-share.ars/5
http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2005/12/total-share.ars/6

This is why a read a lot of Ars Technica nowadays...

Here is a good article about the original antitrust settlement.

Basically, Intel refuses to license it's new DMI or QPI bus protocols to NVIDIA, so they can no longer make chipsets for intel processors (like nForce). Furthermore, it has been feared that with the push towards systems on chip, that Intel would eliminate the PCI-e bus as well leaving no way for any graphic company to supply a discrete graphics chip for netbook or notebook computers.

Giving away for free??? That's even worse than selling it! http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/11/riaa-giving-music-away-for-free-worse-than-charging-for-it.ars

I tried several sites that I know direct me to mobile versions in both the default browser and Dolphin, including Google, Engadget, and Ars. All of them take me to the desktop version of the page in Firefox.

Odd. If I go to http://arstechnica.com using Firefox 4 beta 2 on my Nokia N900 I get the mobile version of the site automatically.

I invite people to use SysInternals Process Explorer.

I would never invite anyone to use APK ShitWare Garbage 2000+++ or whatever the hell you call it... unless perhaps they enjoy self-inflicted misery or want to try running it in a VM just to see how bad it really is.

For those who aren’t already familiar with APK (sit down, have the kleenex handy... and don’t complain to me later if your face hurts from laughing so much):
APK - The “Ultimate” Collection - mandatory nighttime reading for Ars (or Slashdot) newbies

They're slowing transitioning away from X to Wayland. They're not straight up "dumping" X. It'll be there for quite a few releases. http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/11/linux-beyond-x-shuttleworth-contemplates-wayland.ars

I take it you've played with the new Macbook Air? I'm making this presumption because you're calling it "flimsy", despite the original article stating that the aluminum unibody is extremely solid despite its thinness.

Does it need to make sense to you how regularly someone else needs extra battery life to make it a worthwhile consideration? I don't fly that much so I get by with the 2 or so hours of my 3 year old Macbook Pro. However, if I flew a bit more I'd consider a laptop upgrade to be a worthy purchase, just from the standpoint of being able to get a couple more billable hours in when otherwise I can't. It doesn't take a whole lot of that to pay for a new laptop.

My biggest use for it though would be for the occasional day when I go to a client's office and forget my power adapter at home. Fortunately it doesn't happen much any more since I'm fairly paranoid about it. Plus of course, almost all offices have someone with an Apple laptop these days.

I'm not doubting your story, and it fits pretty well with their overall behaviour, but for interest sake, do you have a citation for that?

Here ya go:

Members of the Canadian Recording Industry Association, including the Big Four (Warner Music Canada, Sony BMG Music Canada, EMI Music Canada, and Universal Music Canada), face the prospect of damages ranging from $50 million up to $6 billion due to their use of artists' music without permission.

That line is in the first paragraph of the ars technica article that explains the whole thing.

Downloaded music, yes. Turned around and sold what they downloaded, no.

Well, as per RIAA lawyers, downloading and giving it away is worse than selling it.

In the end, he said that Thomas-Rasset needed to take responsibility, that she was not the innocent victim she claimed, and that in fact "giving music away for free causes more harm" than charging people for it—at least the real pirates help keep the perceived value of music up.

Quote from: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/11/riaa-giving-music-away-for-free-worse-than-charging-for-it.ars

It actually goes on.

But earlier this year, the judge found that amount to be "monstrous and shocking" and reduced the amount to $54,000. Following that, the RIAA informed Thomas-Rasset that it would accept $25,000--less than half of the court-reduced award--if she agreed to ask the judge to "vacate" his decision, which means removing his decision from the record. Thomas-Rasset rejected that offer almost immediately.

The judge's decision stood as a great precedent.

Therefore, the scumwad MafiAA lawyers tried to extort Thomas to have the judge's decision vacated - essentially, make it invalid so that nobody else the MafiAA extortion racket targets can hold up the judge's decision as precedent against them.

Also:
Updated at 8:20 p.m. PT with comment from Thomas-Rasset attorney, and at 9:10 p.m. to emphasize the illegal sharing aspect of the copyright complaint.

Why is it Cnet doesn't say who told them to do that? Some subhuman MafiAA goon lawyer wants to remain anonymous. How typical of them.

Something about the shear inconsistency of the outcomes tells me how broken this system of courts truly is. It's not based on anything real. It's based on appearances, fuzzy opinions, manipulated interpretations, etc. This woman shared some music over the internet, and they want to financially crucify her. $54,000 thousand would take a lot of people a long time to pay off, let alone $1.5 million. That amount would effectively end her financial life.

The issue here was raised by Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson. To quote Ars' coverage of the case:

Nevertheless, Nesson was given his chance to speak to the judge before jury selection, and he argued for the idea that statutory damages were meant to be decided by judges, who had knowledge of similar judgments and cases, rather than by juries, who would essentially be plucking context-free numbers from the air in most cases. The result: "arbitrary, excessive verdicts."

Nesson's evidence was simple to understand. Look at Thomas-Rasset ($1.92 million) and Tenenbaum ($675,000), he said. The upper end of the statutory damage range, $150,000 per infringement, should apply to the most heinous act of infringement that could possibly be imagined. "In a spectrum of reprehensibility," what Thomas-Rasset and Tenenbaum had done was minor, the copyright equivalent of jaywalking. And yet look what juries, which knew little or nothing about handing out such damages, had done!

This is why the amount in damages has been so varied.

Arstechnica just posted a nice companion piece to this: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/11/42-german-p2p-fine-stark-contrast-to-seven-figure-us-judgments.ars