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The IRC forum with CmdrTaco and Hemos is now complete, and a log has been posted. They answered quite a few questions about Slashdot's subscription system, bigger ads, and other assorted stuff. Don't miss the question about pop-up ads.
I decided to change my opinion from waiting until the BFA's
If you have a Bachelor of Fine Arts, chances are you're already annoying.
And you probably have long hair, hang out in coffee shops far too much, and watch dull movies.
Not only do they provide bandwidth, they provide the servers, the disk space, and the administration.
Right, they provide for the publication and marketing of our content... Just like the RIAA.
without them providing all this stuff, such a huge site wouldn't be able to survive
And without the RIAA, huge artists wouldn't survive either.
the current SlashDot community would be splintered into many, many litle communitues, each of which would be supported by the generosity of someone paying for it out of pocket
Slashdot could easily be run peer-to-peer, napster-style. Cost to run: about $100/month.
SlashDot is losing money right now. If they want to so much as break even, they have to make money somehow.
Or they could cut costs.
Anyways, you don't have to subscribe.
Nor do you have to buy CDs.
You can just put up with the annoyingly big adds, or use JunkBuster, or something.
You can listen to all your music on the radio.
Putting an annoying ad before comments isn't doing anything close to what the RIAA is doing to the artists and listeners.
Actually, putting annoying ads in the free version of the content is exactly what the RIAA does. At least they're not charging per hit, yet.
Hemos, buy a clue. Your argument is paper-thin; others have rightly pointed out that it is NOT your responsibility to police the copyright of each comment (indeed you'd need to hire an extra, oh, 100 people if that were so). You are NOT liable, and the idea that someone is going to file suit against Slashdot because their comment posted here also appears on a minimal, crap-free digest site, is patently ridiculous. Methinks you drank a bit too much this afternoon.
The subtext of what you are saying is that Slashdot has exclusive rights to the display of comments posted here. That too is absurd, and if you really believe it, don't mince words. State it plainly. And save your dubious legal expertise for the stories - someone who confuses trademark and copyright should hardly assume themselves to be an expert on the subject.
I suspect that a few years ago you and Taco would have considered alterslash to be a cool hack with the added bonus of relieving a tiny fraction of your bandwidth. Toss around ridiculous hypotheticals all you want - the reason you are so aggravated by a site like alterslash these days has nothing to do with copyright, and everything to do with your desire to have a monopoly on the content which all of US essentially donate to your site, making it what it is. Oh, I know, you and Taco don't give a damn about comments because they're an insignificant blip on the radar going by the numbers blah blah.. but take away the interesting discussion which the -posters- provide, and how many people do you really think would be coming here just to read your brilliant article content?
Mod me down, karma be damned.