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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.
The real question about the Sony "service pack" is whether it removes the entire software program, leaves anything behind, or simply replaces the old rootkit with one that's harder to detect and remove.
...resort to desparate and morally reprehensible measures to slow their decline, be they the MPAA or the RIAA. They're behaving like frightened, cornered animals. I'd expect both of these industry cartels to resort to some really scary shit in the next decade or so to try to cut their losses (like the east fork stuff, http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/18 11/), but they don't understand the difference between gliding along in a paracheut and flying. Ultimately, the industry megacorporations will tank (well, the music industry will, but movies are much harder to make than music), and our freedoms will be the real casualty.
Only works in IE.
How about a full exchange of that CD for a new one without the DRM and the rootkit?
I hope someone sues them just to get such an exchange program going.
The original email that I got from Netflix is taken nearly word-for-word from the settlement, but leaves out this tasty tidbit: ...the upgraded service shall renew automatically (following an email reminder) at the end of the upgraded month at Netflix's regular subscription rate for the upgraded program, unless and until the Class Member cancels the service or modifies his or her subscription.
I probably clicked to indicate that I read the full version at some point, but it's a seven page document and I suspect most people rely on the summaries of long legal documents, we not being lawyers.
I'm gonna count on them to send me a nice, clear email at the end of the month. We'll see. Usually they've been pretty good, but I know some Netflix subscribers have been unhappy.
*sigh* This is exactly the sort of game that always seems to come out of class-action lawsuits, which is why I ignore most of the ones that come my way. This one seemed chintzy, but not evil. "What could it hurt?" I figured when I saw it.
Now I know. Thanks, Jeremy Wall.
Obviously they want the largest figure possible to get the politicians in a spin ("OMG! We're not getting the tax on $5.4b!"), so factoring in relative prices of the media in different markets is probably fudged, and a cant towards the more profitable of the three options is quite likely. The mere possibility of the fourth option, that someone will have downloaded the file just because it didn't cost them anything and wouldn't otherwise have seen it the film before it hit the TV screen, if at all, almost certainly isn't going to be a factor of course.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
The article gives a name. Ms. Kori Bernards, vice president of corporate communications for MPAA.
Let's take a time out for a brief lesson on how the world works. People have some money. People give a little of this money to lawyers. Lawyers give some of the money that they get to politicians. Politicians pass laws requiring you to give more of your money to the people who gave a little of their money to the lawyers. A positive feedback loop. It continues to grow until (1) people kill the politicians, or (2) people kill the lawyers. This is how the world works.
The MPAA (or any group with money to pay for politicians) will continue to extort your money from you until you either (1) kill the lawyers yourself, or (2) pay someone to do it for you.
When the entertainment lawyers collectively realize that they personally will suffer as a direct result of their applying their professional expertise to the topic of randomly selecting someone who watches a movie or listens to a music recording and demanding thousands of dollars, then this shit will stop. Until then, it will continue.
Be real, this is America in the 21st century. The corporations own the three branches of government, the military, the media, the police, and damn near everything else. NONE of these avenues is open any more for a systematic redress of grievances.
What else is left?
I can not and will not in good faith condone murder in either a public or private forum. What I can say is that, from a historical perspective, violence is the fastest, cheapest, and most effective way to either institute social change ( for better or worse ) or to seek redress from injustice.
There are alternatives to violence. Reread the works of Dr. Martin Luther King or Gandhi for powerful accounts of effective alternatives. Nonviolent tactics did work against far more dangerous and evil enemies than the entertainment industry. Perhaps the newer communications tools such as the web can be used to organize effective boycotts and other tools of social change.
Nevertheless, you asked for a name and you now have it.
I have a bunch of SGI machines that I use where I work:
2x 8 processor Onyx2s
1x 8 processor Origin 300
1x 8 processor Origin 2200
1x 32 processor Origin 350
1x 4 processor Prism
3x 1 processor Octane2s
and I hate them all with a passion. I've been fighting with software installation on the older Origin 2200 (8 400MHz processors, 6GB of RAM). SGI's crap compiler can't bootstrap gcc 4.0.2, their versions of common Unix tools like grep, etc., suck (forcing you to upgrade to the GNU versions, if their stupid compiler can build them), and IRIX has been at release 6.5 since 1998 or something. Sure, they want you to move to their new Linux-based Prism machines, and I've got one of those, too. Yippee, Itanics! What a super swell processor! I have an 8 processor Origin 300 where the total power consumption of all 8 processors is less than the consumption of 1 of the Itanics! See also, the poor code produced by gcc for this processor.
So, anyway. Upgrading SGIs sucks, their hardware is immensely fragile, its very persnickety about its environment (god forbid the temperature in the room not be in the 60s), licensing all their tools is hellish, their debugger is ancient and decrepit, my tech is a retard who tried to cable together the Origin 300 incorrectly and I had to fix it for him, and get this -- 8GB of RAM for an Origin 300 cost $25,000. That's right: $25k. You know what it is: it's PC3200 with some goddamn proprietary bullshit thrown in so you have to order your parts from SGI.
I'm glad you're dying. You've made every misstep possible: lets sell Windows NT machines! You sell Fuels in regular ATX cases with rockin' 800MHz processors that start at something like $10k. Your video offerings, once your strong suit, suck -- all you offer is older ATI cards in crap configurations -- $40k for two cards since I needed a new node (didn't buy it, duh).
The only reason to buy an SGI in the last five years or so is because of the good realtime performance of IRIX: I can sustain 16us interrupt times pretty much forever. But that's it. I'm not paying $130k for another slow-ass computer without even a damn video card for a console. And I don't need to: Ingo Molnar's realtime patches are coming along, and my quad Opteron box wipes the floor with the Origin and cost, oh yeah: $19,992 including shipping, and $7k of that is pimpin' SCSI disks.
Yay for your death! Ding dong, bitches.
Does the rootkit affect Linux? I naturally assumed this one of those "we only have to worry about Windows users" things.
Look at their bottom line. Look at their balance sheets. Look at their bank account with all those big piles of cash. Look at their increases in profits year to year. (the RIAA says in one press release they're at poverty's doorstep, but on their very website, they post profit increases in the double digit percentages. When the economy does bad, they don't gain in sales... imagine that! Basic economics DOES make sense... except to them. IT's all you damn pirates' fault.)
So, it stands to reason that if piracy is indeed hurting them, we'd see their money shrivel up and disappear.... making them destitute and on the street corner begging for change. After all, that's what their core argument is. The industry is "fighting for its very survival" to paraphrase the good ol' MPAA. So if they are making money, how can they claim lost revenue? It's a specious argument to begin with, and with their "calculated" damages, it's delusional. (After all, a lost sale is what $20 per DVD? $8.50 per ticket? $1 per song?)
So if piracy cannot be proven to cause harm.... why do we even need to prove it provides benefit? If it does nothing, then there is no need to bother. If it provides benefit, great. Either way, since it does no harm, THERE IS NO CASE.
All they want to do is "rent" their "content" to you. That way, they can make money forever on something that should've been in the public domain decades ago.
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
If I punched you, and you didn't die, would it then stand to reason that you were not hurt by the punch because you remained alive?
And that we can't tell exactly how much the industry is hurt by piracy doesn't really matter. There are still statutory damages, and claiming that they were hurt at least some by the infringement seems reasonable.
It's not that I feel they are fully in the right or that suing one's customers is a good business model, but claiming that they are not hurt by piracy at all seems a bit extreem.
This post written under Gentoo-linux with an SCO IP license.
Their stock price lost about 1/3rd overnight, 1/100th of what is was in their glory days. It's interesting that they peaked in late 1995 while most other software companies hit their peak in 2000. Their stock chart looks like a big triangle, and you barely see it wiggle when the dot com bubble burst. Too bad for all those XFS users out there. At least it's open source.
A few reverse splits ought to help fix their delisting problem, depending on the extra requirements they must meet to be relisted.
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I'm not politically incorrect, I'm just differently articulate
If I punched you, and you didn't die, would it then stand to reason that you were not hurt by the punch because you remained alive?
More accurately, if you punched me in the gut and I claimed you tried to kill me, my failure to die (or even require medical treatment) would be evidence to the contrary. For you, it would be the difference between a life sentence for attempted murder vs. a few months for simple battery.