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If your analysis of the Audio Home Recording Act were correct, then at least one major label would have already sued the developers of CDex for contributory infringement.

On the other hand, if you use a digital recorder to record everyone singing Happy Birthday to you on your birthday, the owner of the copyright to the song would not be allowed to file suit against you for infringement.

What copyright? You go ahead and believe this Snopes.com article; I've warmed up more to this analysis, which presents evidence that the simple substitution of "Happy birthday" into the lyrics of "Good Morning to All" isn't enough to create a distinct copyrightable work.

You beat me to it. A link for those curious. As stated on the website, Windows disk encryption was neither innovative nor truly secure. In a security class I had to take, I watched the professor demonstrate just how easy it was to bypass the NTFS file encryption. With a simple hash-generating script (the inner workings of which I've yet to explore :-), he was able to bypass an "encrypted" directory's protection.

First of all, although many songs are covered by copyright (including, darn them, "Happy Birthday")

The good news: Sure, Snopes seems to think "Happy Birthday to You" is still copyrighted and owned by Time Warner. But it may not be different enough from an earlier song called "Good Morning to All", whose U.S. copyright has already expired, to be considered a distinct work worthy of a separate copyright.

That is why you don't have to pay a royalty when ... you sing while gathered around the campfire with friends.

The bad news: The definition of "publicly" in 17 USC 101 leaves room for better-paid lawyers to twist a judge's conception of the facts:

To perform or display a work ''publicly'' means - (1) to perform or display it at a place open to the public or at any place where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered

Unless you have a fence around your campfire site, then the place is conceivably "open to the public." The music publisher will also argue in court over who is a "social acquaintance" and who is not.

I live in a rough west side Chicago neighborhood where cameras are installed on major drug dealing corners. Last year we had one of the worst murder rates in the nation in my neighborhood. Let me tell you - the cameras work! The drug dealers move all the way around the block - sometimes even blocks away.
Ok, so they don't really work, but I'm sure if we turn Chicago into a civic panopticon we'll start seeing results...

Just one Totally Evil Patent is enough to destroy civilisation as we know it.

• Winny@Wikipedia
• Winny author investigated, users arrested in Japan.

1. It is a valid patent, i.e. non-obvious at the time it was invented, novel, useful and it serves at least one purpose that is not "immoral".
2. It was non-obvious at the time it was invented because the the problem was not obvious, even though the solution to the problem is fairly obvious to any suitably qualified individual who tries to solve it.
3. Circumstances change, and the problem solved by the patented invention becomes a matter of life and death: the most extreme example would be that the invention is required in order to prevent the extinction of all life on the planet.

I've been buying music lately from Allofmp3.com, covered lately in Slashdot. A review of it can be found here.

It's cheap (1 cent per megabyte), great quality (offers me lossless FLAC files), and legal (royalties paid to ROMS, the relevant group in Russia). And the files are unencumbered

All the problems of iTunes (summarized excellently at Downhill Battle) still apply. Why go for something restricted, too expensive, and too controlled by the media monopoly, when you can get cheap legal music from Allofmp3 or similar services?

That's why I buy their OS's.

Actually, I misspoke, and you made a complete fool of yourself. SSH, SSL, and VPNs are all vulnerable to man in the middle attacks, but so is quantum cryptography. Read about it because you obviously don't know a thing about MITM attacks. They are not vulnerabilities in the software behind the programs, they are vulnerabilities due to the nature of communication.

What quantum encryption provides is provable protection against wiretaps. Nobody can passively listen in because the act of listening changes it.

Regarding your closed minded naive thoughts about current encryption being the holy grail for our current needs, I am surprised you are even using the internet because if we follow your train of mind, we would all just keep talking on the phone and sending snail mail because they are inexpensive commodities... you don't have to worry about web servers, cable internet, computers crashing, etc.

You obviously have no taste for innovation.

I have a lot of hate for clearchannel but I dont want to rant all day about it here. You can find some observations about the way they do business here. Keep in mind its a very opinionated site, but then again you are reading articles at /. so you must be used to that by now.

God how I wish other open source projects like Mozilla and the Linux desktop would focus on this. I've been following and using both for years but I have no idea who or where to talk to when I create a cool skin or a better help guide, etc.

Giving back shouldn't allow for the pollution of a program but there should be some deviantart or wiki-style free-for-all that then gets narrowed down into a manageable soil of good graphics, plugins, ideas, and more so that core project developers never have to wonder what else can be done.

Here's my solution, in this case a Wiki for Mozilla and Mozilla FireFox. Feel free to add!

God how I wish other open source projects like Mozilla and the Linux desktop would focus on this. I've been following and using both for years but I have no idea who or where to talk to when I create a cool skin or a better help guide, etc.

Giving back shouldn't allow for the pollution of a program but there should be some deviantart or wiki-style free-for-all that then gets narrowed down into a manageable soil of good graphics, plugins, ideas, and more so that core project developers never have to wonder what else can be done.

Here's my solution, in this case a Wiki for Mozilla and Mozilla FireFox. Feel free to add!

To get a feel for the conference you can listen to the CodeCon 03 audio recordings or review the CodeCon 02 write-ups for day one, day two, and day three.

As a developer who has gone to the previous conferences I can say without hesitation that they are well worth the time and cost.

To get a feel for the conference you can listen to the CodeCon 03 audio recordings or review the CodeCon 02 write-ups for day one, day two, and day three.

As a developer who has gone to the previous conferences I can say without hesitation that they are well worth the time and cost.

To get a feel for the conference you can listen to the CodeCon 03 audio recordings or review the CodeCon 02 write-ups for day one, day two, and day three.

As a developer who has gone to the previous conferences I can say without hesitation that they are well worth the time and cost.

"Information economics, in the absence of objects, will be based more on relationship than possession." -- John Perry Barlow

--

Unfortunately, the ugly-looking security warnings are necessary with non-blessed CA certificates because the browser has no way of knowing whether you've been subjected to a Man-In-The-Middle Attack. Wikipedia has a simpler explanation.

As for Happy birthday, thats a little fucked up. The words are copyrighted (yeah ANYTHING can get a copyright as long as its original)

The lyrics of "Happy Birthday" have about two words of difference from those of "Good Morning To All". Are you sure that changing two words counts as creating an "original" work worthy of its own copyright? Has this issue been litigated?

I go see bands locally.

You mean bands that play in bars? How is this possible for U.S. residents under 21? Or do local bands in your geographic area play at venues that admit minors?

That's the best you can come up with? Potential lawsuit?

Just read how much potential there is. Are you claiming that "it's not illegal if you don't get caught"?

I'll bet you don't sing "Happy Birthday" out of fear the RIAA stormtroopers come knocking down your door.

That's different in two ways. First of all, despite what the Warner Bros. may claim, the music to "Happy Birthday" was first published as "Good Morning to All" in 1893 (long before the 1923 cutoff date), and the lyrics probably aren't different enough from the "Good Morning" lyrics. Second, and more importantly, U.S. copyright law does not consider performing "Happy Birthday" in family gatherings a public performance; it's outside the scope of copyright law.

"How complete is it? I mean, does it contain a simulated RIAA that will come and sue you for distribution of copyrighted simulated material?"

Anybody who uses genetic algorithms, who 'breeds' computer programs rather than writing them, will tell you that the secret to success is good predators.

So yes, if you wanted to design a system for rating the quality of P2P protocols, one of the most important steps in that simulation is to have evolving predators, who try and intercept others' data, who try to slow the system down, who try to leech without sharing, etc. A system where data can be traced to an originator might score less than a system resiliant to this kind of attack.

The testbed mentioned in the article doesn't contain this sort of capability, but if you're involved in designing such networks, then it would be useful to dedicate a lot of effort to trying to attack the protocol using RIAA methods.

Read more about what a P2P application should have in its design.

The Walt Disney Company may have already lost the copyright on Mickey Mouse due to a faulty copyright notice.

Snopes seems to think "Happy Birthday to You" is still copyrighted and owned by Time Warner. But it may not be different enough from an earlier song called "Good Morning to All", whose U.S. copyright has already expired, to be considered a distinct work worthy of a separate copyright.

Also AAC > OGG.

Wrong.

(Link is to an english summary; original german article is here.

If you're maxing out your upload, as you state that you are, you're likely not leaving enough room for the overhead that BT needs to request packets. You should use the command line options to limit the number of active uploads and upload rate to give yourself some leeway. If you set the max upload to a half or three-quarters of what your line can handle you ought to get much better downloads. This link would normally be of use, but it appears he's maxed his outbound for the month. In the mean time you can start here.

From infoAnarchy, it "appears to be a work print copy" which would imply that someone copied it, possibly onto their own media which would mean no physical theft.

xMule is a eMule Unix port/clone. eMule is a client for the eDonkey network.

xMule is a eMule Unix port/clone. eMule is a client for the eDonkey network.

Even people who share freely do so for a reward -- but it's in the form of reputation instead of cold hard cash. Knowing you've made the world a better place, and gained some gratious fans in the process, is often more valuable than putting a few extra uneeded bucks into a personal back account.

However, this only works if you're a comparitively selfless person at heart, and don't have to worry about starving or becoming homeless anytime soon. At that point "whuffie" essentially takes the place of money, as it has with OSS devs and especially the scientific community.

--

You mean, what's to stop someone from hoarding an unfair share of molecular feedstock (like carbon), living space, or solar energy? Probably a new social contract which says that if you haven't earned enough respect (see: whuffie) then you aren't deserving of a greater than average share (which is more than enough anyway) of the resources collectively owned.

e.g. Great thinkers, designers, and artists who bring joy to millions of people might be deemed worthy of "wasting" an ungodly amount of carbon on a thousand-story diamond palace on prime beachfront property, whereas your average Joe would be content with a five-story porn palace floating in the middle of the ocean, in the clouds, or in orbit. Total assholes might have to make do with a climate controlled 20th century mansion in Antartica.

... ask me in 200 years. With the current rate progress

You need to update your rate of progress. The Law of Accelerating Returns puts this pre-Singularity nanotech well before the middle of this century.

--

And don't even think about singing HAPPY BIRTHDAY at some party. That is a COPYRIGHTED song

Sure, Warner Bros. has a copyright certificate for "Happy Birthday to You", but is the copyright valid?

Microsoft has never used patents in court for anything except defense.

Well there is the story of Microsoft not using patents for defense. Whether it is actually true is unknown to me.

But then there is Stac Electronics, and others. And given Microsoft's sterling reputation for high moral standards and ethical behavior, I wouldn't be surprised.

Ok, go on then:
Explain to us all why the scientology links were removed from Google.

You mean the Xenu.net links? That would be because the "Church" of Scientology has billions of dollars bankrolled and acted the part of the 800lb gorilla, tangling Google up in court for having them. Google, however, wised up and replaced all removed links after discovering that {GASP!} the Scientologists had "no right" (to quote myself) to have their link removed. You'll note that when you search for scientology, our friend Operation Clambake shows up, right there at the top of the listings (#2 position as of right now).

For details, you can read this article and lo and behold, we find out that the much questioned, right infringing, more-than-likely illegal (certainly un-constitutional) DMCA is at fault for the mix-up.

So, my dear anonymous friend, why don't you explain Scientology for us?

This is a fantastic comment. I have submitted this over at infoAnarchy.org. I hope you don't mind. Maybe after(if) it reaches the front page out of the submission queue you could post some more comments there.

Thanks,
-me.

More on Encrypted Chat

Download the windows installer for bittorrent Run and install it. Then all you do is look for files that end in .torrent. Open them, and bittorrent will automatically open and start downloading. The infoAnarchy wiki points to some pages that contain .torrents. Also, search google for "torrent" or "bittorrent" for more sites.

The 60GB Nomad will hold the same number of songs as the 30GB iPod. If you consider that the Nomad must have 256Kbps MP3 for CD-quality, and the iPod must have 128Kbps AAC for CD-quality.

Well, an audio analyst would know that WMV is a Video codec.

Also, 3000 random users and 8 real audio analysts/experts disagree with you and rate OGG consistently above WMA at all tested bitrates: (64kbps, 128kbps and 160kbps):

lookie here

Test with over 3000 participants

Well, I do and a lot of others, including a lot of gaming companies, do also.

proof

At low bitrates, AAC is very weak, at 128kbps it was the worst of all:

Study

I was one of the 3000 participants, btw. And my ranking which I gave (blind, I did not know which sample was which) confirms pretty much the results, at 64kbps, AAC was unbearable, while ogg was not distinguishable (by me anyway) to the original.

The only test where AAC didn't fail miserably was the "expert test" with only 8 listeners.

OGG has beaten all other codecs consitently at all bitrates.

According to this blind listening test conducted by c't magazine, AAC at 128kbps was ranked the lowest of all codecs sampled at that bitrate (WAV, OGG, WMA, RA, MP3Pro and MP3)... One can always hope that the claims of Apple making their AACs directly from the record masters are true, as this would help the situation some.

For those attending codecon there will also be a WiFi Caravan traveling from Portland OR to San Francisco which all are welcome to participate in.

We will be out and about on the evenings after the conference precedings if you dont feel like driving all the way to portland :-)

As one last FYI, be sure to bring your wireless gear to codecon! There will be lots of A/V streaming going on, and lots of wireless enabled presentations in addition to other fun stuff.

Check out the InfoAnarchy CodeCon 02 coverage if you would like a better feel for what this conference is all about...

If you want copyright term reform, join the infoanarchy wiki. (Yeah, anarchy isn't the best association, but this is where stuff's happening)

This is only started, good suggestions welcome!

I understand getting tired of people here, but you gotta know that's your problem and not theirs. People have a right to post their opinion here. A lot of people know by posting "anti" opinions they get the opportunity to be "modded up" - it's just a game to them, and there's nothing you can do. Upping your threshold doesn't really help because trolls get modded up and a lot of good comments come too late to be modded at all. I read at 0 and just zoom down my scrollwheel until something catches my attention that looks interesting.

I don't think there's really a solution other than to move on. Either put up with it here, or go somewhere else where the conversation is more intelligent. Unfortunately i'm not sure many other sites online have this kind of feel to them. OpenBSD Journal can be nice, but a lot of foul-mouthed children have turned up recently. kuro5hin used to be okay, but in my eyes it's gotten way too clique-y and faux intellectual for me. A friend of mine loves InfoAnarchy but that's very specific to "Your Rights Online" kind of posts. I don't know, i don't have any solutions. For the time being i pop in here every day or two and see what's going on. Whatever, you know? It's just a website.

A while ago I came across this Bio/Demological media feedback systems (1)
jounal entry at infoanarchy.org. This Journal entry discusses the potential of the internet to introduce people to interesting music and even hone their taste into some sort of demographically aesthetic purism.

I.E. it is the very instrument we use to discover music that shapes our taste. That what is inherently interesting about music is that it rubs our nuerons in the same way as music we have already heard and perhaps experienced at a pleasant if not interesting moment in our lives.

Currently the media for introducing us to music are still primarily owned by corporate interests. But this article suggests that the internet offers a potential meathod for cloud seeding our lives with interesting music.



This article suggest that a system could be established that introduces music to people that tends to stimulate people who have similar demographical profiles (like amazon's purchase comparison) but that allowed for mutation by introducing semi-random tracks from a royalty free database. In this way people could become accostomed to music that isn't packaged in the conventional way.

Anyway the article puts it more eloquently than I do.

Unfortunately, most of the material available is in danish. However, I found something about it on wired, cdfreaks and infoanarchy. The most important link in danish is here. Siffan, the guy I mentioned in the parent, is working on an english translation of the bust, which happened in september. Currently, AntiPiratGruppen's methods of obtaining evidence are under investigation by the government.

I've been reading about decentralized news for quite awhile now and have been waiting for some real, concrete results/products to be released. As such, here are some of my Mozilla bookmarks from my Decentralized News folder. Please enjoy!

Scripting News
... Call us cockroaches if you want, I'm sure IBM thought Apple, Microsoft and Intel
were cute and dirty too, but distributed and decentralized news is rapidly ...
scriptingnews.userland.com/backIssues/2002/02/15 - 25k - Dec. 9, 2002 - Cached

Research News: TVC Alert, 31 May 2002
... Before summarizing software available for reading RSS/XML news feeds (end of article),
the author opines about the value of decentralized news or information ...
www.virtualchase.com/tvcalert/may02/31may02.html - 38k - Cached

Hoosier Review
... used to their privileges as brokers of information in a top-down world, threatened
by the rise of new, bizarre, egalitarian and decentralized news sources? ...
www.hoosierreview.com/musgrave10.html - 12k - Cached

Netizens Info
... Non-electronic Reference Sources. Bellovin, Steve M. and Mark Horton, USENET
- A Distributed Decentralized News System, an unpublished manuscript, 1985. ...
www.columbia.edu/~hauben/CMC/netizen_thoughts.ht ml - 11k - Cached

www.columbia.edu/~hauben/CS/netizen_thoughts.txt
... and future of the data highway Non-electronic Reference Sources Bellovin, Steve
M. and Mark Horton, USENET - A Distributed Decentralized News System, an ...
8k - Cached
[ More results from www.columbia.edu ]

MetaLog
... just recycled news from major outlets. But what the weblogs did do
was provide a decentralized news source. At a time when all of ...
www.larkfarm.com/metalog.asp - 18k - Dec. 9, 2002 -

Michael Barone
... years ago. That's how it's bound to be in a country with increasingly
decentralized news media and a fragmented electorate. The ...
www.jewishworldreview.com/michael/barone100300.a sp - 17k - Dec. 9, 2002 - Cached

SubIntSoc.net: The Suboctagon Report - The Center Cannot Hold, ...
... Another example: personal video cameras. People on the streets with cameras formed
a decentralized news-gathering system that the TV networks couldn't match. ...
subintsoc.net/suboctagon_20011121.php - 39k - Dec. 9, 2002 - Cached

Wired Online: Brain Tennis
... Or will the many-to-many nature of the Net lead to self-correcting, decentralized
news media that nobody owns and everybody contributes to? ...
hotwired.lycos.com/braintennis/96/23/index2a.htm l - 11k -

PureFiction writes "Peer networks are gaining some attention these days given advances in much more decentralized search architectures and swarming distribution networks. Research has indicated that these decentralized networks are resistant to legal and technological attacks. The continued proliferation of broadband and wireless networking will ensure pervasive deployment of distributed peer networking infrastructure that will drive significant innovations in personal and community digital communications services."

AND FOR THOSE OF YOU IN A HURRY... A- R- T- I- C- L-
E-. -- S-
U- M- M-
A- R-
Y-

The Information Anarchy weblog is being enhanced with a wiki centered around peer to peer networks.

There is already a lot of good content and structure. Go, contribute!

silence