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Ever since a company called Fluendo joined the GNOME Foundation's Advisory Board, GNOME is obligated to use GStreamer (a software product sponsored by Fluendo) as its audio and video backend. This wouldn't be bad, if it weren't for the fact that GStreamer uses Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) to handcuff users and leave them at the mercy of the entertainment cartel. In order to do this, GStreamer is denying its developers the right to license their constribution under the GPL, so that Fluendo can sell closed-source, proprietary DRM plugins that let the MPAA and RIAA control the users' viewing habits.

GStreamer has hurt the multimedia effort on Linux and the Free Desktop because they stole talented developers from mature mutimedia projects such as Xine, MPlayer, and VideoLAN, all of which were started before GStreamer and all of which have strong copyleft protection by being licensed under the GPL. In other words, GStreamer further fragmented the Linux multimedia developer base purely for the selfish, immoral purpose of ramming DRM down Linux users' throats.

Ximian, a company instrumental in founding GNOME, sold out to big business in 2002 by switching Mono's license from the GPL to the weaker MIT X11 license. Instead of helping out the myriad of established multimedia apps such as Kaffeine, AmaroK, and KMPlayer, Ximian started a whole new app called Banshee, whose only claim to fame is that its license (MIT X11) allows linking to proprietary DRM plugins.

These are just some example of an increasing problem GNOME is experiencing: it is pandering (and in some cases outright selling out) to companies that don't necessarily have the users' best interest in mind. One can say that the whole reason GNOME was started was to allow proprietary software (including draconian DRM) to use the hard work of open source developers.

KDE, on the other hand, is licensed solely under the GPL because the toolkit it is based on (Qt) is also GPL. KDE is also committed to preventing DRM from infesting their user's computers: for KDE4, they are building a multimedia framework called Phonon that does not depend on GStreamer, but which can use any number of backends, including DRM-free ones.

There is truth in what you say, but perhaps you are unrealistically optimistic.

I completely agree.

The most sorely needed geeks are folks like Lessig (Eldred, Creative Commons), Rick Boucher (DMCRA), and Russ Feingold (voted against PATRIOT Act), who can actually do something. Law trumps code, and law definitely trumps Slashdot.

So let's continue to clarify the issue for those that don't understand, and do what we can to get the knowledge of things like that out there. Hopefully more knowledgeable people, both media(/politician/big business)-friendly and not, will result. As well, more artists need to be properly informed as to how it affects them. It's bad news for everyone.

What possible objection could the RIAA have to feeding MP3 files to your iPod from this gizmo

They think it's illegal.

No it wouldn't. This system doesn't use steganography to hide its protocol, so it's obvious to any application layer sniffer. It also does nothing to hide traffic data, i.e. source and destination addresses. That requires something like Tor. Telcos can selectively degrade service based on protocol and traffic analysis.

The only thing this would prevent is shaping based on the content of VoIP calls. Voice recognition on that scale is probably cost prohibitive for telcos at this point.

We ultimately decide who's in power as far as technology goes. We tell the non-techs what to buy, and they believe us. Dell and MS commercials play a large part in obstructing our goals, lying to our non-tech friends and confusing them, but as long as we don't just give in and start to believe the lies there is hope.

There is truth in what you say, but perhaps you are unrealistically optimistic. How long have we been fighting the DMCA now? How much more damaging has it been to research (Felten, Ferguson) and entertainment (bnetd, aibopet.com) than IE6's broken rendering? Well, IE6 is pretty bad, but you get my gist.

The most sorely needed geeks are folks like Lessig (Eldred, Creative Commons), Rick Boucher (DMCRA), and Russ Feingold (voted against PATRIOT Act), who can actually do something. Law trumps code, and law definitely trumps Slashdot.

Suck.com said it best: http://www.suck.com/daily/2000/09/08/daily.html

I'm a big fan of Internet standards, and I haven't used IE since Mozilla's Phoenix 0.2, but we need to be realistic here, and understand the real structure of power in technology.

Indeed, and if you don't even like the result of this class action, you can always opt out and sue them on your own.

exert...

Why does EFF think the settlement is a good deal for purchasers of the Sony BMG CDs?

EFF agreed to the settlement because we believe it provides a good compensation package for the group of people who purchased the CDs but did not experience any hardware damage as a result. This means purchasers whose claim is primarily based on their purchase of the CDs and experiencing the hassle of having to patch or uninstall their systems, or in the case of MediaMax 3, having had files installed prior to giving you a chance to agree.

EFF's goals for purchasers of the CDs were to :

1. Stop production of any more CDs by Sony BMG with the bad DRM on them.
2. Get people non-DRM'd/non-EULA'd versions of their music.
3. Get this relief to people quickly, rather than after years of legal wrangling. This is in part why some of things in the settlement, like uninstallers, were available before the settlement itself was announced.
4. Get people some free music, or in the case of those who were at risk from the XCP rootkit, a choice of some money for their trouble.
5. Ensure that people get notice. Sony BMG has agreed to use the banner functionality on some of its CDs to give individual notice to purchasers at the time they put the CD into their computers, as well as put notices on many artists websites and purchasing adwords giving notice more broadly. We're still working with Sony about what these will look like, but EFF believes that taking extra steps to give people notice of the need to patch their systems, and of the settlement, is important.
6. Ensure independent security testing and pre-launch EULA review of any future DRM, with a report to the lawyers involved in the case of at least the security testing.
7. Agree to a quick process for response by Sony BMG, involving independent security reviewers and enforced by the court, in the event of any future discovery of a security flaw in their DRM.

There's much more in the settlement than that, of course, but for the purchasers these were EFF's core goals and the settlement meets them all. That's why we think the settlement is a good deal and we endorse it.

Please read the EFF FAQ regarding the settlement.

If you participate in this, you are NOT giving up your right to sue for damage to a computer or network!

Even if you get the small amount from this claim, you can still go on to sue for actual damages, should you have them.

http://www.eff.org/IP/DRM/Sony-BMG/settlement_faq. php#8

The article is a scare story and a thinly-veiled advert for Trusted Computing. They are right in one sense: a TPM-based system could protect you from this, but without the ability to override it if you choose too, a TPM system is just a crippled block of plastic and silicon in a metal case. If you can't decide *for yourself* that you want to alter the BIOS and still have the machine be trusted, then it's nothing but a prison.

Some more discussion, details and a potential solution here.

I hope Forbes will let Richard Stallman explain his reasons for including anti-DRM provisions in GPLv3.

Otherwise, it seems that Forbes is biased and acting in the interests of the Intel, Sony, Tivo and other business interests that want to hijack the hard work of open source developers in order to hancuff users and consumers with draconian treatcherous computing.

But then again, writing stories that are merely disguised propaganda for the business cartels is nothing new for Forbes.

I've had runins with this sort of thing myself. Such as a game that used SafeDisc or some other hard to copy method where you need a 3.5 sheep burner or whatever to have even a chance of duplicating. My disc got scratched up, and I could no longer play the game I'd legally spent far far too much money on. The thing is, very very few stores will allow you to returned an open box of software, so the companies get away with this. It's only when users can return an item that the message gets back to the manufacturers that a particular method is unacceptable. The manufacturers are vaguely aware that people may be stealing their software, but, for the most part, they just pay the mafia -- excuse me, the ESA (aka ISDA, too many people were beginning to realize what they were, so they changed it again) -- and they handle all of it for the company, including protecting those games they made ten years ago and no longer produce in any way whatsoever or even still employ the people who made them or even actually still have the original copies of the data. In other words, your average company just is scared they'll loose money, so jump at the chance for something like StarForce if they can afford it. As far as they are concerned, what few sales are lost are just because the game wasn't as popular as they'd thought. Since you can't take the game back, most people just give up and go the illegal route, using patches and cracks and such to get the game they bought to actually work. They spent $40+ on the peice of junk, the least it can do is run, right? I think right now, more than anything else, the issue is lack of communication.

The thing that probably ticks me off the most of all though is the fact that you may not legally backup your game. Oh sure, the law says you can make a backup, but, they managed to get a law passed adding a loophole that ensures you may no longer make a backup. You are not allowed to circumvent any copy protection (however minor) to make a backup as I understand it (please correct me if I'm wrong, it really worries me that they can actually get away with this, but, as nearly as I can tell, they somehow did with the DMCA.) If there's a game out there without even the cheapest most basic copy protection in it, it's because it's an illegally released internal beta or an opensource/otherwise free game. (Ok, I exagerate, I'm sure there's some exception somewhere, I just haven't seen it in a long time.) So, we may no longer make backups even though the law says we're supposed to have a right to, and my discs have a habit of getting scratched somehow even though I keep them in the cases and take good care of them, holding by the edges, not leaving them lying around, etc (I swear there's some kind of mini gremlin that gets in there and runs it's claws across my CDs or something.) It just bugs me so much knowing that I've bought the right to play the game for as long as I darned well please, but, they lied to me because most of us mere humans can't make a disc last as long as some games are actually worth keeping for, so they actually just sell us the right to use them for a while while falsely advertising that we can use them as long as we like. If the disc breaks well, off to the store with you to increase their revenues a bit further if you want to keep playing. BTW, has anyone else noticed that lately discs seem to be a little cheaper and softer, or is it just my imagination?

Anyway, I once tried a friend's copy of X3. Or I tried to try it. We couldn't get it working with his legitimate IDE drive (and if you're a SCSI user, well, the game no longer costs $50, it actually costs $70 because you are required to buy an IDE drive to legally play X3 from what I've read since StarForce is poorly designed enough to assume there's no such thing as a SCSI cd-rom.) After what I swear felt like an hour of it trying to verify, it failed. Needless to say, he wasn't particularly happy considering that he bought it soon af

"that there's no such thing as anonymity on the internet."

Richard Stallman correctly predicted many of the ways in which Big Corporations and Big Brother will use DRM (also known as Digital Restrictions Management, Treacherous Computing, or Handcuffware) to enslave people. Just read the essay he wrote, titled "Can you trust your computer?" and look at some of the recent Slashdot stories and you'll see that he's been all along.

I have nothing but respect for Stallman's courage to take on the powerful and wealthy interests that want to subjugate the populace. This is the time to show our gratitude for his uncompromising ideals by donating to the Free Software Foundation (which Richard Stallman founded and leads) and to the Electronic Frontiers Foundation.

Richard Stallman correctly predicted many of the ways in which Big Corporations and Big Brother will use DRM (also known as Digital Restrictions Management, Treacherous Computing, or Handcuffware) to enslave people. Just read the essay he wrote, titled "Can you trust your computer?" and look at some of the recent Slashdot stories and you'll see that he's been all along.

I have nothing but respect for Stallman's courage to take on the powerful and wealthy interests that want to subjugate the populace. This is the time to show our gratitude for his uncompromising ideals by donating to the Free Software Foundation (which Richard Stallman founded and leads) and to the Electronic Frontiers Foundation.

There's surprisingly little discussion of this... I remember, about 8 years ago, hearing an Intel engineer talking about how the next step in security was going to be ensuring that a PC was secure against its owner -- along with his updates on such things as encryption from end-to-end with media. I said at the time that what Intel was planning was nothing less than a total lockdown of the previously open PC platform.

And here we are... the final step. With this hardware in a PC, it does not belong to you... you have paid for a car with the bonnet welded shut and no keys.

It's important for everyone to realise just what an enormous amount of control this hardware gives to technology companies... in simple terms: your PC will be nothing more than a set-top box. Technology companies are furiously spinning this as improved security... which is not entirely wrong. This hardware does have security benefits... but as things stand, *YOU*, the person who paid money for the machine, are not in control of it. As others have noted, trusted computing is about them not trusting you -- and not about you trusting your machine. On the contrary, the only thing you can trust is that machines with this hardware are not working for you. Hence the strong link with DRM -- this hardware will enforce DRM on a PC, not to mention allow companies to make any FOSS proprietary (see the discussions about the GPL v3 for examples). Indeed, the TCPA system was designed in conjuction with the RIAA and the MPAA. It's supported by all the technology companies. And don't think that Linux distributors are against it either -- Red Hat is busy working with IBM to produce a TCPA version of Linux... software that cannot be modified by you and continue to work as it did. How about Gstreamer - the media framework used in GNOME? the company behind that has developers who are actively welcoming the introduction of signed Linux kernels (yes, Christian Schaller, I'm talking about you) that will ensure that media is never intercepted and stored... but which will also no longer function if you modify them, or even recompile them yourself. Source code means little in a Trusted Computing world, all that matters is who digitally signed the binary... and this hardware will enforce that. Companies like Red Hat, IBM, Novell, Fluendo etc can all effectively take ownership of FOSS code. Remember: DRM is all about applications. To control data, you must control what applications can access it. DRM is about apps, not data.

You are going to have to fight for your rights on this one. Apple users have rolled over and accepted the introduction of a TPM into the new Intel-based Macs... but then, they can never be relied on to say anything critical of Apple, even when they are being lied to and sold a lemon. They are quite happy to accept this. I would hope the PC crowd is different. Read Professor Ross Anderson's TCPA FAQ. Read Seth Schoen's updates on what Microsoft is planning to do with this hardware -- if that doesn't scare you, nothing will. Join things like the EFF's push to ensure that the hardware you pay good money for works for you, and not Intel/Microsoft and Hollywood. Do not assume that "someone will hack it"... this stuff is not your average dumbass security measure. Educate yourself before its too late and this technology, in its present form, becomes ubiquitous. Support the push to ensure that you, as the owner, have access to the master key... and some method of owner override. Otherwise, in five years, there will be a big brother in every single PC and no way of escaping it.

You probably tell your kids that you love them constantly too. And never perform any form of disciple besides "don't do that."

Evil has to be fought with vigilance, everywhere. Thoughts are not crimes until an action is taken on those thoughts. I prefer for the fight to be outside my country.

OTOH, **any** policy that infringes on an adult citizen's freedoms or right to privacy is a major concern.

Banks have been doing what the government tells them with the "Total Information Awareness" http://www.eff.org/Privacy/TIA/duncan-hunter-lette r.php program for some time.

Here's a story of a man who had his life savings taken away because someone thought his actions were similar to a drug dealer's actions. http://www.bigeye.com/forfeit.htm He did nothing illegal, yet the government stole his money. A few other stories are told there too. I saw the Houston man's story on 20/20. Give me a break!

Says Eric Sterling, who helped write the law a decade ago as a lawyer on a congressional committee: "The innocent-until-proven guilty concept is gone out the window."

This is what Tor hidden services are for. If the cult/government/corporation doesn't know who you are, how can they sue you? Maybe the NSA can find out, but those resources aren't available to cults and corporations.

It is no coincidence that the GOP leader of the New Jersey Assembly introduced this law. It goes right back to the 2002 lawsuit (Donato v. Moldow) against EyeOnEmerson.com in which four Republicans LOST their libel suit against the website over anonymous comments they disliked.

N.J. judge dismisses lawsuit over anonymous Web site criticism

New Jersey Court of Appeals rules for EyeOnEmerson website

"It is far from over," said Jack Darakjy, the attorney representing the plaintiffs. "We will appeal the decision. If we need to, our clients are prepared to take this all the way to the Supreme Court."

Or, if you are politically connected in New Jersey, maybe you just go to your party and get them to take up your crusade.

Why not ask the EFF? They have worked with similar issues in the past. If you look at the topics list on the right side of their page you will see many areas related to what the poster is asking about: DMCA, Intellectual Property, Patents, and Reverse Engineering. http://www.eff.org/about/contact/

Post it to a web accessible wiki through Tor or host it yourself as a location hidden service on Tor.

Yes, but music will outlive these people. Art and entertainment is a human adventure, it has value beyond dollars and sense. Part of the reason why marijuana is illegal in the US is a racial slur and detainment of musicians http://www.google.com/search?q=marijuana+illegal+j azz+musicians

It cracks me up that when I go to a concert, the law and everybody knows what we do there, but they mostly tolerate it. They bust a token number of people for stupid stuff, but _let_ 99.999% of us do what we want, simply because everybody wants to have the time that we do even though they "can't".

Music is as much of a part of the human experience as fire. Some sociologists theorize that division of labor and society came together so that we could hang out around a fire at night and get drunk, dance, and participate in music. But people that cannot provide these things but are good at power and money continually try to get more money and emphasize their power by suppressing us, but we always win. "The kids will dance and shake their bones. It's all too clear were on our own."

The sad thing is that even some of the musicians are getting into the greed thing. Do a search on Bob Weir and archive.org with their soundboard releases of Grateful Dead shows. John Barlow, the cofounder of EFF, http://www.eff.org/ says "Its bad karma to go against deadheads".

I just woke up and am hung over from drinking and listening to music last night, sorry for the incoherence in this post.

The good thing is that music will live and we will still do it with or without a "music industry". The bad thing is that money and power and greed will also live.

Already done. Lexmark v. Static Control

But you don't have the right to tape them.

Who's a dolt? Fair use doctrine does indeed allow time shifting (recording for later playback). It was validated by SCOTUS in the early 80's Betamax case, and hasn't been overturned by any subsequent decisions. If you don't believe me, here's the EFF's take on it.

So I guess that makes you a dolt too, spouting off about that which you know so little. It's people like you who are willing to just take whatever bread crumbs they toss us that are allowing them to get away with crap like this in the first place. Get educated about your rights, or shut up.

For an instance where Israelis and US government got caught collaborating on using software to spy on allies as well as enemy states look at the PROMIS* / Inslaw scandal:

http://cryptome.org/promis-mossad.htm
(most detailed in allegations, but read critically)

http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/INSLAW/

http://wired-vig.wired.com/wired/archive/1.01/insl aw.html
(First issue of Wired - more on the DOJ's role in attempting to crush Inslaw.)

*PROMIS was and is the super-meta-database software for intelligence-gathering / analysis and prosecution management sold to dozens of different countries. It had a back-door built in which allegedly allowed surveilance of intelligence operations even of non-networked computers through spread-spectrum emissions from the dedicated Prime computers on which it ran. Inslaw made PROMIS but the DOJ tried to put them out of business by not paying for the software as contracted. The back door was not Inslaw's doing, AFAIK.

What is Historic Use? I've never heard that term before, but it sounds deliberately misleading and designed to mess with the whole copyright debate. (a quick google reveals something by the EFF about it here)

As a community of individuals who believe in freedom, we should be very careful about furthering such terms (ie: making use of them) since it only lends them power.

I'd much rather see this thing die now than have to sit down at the dinner table a year from now and discuss the relative merits of "Historic Use" and "Fair Use" with my aging mother while at the same time explaining there's absolutely nothing historic about "customary historic use".

And I can just imagine some of the people who would try to build their own servers to play WoW on
Has been done before with BattleNet, see http://www.eff.org/IP/Emulation/Blizzard_v_bnetd/.
Blizzard killed that one through ligitation (and got itself on my personal boycott list).

Considering player-supplied suggestions for game features, I have played Neocron for a while and we had all sorts of suggestions. The quality scale ranged from unrealistic to well thought out and worthwile.
The company making Neocron did ignore all of them. In 95% of the cases it was the right thing to do, but the remaining 5% would have really improved the game.

I forgot to meniton the book Linux Multimedia Hacks. In chapter 4 it mentions building a Digital Video Recorder (DVR). I have a copy of the book but haven't read it yet.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation(EFF) also has a page about building your own PVR for HDTV. I don't know if you are iterested in recording HDTV with a PVR but, if so, pcHDTV is one of the two only companies that makes a Linux HDTV video capture card. But, I am not sure if an HDTV video capture card is actually something you would want or not.

I want a Tor virtual appliance!

It would seem then that many didn't hear him. I hope he has changed his tact in this regard. That said, until he comes out with the same boycott and blacklisting rhetoric for Apple he does with other corporations it is difficult to take the guy seriously. Right now his hard-line seems negotiable where Apple is concerned yet EFF themselves are quite clear.

Worth noting how unfashionable it is to even consider Apple an evil hand in the context of user rights - yet they are avidly pro-patent (member of the BSA) and rapidly becoming a fat and hungry media mogul.

All said, the more vocal anti-DRM lobbying the better, and good on him for drawing the BBC case into public light.

...setup a Tor node!

And several Silicon Valley executives say one side effect of the 2003 decision to cancel the Total Information Awareness project was that it killed funds for a research project at the Palo Alto Research Center, a subsidiary of Xerox, exploring technologies that could protect privacy while permitting data mining. The aim was to allow an intelligence analyst to conduct extensive data mining without getting access to identifying information about individuals. If the results suggested that, for instance, someone might be a terrorist, the intelligence agency could seek a court warrant authorizing it to penetrate the privacy technology and identify the person involved. With Xerox funds, the Palo Alto researchers are continuing to explore the technology.

I personally find anonymous Internet usage (regardless of protocol) a very good thing. http://tor.eff.org/ is very nice for the World Wide Web. However, it is very slow - but worth it if you want to be anonymous. The same applies to file-sharing if you like "that" kind of files. Tor can be used with _any_ P2P programs protocol and is thus highly recommended. I urge anyone who makes p2p software to immediately implement support for it. I agree decentralized file-sharing is good. Back in the 90s a lot of folks were doing centralized, they met in schools or other places and copied files. Those were called "copy-parties". The police, in their glory, rided some of those on behalf of the glorious Record and Movie Industry (RIAA/MPAA). Hmm. Now that sounds familiar. Wonder who oh who ordered the raid on the Razorback2 Servers? On a last point, please beware of this: There are information on the Internet that are very important but ignored and/or blacked out by governments and the corporate media. These video files are generally free and freely available on p2p services (like on my bittorrent TV site) but governments are willing to go to great length, even covert torture here in Norway, to shut such sites down. This is something one should consider seriously when reading about sites being shut down.

Google Cache is legal - there's not much difference here. Seems pretty open-and-shut precedent in favor of Google.

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004344.php

The court granted summary judgment in favor of Google on four independent bases:

Serving a webpage from the Google Cache does not constitute direct infringement, because it results from automated, non-volitional activity by Google servers (Field did not allege infringement on the basis of the making of the initial copy by the Googlebot);

Field's conduct (failure to set a "no archive" metatag; posting "allow all" robot.txt header) indicated that he impliedly licensed search engines to archive his web page;

The Google Cache is a fair use; and

The Google Cache qualifies for the DMCA's 512(b) caching "safe harbor" for online service providers.

All of those would seem to equally apply to Google Images' thumbnails cache.

One big reason Qt is GPL'd is that it allows them to sell licenses to those who want to develop proprietary Qt applications. This, using your reasoning, makes them no better than Fluendo.

By licensing Qt as Free and Open Source Software under the GPL, Trolltech is encouraging developers to also release derivative work to the community as Free Software.

If a third-party wants to develop proprietary apps on the Qt framework, then they are not sharing back to the community and it is only fair that they compensate Trolltech. Share and share alike, but if you don't want to share, pay up. Qt licensing makes perfect sense, and it is how Free Software was designed to work and be self-funding.

This is in stark contrast with how Fluendo operates -- its business model is based on handcuffing users and denying them the right to use, study, modify, redistribute, and improve the source code of GStreamer's DRM, proprietary plugins. Not only that, Fluendo actually pays patent licensing fees to the RIAA and MPAA, making those monopolies even richer and more powerful than they already are.

So if you're Fluendo customer, you can be sure part of your money goes into the pockets of the media barons. And if you're a GStreamer developer, you can be sure that your code will be used by the same entertainment moguls to rip off and spy on their users through DRM.

One big reason Qt is GPL'd is that it allows them to sell licenses to those who want to develop proprietary Qt applications. This, using your reasoning, makes them no better than Fluendo.

By licensing Qt as Free and Open Source Software under the GPL, Trolltech is encouraging developers to also release derivative work to the community as Free Software.

If a third-party wants to develop proprietary apps on the Qt framework, then they are not sharing back to the community and it is only fair that they compensate Trolltech. Share and share alike, but if you don't want to share, pay up. Qt licensing makes perfect sense, and it is how Free Software was designed to work and be self-funding.

This is in stark contrast with how Fluendo operates -- its business model is based on handcuffing users and denying them the right to use, study, modify, redistribute, and improve the source code of GStreamer's DRM, proprietary plugins. Not only that, Fluendo actually pays patent licensing fees to the RIAA and MPAA, making those monopolies even richer and more powerful than they already are.

So if you're Fluendo customer, you can be sure part of your money goes into the pockets of the media barons. And if you're a GStreamer developer, you can be sure that your code will be used by the same entertainment moguls to rip off and spy on their users through DRM.

My choice is to use Xine-based apps, and I think it is in the average user's best interest to do the same.

When people start being sued left and right and thrown in jail, they'll gladly throw away their DRM-crippled CDs, DVDs, Bluerays, HD DVDs, and all the other garbage the RIAA and MPAA spew out.

while most of us behave in a contradictory way - 'I want artists to get paid, but I like free downloads'

How about "I want artists to be paid, but I don't want to pay inflated marginal costs for works, nor do I want to be shut out of works completely." Thinking like this is what let collective licensing programs such as those offered by BMI and ASCAP take off, and the EFF has expressed interest in extending collective licensing to other media.

I don't disagree with you. But the RIAA does.

mostly what he expressed is opinion.. you may very well disagree.. but that certainly doens't make him a moron

You're making assumptions. It's not whether or not anyone dis/agrees that makes him a moron, it's the opinion(s) he posted.

Specificly, disagreeing with a moronic opinion is not mutually exclusive with the holder or purveyor of the opinion being a moron - a moron is a moron, independant of whether or not anyone agrees or disagrees with the moronic opinions expressed by said moron.

let's see how many pro-bush comments are modded up vs how many anti-bush comments are modded up.

Why would anyone in their right mind mod up a pro-Bush comment?

You are creating a completely spurious and hypothetical argument, here. Those that support the Regime are mostly too stoopid to figure out how to post - and those that have the requisite chimpanzee skills to work a keyboard are incapable of composing a coherent message of support.

Furthermore, any message of support for Dubya would de facto have to include a lot of lies (i.e. BULLSHIT), and since that's one thing that does function pretty well around here is the bullshit detectors, well, you're just shit outta luck, buddro.

Let me also point out to you that, in supporting the dumbasses in the Whitehouse, you are not "resisting the group-think", you're just demonstrating that you are of below-average intelligence.

good lord did he rape your mother or something?

Well, the perp is a Republican, so it was probably not the mother. Probably more like the little brother. It was Clinton liked the femmes, remember? That seemed to piss you guys off, for some reason...

calm down.

Hey, you're the one whose panting and sweating, whining and begging that the rest of us please quit talking about your little bitch Dubya and his bitch dom Cheney. Calm down yerself.

look i understand the typical ./er doesn't like bush

Do you really? I don't think you do, or you would understand that it's not about "like", it's about things like Patriotism and the Constitution. It's about America before it was taken over by a Fascist Regime. "Like" doesn't figure into it. It's about the Constutution, the Rule of Law, Freedom, Democracy, and (of course) Economics. And no, no one expects you to understand any of that, it's obvious to all that you're ... politically challenged, shall we say.

One day we'll have to sit down and talk about that "typical ./er" remark, too - I hear a lot from the fanatics on your team about "typical slashdotters" - they've never managed to demonstrate the alleged phenomenon to my satistfaction, note - but you're the first I've noticed raving about dot-slashers...

but would you all please stop talking like this?

Like what? Like Americans? Like people who care? Like people who know wtf they're talking about? Why? Do those things bother you so much? No wonder you support a regime that promises you it will make everything the same - make it all go away ...

Of couse, it may be that you're confusing /. with the voices in your head - if so, I can tell you in good confidence that you need to drink heavily. And take more drugs. It really does help.

or atleast stop acting like this is unique.

Actually, if you go back and check, you'll find that it is

Or, maybe they could just use Tor.

http://tor.eff.org/

check http://tor.eff.org/

On a side note, Sony BMG settled the class action lawsuit filed against them by the EFF. If you want replacement CDs released by Sony BMG that don't have XCP or MediaMax on them, head to http://www.eff.org/sony for more info.

It's your chance to stick it to the man.

There are plenty of manufacturers that sell PCs and Laptops that are already loaded with GNU/Linux, KDE, and lots of other useful Free & Open Source Software applications.

There's absolutely no reason to buy computers or accessories from the major manufacturers that stuff Treatcherous Computing, Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) and M$ Winblows down your throat.

Personal use also permits music fans to make "mix tapes" or compilations of their favorite songs from their own personal music collection or the radio for their own personal enjoyment in a more convenient format, or "format shifting." Another example of acceptable personal use copying of a copyrighted work is "time-shifting," or the recording of a copyrighted program to enjoy at a later and more convenient time.

..they could be correct. I don't know the law well enough to say - if memory serves correct, it gives some examples of things which are fair use, none of which include anything like backing up or shifting from one media to another for personal use.

Space shifting was previously ruled to be consistent with copyright law by the 9th Circuit US Court of Appeals in "RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia". A (horribly formatted - sorry) copy of the decision can be found on EFF's website. Excerpt from about 80% of the way down:

[10] In fact, the Rio's operation is entirely consistent with the Act's main purpose -- the facilitation of personal use. As the Senate Report explains, "[t]he purpose of[the Act] is to ensure the right of consumers to make analog or digital audio recordings of copyrighted music for their private, noncommercial use." S. Rep. 102-294, at *86 (emphasis added). The Act does so through its home taping exemption, see 17 U.S.C. S 1008, which "protects all noncommercial copying by consumers of digital and analog musical recordings," H.R. Rep. 102-873(I), at *59. The Rio merely makes copies in order to render portable, or "space-shift," those files that already reside on a user's hard drive. Cf. Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, 464 U.S. 417, 455 (1984) (holding that "time-shifting" of copyrighted television shows with VCR's constitutes fair use under the Copyright Act, and thus is not an infringement). Such copying is paradigmatic non-commercial personal use entirely consistent with the purposes of the Act.

I'm unable to find anything online that jibes with my memory. I recall a passing reference to a proposal called the "clipper chip", also widely called key escrow at the time, in an article on encryption, and then sometime afterward being profoundly disappointed to hear that the Clinton administration was taking up the banner for it. Perhaps I shouldn't have been so rudely surprised. I turned up an EFF article that discussed some of the issues at the time, and the author reported that he had spoken with two members of the Carter administration who held that the government had a legitimate interest in decrypting information.
<sigh>

It's all well and good complaining when the RIAA start doing things like this, and it's great to inform your friends, to donate to the EFF or contact your Representative (or MP), but if we still buy music from RIAA members, we are in danger of sending mixed signals.

There is a world of great music out there that is NOT published by RIAA members, including many independent labels that really support artists and treat them with more respect than industry heavy-hitters who - despite their protests to the contrary - really only care about their bottom-line.

Compare, for example, independent music retailers, such as bleep who allow unlimited backups (for your own personal use, of course) of their non-DRM MP3 files with today's announcement from on high by the RIAA to see that there really IS a viable alternative to the dominance of the RIAA/BPI and similar organisations - but it will only ever become a true success if we put our money where our mouths are and stop supporting the RIAA.

/China blocks http://tor.eff.org/. well that was easy.

... in the case of China, I believe that you need to trust that the first node is legit