Slashback: TIPS, FatWallet, MPlayer

Slashback with words on the demise of TIPS, MPlayer's newest add-in, Revolution OS on DVD, Wal-Mart blinking first in their fight with FatWallet, and more. Read on for the details.

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."

Comments

Who needs TIPS

[dynayellow]

When we've got the Total Awareness Network. Let the computers do the work!

Man, remember when we were worried about Carnivore?

I miss TIPS

[Skyshadow]

Considering what I've been reading the last few weeks about this new Department of Information Awareness, I think I miss TIPS. Bad to worse and all -- TIPS was at least simply a formal structure for Americans to report on one another. DoIA, on the other hand, seems more like a full-out spy organization targetted towards the American people.

I am perpetually shocked at the willingness of Americans to give away the rights for which their ancestors suffered so much.

Menace the average modern American with anything halfway alarming -- terrorism, crime or any other of today's various boogeymen -- and in place of their forebearers' bravery, idealism and resolve, they will show cowardice, surrender and an astounding aptitude for cognative dissonence. They will gratefully trade their liberties for even the illusion of security, and will gladly indenture themselves to anyone who claims to offer them safety. How far we've fallen from the day when men like Washinton, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt fought for and to protect the central ideas of American Democracy.

How we've betrayed the bravery of our heritage.

I believe that if America stands for anything, it's the rights which it is supposed to guarantee its citizens. Strip that away, and what are you left with? Nothing more than a location on a map and base nationalism. To give away our hard-won rights is disgusting cowardice, and to strip them from others is nothing less than treason.

Re:I miss TIPS

[dynayellow]

The political demagogue is powered, today as he was in ancient Rome, by the mob. The mouthbreathers.

The mouthbreather doesn't care about freedom of speech; his opinions are the popular ones. If the popular opinion changes, so will his. The mouthbreather doesn't care about freedom of the press; he just wants to be entertained.

What the mouthbreather really wants is to get through his day, safely, and have it be exactly the way it was the day before.

In "Easy Rider," Jack N's character says something along the lines of "People 'round here will go on and on about freedom, but if you show them a man who's really free, they'll hate him."

Re:I miss TIPS

[rasche]

As an European (non eastern), I'm
quite surprised Americans allowed something
like TIPS or the whole Patriot Act to
happen in the first place.

Always thought the American constitution
allow enough power to the authorities
to defend the country and safeguard the
freedom of its citizens.

Re:I miss TIPS

[Lord Omlette]

Every night, good red-blooded Americans turn on their teevees and see their leaders telling them that they are free and they live in the best country in the world. As far as these people are concerned, their "hard-won" rights are still there!

Re:I miss TIPS

[ChronosX]

Your quote got me thinking about something I once read by H.L. Mencken, a well known political journalist, who was active in the first half of the last century. He simply said, "The average man doesn't want to be free. He wants to be safe".

This prompted me to do a little more research into the man and found he had quite amazing insight into the mind of the government and the people. For example, I found another marvelous passage that seems to apply well to this very situation as it did many decades ago:

If the American people really tire of democracy and want to make a trial of Fascism, I shall be the last person to object. But if that is their mood, then they had better proceed toward their aim by changing the Constitution and not by forgetting it.

Re:I miss TIPS

[Twirlip of the Mists]

But, when the revolution comes, the state governments will continue even if Washington DC is nuked off the face of the earth.

I'm not sure how you define "function" in this context. If it comes to war-- which is what I assume you're talking about, what with the "nuked off the face of the earth" thing and all-- the several states will be utterly defenseless. An occupying force could march into any state capitol in the country, gun down the legislature, and take control with virtually no organized opposition.

And let's not forget something that's even more critical than defense: the economy. Our economy is managed-- to the extent that it's managed at all-- from a central bank in Washington. That bank issues all U.S. currency, and backs it. If it disappeared... well, chaos.

And finally, just to pick one example of many, one that, as a restaurant owner, is near and dear to my heart, we have the USDA and the FDA. There are essentially no state-scale systems for the inspection, grading, and certification of foodstuffs. If the Federal government were to evaporate, we'd be back in the days of unregulated food production. Could we live with it? Sure. But I sure as hell wouldn't want to.

The Federal government is far from irrelevant.

Oh, and your thing about "a radical difference in behavior, speech, mannerism, dress?" Utter crap. There are essentially no cultural differences between any two points in this country, notwithstanding differences that are based on factors that transcend geography, such as race or ethnicity. You can get on a plane and go from Miami to Houston to Phoenix to San Francisco to Denver to Omaha to Chicago to Detroit to Boston to Richmond to Atlanta and back to Miami and not find any significant differences between any of them.

Re:I miss TIPS

[Blkdeath]

The best way for a totalitarian regime to maintain power is to involve the population in their own oppression. The people in power have the work of rooting out potential subversives done for them, while the people under control believe they're doing something great for their country by rooting out those subversives who threaten the nation's stability.

This reminds me of that age-old joke about the cold war, set in Russia;

The police arrive at a man's house, shove him aside, and proceed to dig up his entire garden! The man stands calmly by, watching as they dig and dig, tossing clumps of soil aside and back again in a fervent search. Finding nothing, they grunt in disgust and leave.

The man walks to his neighbor's house and says;

"Thanks! So tomorrow I phone and tell them you have secret documents stashed in the logs in your woodshed, right?"

WalMart backed down after Thanksgiving

[nezroy]

Actually, I think this was a partial success for Wal-Mart (from their point of view). With the threat of the DMCA, they got the prices removed so their competitors could not undercut them. They then backed down AFTER the post-Thanksgiving sale, costing them little to nothing to do so, and avoided the cost of actually having to pursue the lawsuit. Other than the relatively small press-coverage on /. and the single blurb on WSJ, they take almost no bad press over the whole affair. I'd say they accomplished exactly what they set out to do.

Re:WalMart backed down after Thanksgiving

[Neolithic]

they take almost no bad press over the whole affair. I'd say they accomplished exactly what they set out to do.

This is why FatWallet needs to keep pressing the charges of the 512(f) provision and not let Wal*Mart settle out of court. Wal*Mart committed a very real crime and Wal*Mart must suffer the consequences of their actions. The DMCA must be shown to be a bad law.

Scenario: I threaten you with a gun for your money. Even were I to give the money back and say, "Sorry, no hard feelings," I would still go to jail.

Fuck Wal*Mart and fuck the DMCA.

Re:WalMart backed down after Thanksgiving

[bluephone]

Scenario: I threaten you with a gun for your money. Even were I to give the money back and say, "Sorry, no hard feelings," I would still go to jail.

Of course you'd go to jail. I hold a copyright on the Intellectual Property of threatening people with guns for money.

Re:WalMart backed down after Thanksgiving

[erroneus]

Then of course I would sue you... ... you realize that I hold the patent on the process of extracting money from a victim while using threat of death or bodily harm while displaying the instrument of said death of bodily harm in view of the victim.

Isn't it a little late for Wal-Mart to back down?

[Scooby Snacks]

I mean, the damage is already done. These were sale prices from a week ago. They got them removed. (Well, several big-name retailers did.) Then, they decide to give it a go to try to find out who did it. FatWallet showed some backbone, so Wal-Mart backed down and decided to cut their losses rather than have this go to court.

Pardon me, but I don't think that Wal-Mart's "seen the light" or become a good guy in this regard.

Wal-Mart's Bluff

[vaguelyamused]

One wonders if Wal-Mart's bluff on this was simply a ploy to have the prices taken down before the sale and while planning all along to back down later. Obviously they accomplished their goal, getting the prices taken down from the site before the sale, and even if FatWallet hadn't fired back they would have no reason to expend legal effort and expense of pursuing their copyright claim any further. Obviously the information in question is no longer of any use to anyone.

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.

Re:Wal-Mart's Bluff

[vaguelyamused]

That maybe true, maybe not, if they can get a federal court to grant an injunction against the site by trying to charge them with DMCA again they will be required to take the prices down. If they settle with FatWallet this year the case will not enter case law as there is no judgement and they may still be able to get an injunction on the same grounds as the subpoena this year. Even if they don't get an injunction any site that is threatened by Wal-Mart and their huge legal department may be advised by their own lawyers to take down the info until the case is settled. And Wal-Mart wins again.

Hopefully you are right and someone stands up to them next year, we'll see.

Re:Wal-Mart's Bluff

[StevenMaurer]

Everything you said was true, except for the last part. If it happens again next year they probably won't be able to pull the same stunt.

Whatever that judge is who allowed the subpeona to go through on this patently bogus claim must be pretty red-faced right about now. As news of these kinds of shenanigans gets out into the wider legal community, you'll likely start seeing fewer attempts, because judges can come down pretty hard on frivolous lawsuits.

Perjury?

[Phanatic1a]

So what happens to Wal-Mart now that they've submitted the claim that their prices were protected by copyright under penalty of perjury? Surely even though they've withdrawn the claim, they don't get to "take back" the fact that they perjured themselves?

Aztec

[Idarubicin]

What I want is C-64 style Aztec.

Gee, if I wanted that, I'd dust off my C-64 and play. They built those things solidly...nearly two decades, and I've had to replace the power supply brick. And that's it. Granted, use has tapered off significantly over the last decade, and the joysticks that have suffered from heavy usage need replacement, but still...

There's something to be said for avoiding the hard drive as a point of failure.

Mplayer and Codecs -.MOV quicktime etc.....

[Nex6]

using RH8:

and apt4rpm i was able to get .mov and all the movie media file to work in mplayer.

using apt-get install MPLAYER and ALL its plugins including transcode.

then:

apt-get install xmms*
## this will install xmms and all its plugins which include the codecs that will make the sound work for the quicktime movies.

have fun.....

Nex6

ENOUGH with the freedom talk!

[Travoltus]

Freedom is for kooks.

If you aren't doing anything wrong, why are you afraid of people knowing what you're doing? We need total information awareness - privacy is only really NECESSARY for criminals.

You've got Monday Night Football. You've got your cheetos. You've even got your lagermeister. What more 'freedoms' do you need?

Big Brother is going to save us from the terrorists! I'll gladly sacrifice freedom for that!

Long live Ashcroft!

(moderators: please spot the sarcasm in this post.)

Re:Mainstream distros to include MPlayer?

[Per Wigren]

Mplayer can already play most files without using external win32-codecs... The only (significant) codecs that needs win32-codecs are RealPlayer, Sorenson v3 and WMV9... It already has native code to play all mpeg4/divx-files and wmv7/8 which is what 98% of all (.avi/.asf/.wmv) flicks on the net use anyway... And they are working on native support for both WMV9 and Sorenson v3...

MPlayer and recent (evil) legislation

[JessLeah]

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).

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 ;) ) including MPlayer any time soon, for fear of being named as co-defendants in a possibly gruesome lawsuit...

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...

Re:MPlayer and recent (evil) legislation

[JessLeah]

The way MPlayer development seems to progress is:

STEP 1: There is no support for codex X.
STEP 2: They add DLL support for codec X.
STEP 3: After a good amount of time spent reverse-engineering, they add native support for codec X.

It's the step 3 that's gonna really get them in trouble. Codecs only remain "DLL-only" in MPlayer for so long. After a time, the MPlayer guys figure out how to reverse-engineer the codec-- or someone else does, and the MPlayer guys adapt the code to their project...

Heck, the EULA for many of these DLLs may say "Only on approved operating systems", who knows... no one reads the things. Not even me. ;)

TIPS may not be dead yet...

[Platinum Dragon]

...only renamed.

This is the relevant section that supposedly eliminated TIPS:

SEC. 880. PROHIBITION OF THE TERRORISM INFORMATION AND PREVENTION SYSTEM.
Any and all activities of the Federal Government to implement the proposed component program of the Citizen Corps known as Operation TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System) are hereby prohibited.

All it does is prohibit the proposed program under the Citizen Corps known as TIPS. A strict reading of the language could leave a way to revive the program under a different name.

It may seem a bit legalistic and paranoid, but legalities like that are precisely how unpalatable programs are implemented anyway.

Total Poindexter Awareness

[Jeremy Erwin]

Call John Poindexter at his home:1-301-424-6613.

Tell him how you really feel by sending him a letter:

John M. and Linda Poindexter
10 Barrington Fare, Rockville, MD, 20850

source 1

source 2

Remove the $HOME/.mplayer directory

[msobkow]

I got burnt by this too. Shut down MPlayer. Remove the .mplayer subdirectory (rm -Rf $HOME/.mplayer). Restart MPlayer, and it recreates the .mplayer settings with default values.