Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: TIPS, FatWallet, MPlayer
Facts is facts, Ma'am. joebeone writes "WalMart has backed down [AScribe.org] from it's DMCA claim in the FatWallet case[1] after FatWallet countered that facts are uncopyrightable (at least in the US). Let this be a lesson to those who would use the DMCA to unjustly intimidate websites into removing content. I definitely think that Boalt Hall's Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic deserves some major credit for sticking up for the little guys who don't have the litigatory resources that companies like WalMart have.
[1] WalMart claimed that their day-after-thanksgiving sale prices were copyrightable."
Maybe they just changed the drop location. An anonymous reader writes "There was one small ray of light in the Homeland Security Act. A provision inserted in the bill killed the Justice Department's TIPS initiative. You'll recall that TIPS was the DoJ's proposal to create a domestic spy network using ordinary citizens. And I was hoping to join up and inform them that John Ashcroft wears women's underwear. Oh well ..."
Best way to play back "L.A. Confidential." An anonymous reader writes "The best media player for *nixes, MPlayer, has just gotten better with the ability to play Windows Media Player 9 (WMV9 and WMA9) files. When Sorensen playback was added the only remaining codecs were the Window Media Player ones. Now that this is complete, Linux finally seems to have a complete solution for multimedia playback. It just remains for the mainstream distros to include this gem."
Measure three or four times at least, cut once. jdevons writes "The Owner-Builder Book that I reviewed a while ago has been updated. The author reads slashdot regularly and included many of the ideas and suggestions offered in the slashdot comments ..."
Jeff, Rob and Chris in their Hollywood makeup. updog writes "The film Revolution OS, which has been discussed on Slashdot here and here, is now available on DVD at Netflix (btw, it's interesting to note that this Netflix version is sub-licensed under the guise of pay-per-view television, and the director J.T.S. Moore wasn't even aware of its existence until recently.)
A 2 Disc Special Edition DVD will be available in January 2003, and will include additional interviews, bonus material, and better video quality over the Netflix version. You can make sure that you're notified when it's released by requesting info here. Finally, I've written a review of the Netflix version of the DVD, which you can read here."
Next year's stocking stuffer, maybe? An anonymous reader writes "nvmax.com is running a story/press release explaining how Dynamism.com is teaming up with the Zaurus Open Source development community to bring the Sharp Zaurus SL-C700 to English!. I need to get one!"
What I want is C-64 style Aztec. retro128 writes "For all of your old schoolers out there, Tierra Entertainment has released a re-make of King's Quest II, which includes original art, completely redone music, and a few extra things not seen in the original game (some early screen shots hinted at a town, which did not exist in the original). What's remarkable is that Tierra has no affiliation with Sierra whatsoever, and is driven by two developers who wish to remain anonymous. I've played their re-make of KQ1 and it's up to snuff. Check out the main page or go straight to the good stuff."
I'll disagree about MPlayer. MPlayer is a little more fully featured, but I prefer Xine especially for DVD playing. Mplayer has given me nothing but performance fits and well, I don't exactly have a slow machine shall we say? :-) Not to mention the DVD menu support in MPlayer is not quite up to par from what the docs say.
find xine at http://xine.sourceforge.net
Derek Greene
The most likely reason why most ditros don't include MPlayer is because in order to fully utilize it, you need to compile from source. A lot of the optimizations have to be configured at compile time and the developers are against binary distributions of MPlayer. Even though I prefer it above any other media player, I think they need to address this issue before most distros will adopt it.
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
It would probably cost Wal-Mart less to just pay FatWallet's legal costs rather than go to court. In the end it seems even if FatWallet wins the legal battle they still have lost the war. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if Wal-Mart does the same thing next year supposing FatWallet posts their sale prices early again.
STOP ROCK VIDEO
For instance, if I wanted to watch a Sorenson Quicktime file, I have only two options: Codeweavers crossover plugin (which is excellent) and MPlayer. (I don't consider running the quicktime player through wine an option worth even considering. If you've ever done it you'd understand) I'm not aware of any other media players that support Sorenson, but if there are they'd be no better.
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
WOW! mplayer is doing some seriously wonderful work. Now, with sorensen (1 and 3) codecs, and WMP/WMA codecs, the reasons for havin to boot to windows are diminishing greatly. ...Now if only Intuit would port Quicken, that is last great frontier.
Before someone mentions it, I know about Kapital and gnucash, they just generally don't connect to the banks, and have all the necessary features, but they're great if they meet your needs. They just don't meet mine yet. I also know about crossover office -- but I don't want to pay more money, when I already have windows.
Anyway, here's hoping Intuit ports their bread and butter.
Guess what? I got a fever! And the only prescription.. is more cowbell!
Now if only we could get MPlayer to act as a plugin for Moz.
MPlayer is a great project. I was absolutely astonished when I first downloaded it and played with its many features. But I'm terrified that any day now, They (you know, MS or Sorenson or Real or the RIAA or the MPAA or possibly all five) are going to slap the MPlayer guys with a lawsuit (yes, MPlayer HQ is in, what, Hungary? But look at what happened to our friend Skylarov (sp.?) in Russia) and b3wm, down goes the project, and it's officially verboten in the US (like DeCSS).
;) ) including MPlayer any time soon, for fear of being named as co-defendants in a possibly gruesome lawsuit...
How will they sue the MPlayer people? Simple. They could sue under the anti-reverse-engineering clause of the DMCA. Or they could employ any number of other recent pro-corporate laws which are slowly making it illegal to reverse-engineer anything, even if it's necessary for you to do your work. (Remember, there is STILL no legal and MPAA-approved solution for playing your DVDs in Linux (let alone more obscure OSes like FreeBSD or OpenBSD)-- unless, of course, you count hooking up the output of your set-top DVD player into the video input of your TV tuner card...
Personally, I don't forsee any 'mainstream' Linux dists (if there really is such a thing in terms of desktop use
Remember: MPlayer was created using reverse engineering. The SPA/MPAA/RIAA/MS/etc. folks are really really pushing (and paying off congresspeople, naturally) to make reverse engineering a criminal offense. It may already be... this is a dangerous area, a legal powder-keg waiting to go off.
At BEST, MPlayer will be a "gray market" program for the forseeable future-- if not forever. Again, yes, I love it-- but I worry for it. More properly, I worry for its creators...
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
Does anyone know if anyone is working on harmonizing Mplayer with gstreamer, and for that matter xine and xmms?
Gstreamer?
(Gstreamer is an open-source project that has produced a development framework for creating applications like media players, video editors, streaming media broadcasters and so on.)
It would, of course, be really nice to have harmony in the free software world by integrating the Mplayer codecs into this framework.
It hasn't been up to the people to insure their freedom for about 200 years. It's up the the courts and ultimately the Supreme Court to strike down unconstitutional laws.
Congress passing oppressive laws is nothing new. Fortunately, the Supreme Court striking them down is nothing new either.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
On-topic satire!<Image>
OK, I can spot the sarcasm. But, why not take the following seriously:
:-), and only the real criminals (e.g., those who kill) would be pursued. Furthermore, you could know what your president or senator was doing at any given time, so no more backdoor deals: completely transparent politics. Complete lack of privacy won't happen, but it could bring some very positive results.
We need total information awareness - privacy is only really NECESSARY for criminals.
If we indeed had total information awareness, then we become a "naked" society. When you find out how many "good citizens" are in fact trading their music collections, or breaking the speed limit, or commiting sodomy, or smoking marijuana, or reading slashdot on company time, then maybe these things would no longer be illegal (except maybe the last
For what it's worth, I've had a number of Apple employees on the QuickTime team say nice things about Crossover. While it isn't officially supported, they're glad it's there, so Linux users can watch QuickTime stuff. They view the engineering effort of a full, official port to *NIX as WAY too big a project to be worth the results.
My video compression blog
I've talked to folks at Sorenson who don't mind at all about decode support in MPlayer. After all, they sell ENCODERS, and having more decoders out there only grows their market.
Their new, just-announced Squeeze 3 is a really awesome encoding tool. QuickTime, Windows Media, RealMedia, Flash MX, and MPEG-4 support.
My video compression blog