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Slashback: DRM, MPAA, ADSL
It's not evil, but just in case... gmr2048 writes "Sony seems to have heard the commotion. They have offered a "Service Pack" to uninstall the DRM Rootkit. From the announcement: 'This Service Pack removes the cloaking technology component that has been recently discussed in a number of articles published regarding the XCP Technology used on SONY BMG content protected CDs. This component is not malicious and does not compromise security. However to alleviate any concerns that users may have about the program posing potential security vulnerabilities, this update has been released to enable users to remove this component from their computers.'"
Obviously they have never heard the adage about deep pockets. Dieppe writes "The MPAA is at it again. This time they're suing a grandfather who didn't cave into the $4,000 blackmail offer for movie downloads his grandson downloaded from iMesh. Four movies in total, and they already owned 3 out of 4 with the grandson deleting them soon after download. This time the MPAA wants "as much as $600,000" in damages. The article also claims that "illegal downloading" costs the industry $5.4 billion per year. Not sure where the MPAA comes up with these figures."
Longer life and no charge time. It doesn't come easy writes "A press release from A123Systems announces another new lithium-ion battery technology that promises to deliver unprecedented performance (according to them). The technology is suppose to deliver 10 times the cycle life and 5 times the power over conventional lithium technology, and only require 5 minutes to recharge to 90% capacity. This is certainly not the first breakthrough for lithium based batteries that has been promised. I wonder if there is a patent lawsuit in the making?"
Fast net connection, but only if you live nearby. conJunk writes "The BBC is running an article about the ADSL2+ that touted a 24MB/s net connection. It seems that this number in fact only holds up if you live across the street from the service provider."
Always read the fine print. JeremyWall writes "The recent Netflix class action settlement has a catch. While it is nice that the average subscriber will be upgraded for one month for free, if you read the fine print in section 4.2 of the long form [PDF Warning] of the settlement you find that you will be automatically charged for the higher subscription going forward. If you don't opt back out when you get their email, you are gonna get charged from then on. If you opt in for the settlement - check your email box regularly!"
Know when to hold and know when to fold. psykocrime writes "According to a recent press release SGI stock has been delisted by the New York Stock Exchange, as a result of falling below the NYSE's minimum share price." SGI, the former darling of the high-tech world, has been in trouble for a while, perhaps this is really the end.
Oh, and don't bother to use Firefox to try to download the "Service Pack": it's IE only. Typical.
it will hit it in theory, in practice with about 200 ft of copper between myself and the dslam i am only getting about 14 Mbit/s in my testing of some adsl 2+ equip. might be the modem though, i am synced up at 23Mbit/1Mbit and i am getting all of my upstream most definately.
still damned fast, and can go further distance than normal adsl
The actual speeds usually ends up around 16-18Mbits, but we've had 24Mbit available here a long time. And, yeah, it's also ADSL2+
Reading the annoucement from Sony, you can see that they explicitly state that the service pack removes "the cloaking technology component" of the software, presumably meaning that the copy protection component is still in place, it's just uncovered.
In other words, RTFA.
I was getting all giddy with the prospect of posting a message extolling the humor of an 'Update' completely uninstalling the original software until I read that part..
Just went to the Sony site to download the DRM removal tool, using Mozilla on Linux.
.... Just say NO!
Sony site initially says, I have to use MS IE.
I set my Mozilla to lie and claim to be MS IE.
Now Sony demands that I enable Javascript, along with instructions for IE.
I turn on Javascript
Finally I get to the download option and what do I see!? It's not a download at all, it's an "ActiveX" component that they want you to "INSTALL".
SONY
(Celui que tient la peur de devinir nuage)
Watch your capitalization, there. 24mbit/sec (with a lower-case m) is 24 millibits/second (0.024 bits per second), which is just a tad slow.
To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three persons, two of them absent.
Where is the accountability for this group?
It's called the court system. If you think the legal system needs reform, that's a separate issue.
Find free books.
I'd like to see an example of this actually having happened in court. If it has, please direct me to more information.
Snopes to the rescue
Short answer: no, it's never happened.
I got their email notice the other day and I thought, "who would go through all the trouble of a class action lawsuit just to get approx 3-4 DVD rentals for free[...]"
Nobody. Instead, the plaintiff got $2k, and the lawyers got $2.5 million.
There should be a modification to class action law that limits the lawyers' payment to at most 1/3rd of the cash value of the benefits actually claimed by the class members.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
This time the MPAA wants "as much as $600,000" in damages. ... Not sure where the MPAA comes up with these figures."
17 USC 504(c)(2) is where.
There are two types of damages available in a copyright infringement suit: actual and statutory. The plaintiff gets to pick which one he wants. The maximum possible statutory damages are $150,000 per work willfully infringed. In this case there are apparently four works. 4 times $150,000 is $600,000.
Of course, they would need to not only prove infringement, but that the infringement was willful. Furthermore, that only results in the court being able to award any amount it feels appropriate, within the range of $750 - $150,000 per work. The amount awarded may well be less than the amount sought.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Check this out:
XCP SUPPORT
ActiveX Unsupported
Sorry, your Internet Browser does not support ActiveX Controls.
Please use Microsoft Internet Explorer to continue.
Download Internet Explorer from the Microsoft website
More Lock in! Thank god I'm on Linux.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
If you want a cheaper solution than netflix, look into peerflix. No regular fee, just a very low price per DVD, plus time spent mailing ones you're done with. Selection depends on the other folks in the system, and response time isn't super-fast, but if you don't watch that many movies, it's much cheaper than netflix.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Send Sony some feedback about their DRM software: http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/english/form11.html I sure did.
They're using statutory damages, not actual damages. Statutory damages are always inflated to deter career criminals from engaging in systematic infringement.
Unfortunately the statute does not discriminate between the head of a mass producing piracy ring making millions of dollars in illegal sales and an individual downloading three backup copies and one unpurchased movie for personal use.
Inflated figures you see when they seek to make a small-time CD duplication operation among friends seem like a major criminal enterprise by multiplying the number of actual CD burners by their top burn speeds. Then one person with a single burner can be labeled as a mass pirate by saying he had equipment equivalent to 52 1x CD burners!
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Erm, we've been using adsl2+ for a good year in France (with the ISP Free)... You can get 20Mbps up to around 2km. Afterwards it slowly goes down, but even around 5km away you can still get 2-4Mbps. And the 1Mbps upload isn't really affected by the distance, until you get really far away. It's odd, 5 years ago, France was far behind, with the US being in the lead. Now France is ahead of Britain which has barely discovered 2Mbps as a general public offer, and the US is drooling over the *British* adsl? And no, I'm not some snotty French idiot come to be arrogant as Americans seem to think all the French are, I'm a Brit expat. Oh, did I mention the fact that along with 20Mbps dsl, we get free VoIP (with a phone pugged into the modem, not through the PC), *and* TV? Oh, and it's only 30 euros a month ;o)
Don't forget they stopped using the cool cube logo, too.
Managers and clients don't want to see an effete little "sgi," that hardly inspires confidence.
Where's the logo that booms, "Damn straight, I AM graphics?"
Phone wiring has uncontrolled impedance while Cat5E has well-defined limits. Cat5E has a usable bandwidth extending beyond 200MHz (some video extenders transmit analog RGB over three pairs, using the last pair for keyboard/mouse/usb) while ordinary phone wire is pretty much unusable beyond 10MHz due to excessive crosstalk.
They may both be copper but the way this copper is arranged makes a huge difference.
We would be interested in speaking to any California residents that have experienced this problem before the EULA was changed. We have looked at many DRM cases and Sony went too far with this particular scheme. You can contact us at gw@classcounsel.com or by visiting our web site at http://www.classcounsel.com./
You can't outlaw a boycott. Ignoring the reasons above, you are talking about imposing a mandatory consumption law.
Ask the revolutionary era French how the Gabelle (salt tax) turned out. Oh that's right, it was one of the things that lead to the overthrow of the government.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
See, now you're completely wrong about this. It has nothing at all to do with how much time has gone by, and everything to do with how many movies you rented in the past month. This also affects the availability of the DVDs in your queue that they don't have enough copies of.
When you first sign-up, they do ship as fast as they possibly can, and will continue to do that if you rent a relatively small number of DVDs each month. If you rent a lot, the turnaround time is only slightly longer, as they add your DVDs to the queue below the less-frequent renters.
Personally, I find this to be a prefectly appropriate trade-off. My DVDs are slowed-down only slightly, so somebody that is helping subsidize Netflix is slightly happier. I'll admit I think it's very unfortunate they don't mention this fact anywhere on their site, but it is widely available info.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I disagree that it would be unethical to refuse a case from the MPAA. We're not talking about defending a person accused of a gruesome murder who is most likely bound for death row. If lawyers refused a case like that, I could understand someone saying they are unethical.
/ bagaric_full.jsp/
But the cab rank rule doesn't apply in the United States.
In the United States and elsewhere, the general rule is that there is no duty for lawyers to accept work, except where the professional association or a court assigns them to the client. According to the International Code of Ethics of the International Bar Association, 'Lawyers shall at any time be free to refuse to handle a case, unless it is assigned by a competent body'.[62] While the cab rank rule does not apply in the United States, it has a strong foundation so far as barristers are concerned in England[63] and Australia.
http://www.law.qut.edu.au/about/ljj/editions/v3n2
We're talking about an organization made up of one of the richest industries in America suing its own customers for even more money. While I don't agree with the concept of people downloading full movies, you have to wonder if the lawyers who take these cases are thinking with wallets when their firm gets the call from the **AA.
My Sysadmin Blog
Hmm. Couldn't possibly be crap code from the GNU folks. No, that's never been the case, has it? Not trying to use the "compiler" that's part of the base OS, are you? FYI, that's a very limited compiler that's only smart enough to link together the already-compiled kernel. Oh yeah, that's a FAQ.
If by "suck" you mean complies with POSIX, UNIX98 and other relevant standards, sure.
And has been continuously enhanced, fixed, and optimized ever since to the point where it's reliable, fast as hell, and oh yeah doesn't break binary compatibility for applications or kernel modules every time an overzealous kernel developer gets a stick up their ass about who should or shouldn't be able to call this function or look at that piece of data. Just because its called 6.5.28 and not 11.3 doesn't mean it hasn't progressed substantially.
Yay. Namecalling proves your point so well. Though true, power consumption for Itanium2 systems is terrible. Still, performance is better as well. And just so you know, Intel is aware of the power problems, and is trying to address it. Though, personally, I wouldn't hold my breath.
There we go again with that wonderful GNU software. I seem to remember SGI producing incredibly fast code for Itanium2 with their Pro64 compilers. Based on gcc. But rejected by the gcc folks because it didn't fit into their nice orderly x86-oriented universe the way they liked it.
Ever been inside an Octane? An O2? An Indigo? An Indigo2? An Indy? A Challenge of any variety? Compare that to being inside a PC. The difference is night and day. The only consumer-level machine I've ever seen that came even remotely close to being as easy to work on was a PowerMac G4 -- and you still deal with cable hell there. Or maybe you meant software? Where, I dunno, you get meaningful conflicts with an interactive resolution method, and helpful non-cryptic online prompts and help. What, you prefer RPM hell instead? More power to you.
Like what, pray tell? OK, compression connectors suck, and I damaged an Octane frontplane by not knowing what the hell I was doing. If I bothered reading the hardware guide it wouldn't have happened.
Funny, seeing as I've used every piece of their MIPS desktop equipment at 80 degrees or better with nary a bleep of anger from the boxes. Now servers may be a different matter, but they're designed for machine rooms. Get an extra air conditioner for your parents basement dude (sorry, couldn't resist).
Hmm. Sending in a system serial number and a list of software you want to license is too tough for you? Or is it the cutting-and-pasting that's getting you down? Or maybe the license keys printed on those pieces of paper that got sent to you.
Sorry, I've spent a good amount of time in both dbx and g
No, it doesn't. It just makes the files visible again, but leaves everything in place. It just removes the opportunity for virus writers to hide files by naming them $sys$foo. So you could consider that it removes the most dangerous part of the rootkit, but it still cripples your system (scanning active processes periodically) and cannot be uninstalled easily.
It does not have to do that, as the original DRM software ("rootkit") is still in place. That one consumes resources already, so there is no need to consume even more resources with another daemon. As the DRM software is still running, re-inserting the CD will not change anything because the software will detect that it is already installed. The only difference is that the files are visible instead of being hidden.
This is irrelevant, as they do not uninstall the DRM software. So it still counts the number of copies that you make. If you have already made your three copies before applying the "service pack", then you will have none left afterwards. Guess why they do not make it easy to uninstall the software?
-Raphaël
IAAL (20 Years). Apart from "first cab off the rank" rules that may apply to court appointed defence lawyers, all lawyers have some control over the type of work that they accept. It is simply untrue to imply otherwise.
It may mean changing employer, but if there are moral issues, the Neurenburg defence ("I was just following orders") is never enough. It is really empty coming from the mouth of a lawyer who is trained to understand the fine shades of grey that exist in the real world.
It is true the system is adversarial. It is also true that the legal profession, as a whole, contributes a lot of "pro bono" work to the community. Why are there no big NY and West Coast law firms helping these poor people on a pro bono basis? Can no-one see merit in a poor grandparent, a single mother or a child getting a really competent defence from a big firm lawyer. Once that starts to happen it will be socially unacceptable for the cases to continue.
Those involved in these prosecutions should be embarrassed. Would be embarrassed if they received sufficient publicity. How do they explain their work to their children? Do their friends and neighbours know that they are bankrupting poor people for downloading music? Suing grandparents and children for an event that they can barely prove, on evidence that would be thrown out of court in a real criminal case? Is the US so sick that this is socially acceptable?
If you want to stop it, personalise it. Not with violence. With publicity and concerned lawyers, law students and law schools. Get 1000 people to attend the courthouse on the day of the trial. Get the faces of those actually prosecuting these cases, not the media spin people, on TV and in the media. Expose their grubby means of making a living to their children, friends and neighbours. Then it will change!
Have you all forgotten the Chicago 5? Very different facts, but spawned legal centres around the world that help poor people and protect their rights.