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Game Industry Pushes Back Against Efforts To Restore Gameplay Servers (arstechnica.com)
Kyle Orland reports via Ars Technica: A group of video game preservationists wants the legal right to replicate "abandoned" servers in order to re-enable defunct online multiplayer gameplay for study. The game industry says those efforts would hurt their business, allow the theft of their copyrighted content, and essentially let researchers "blur the line between preservation and play." Both sides are arguing their case to the U.S. Copyright Office right now, submitting lengthy comments on the subject as part of the Copyright Register's triennial review of exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Analyzing the arguments on both sides shows how passionate both industry and academia are about the issue, and how mistrust and misunderstanding seem to have infected the debate.
Even if they can't do anything with their code, they refuse to let go. And when the copyright finally expires sometime next century, no one will be alive who remembers the game and no hardware exists which contains the code. Such is life with digital ephemera.
The idea of "owning the means to play" was one of the key changes in gaming industry. The entire concept of multiplayer on modern consoles is predicated upon this principle, and with windows 10, PC gaming is headed in the same direction.
Not giving players servers they could control was just one step on this progression.
we are no longer purchasing a perpetual license for the use of the software (in this case, the game). Instead, we are renting the game on the publishers terms, Once the publisher decides to no longer to support the auth. servers to host the game sessions, the license is no longer valid. If this is their advertised business model, would there still be such a backlash from the gamers?
Didn't Turbine explicitly say they'd be happy to let players run their own servers when Asheron's Call went down for good, but them WB lawyered up and acted like the assclowns they really are?
Copyright was introduced to allow authors a temporary monopoly on their works (something pretty much unheard of before then), in order to encourage creation and the proliferation of creative works. The point was not to give authors complete control over their works.
So it seems only fair that a cultural work is free for all if the author chooses to no longer sell it. And that would include running servers for discontinued games. Offer the server or let others. And in that light, the argument that people running servers for older games would compete with newer similar games offered by the studio, is interesting. If there is a lot of interest in the older game, would it not be profitable for the company to keep its servers up? And if there is only interest in the older game because it would be free, wouldn’t that mean that most of those players would not pony up the cash to play the new one, with only a small resulting loss of sales?
Of course I know that copyright has been perverted far beyond its original intent. But whatever.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Let's see if they fall for that one.
So resurrecting abandoned servers -- which means that people can't play those games -- would hurt their business?
This means one of two things:
1. They're lying
2. Their new games suck so badly that players would instantly drop them for the older versions.
Either way, not a good thing for them to say...
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
If there is any mis-trust there is only one reason for it. Games publishers are unrepentantly two-faced. That's fine, they're businesses, but they can't be a snake then complain about being called a snake.
Love seeing things like this because they attempt to use morally valid issues as evidence for not so morally valid acts. There's a BIG difference between a bunch of friends running a server at a LAN and servers being hosted professionally. One is in it for the game the other the money.
Wouldn't at all surprise me for example if people start running bitcoin miners on Gamers PC's. It's already happened with ESEA where they embedded it in the client (it's like Gamespy for those that remember).
Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
Calling the American voting system a democracy is like calling Elizabeth Swaney an olympic athlete.
But we can't make money unless we find a way to force you to buy the "new" version of the game you already love! Abandon-ware is the answer! Our financial eggheads have spoken! Once we start development of new-game-title-X we have determined that our consumer base might not actually buy it because they might want to just keep enjoying what they already own. Thus.. we must put an an arbitrary timer into the infrastructure for the old version to expire.. and we must sick the lawyers on anyone attempting to circumvent our planned obsolescence!
Obviously our old game wasn't worth playing or we'd not have abandoned it.. (sigh) so it shouldn't be a problem that somebody wants to revive that technology... but wait! Abandon-ware! If you take that technology that we've dropped on the floor like last year's fashion we might not make more ca$h... so suddenly that old tech... you are stealing it! Send in the lawyers!
All your (old, abandoned) base belong to us! =P
Peace out.
If it were a Democracy you would have lost hugely. It's called a Republic, derp.
If it's literally abandoned, it means they are no longer making any money out of it, so how does letting them have their own servers hurt their business at all?
No, it means that people can play those games. They don't want that.
Not quite, but it will mean some people play the older games without the revenue from that going into their pockets. This (a) could reduce new-game purchases and/or play, and (b) means that abandoning software (something they all do) implies that they are abandoning the rights to that software, an idea that scares them silly, because their entire business model is based upon providing a temporary product that they have complete control over so they can make you buy again, and again, and again until your patience finally runs out.
I am 100% in favor of the idea that if the software developer stops supporting the software, they lose ALL rights to controlling its use by the people who purchased it. If they want the benefits from providing a thing, then they have to support that thing. Support gone? Benefits gone.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
" those efforts would hurt their business, allow the theft of their copyrighted content" = "we really want people to not keep playing old games, because we know they won't buy new ones that have loot-crates. As responsible corporations, we have an obligation to gamers to shake them down for more money for worthless recycled and re-hashed content."
Those asshats can KMA. When they start releasing games with something that is actually exciting, and not some re-hashed bollocks and shitty gameplay designed to make money (Dungeon Keeper on iOS is the perfect example, they royally screwed that one up)
Other games I don't want to play: :)
Any sports franchise game: "Have you played "(Noted Sports Person) (Three Letter Sport Acronym) (Year)" yet? The only exception if Tiger Woods 2004 on the OG XBOX, that was dope
or
Call Of Duty, Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty 3, COD: Modern Warfare, etc. etc. there is at least 25 released and variations in this franchise.
or Star Wars: Battlefront, Star Wars: Battlefront II, with it's sequel Star Wars Battlefront (2015), and then Star Wars Battlefront II (2017) - now with MOAR LOOT CRATEZ!!!
Unfortunately for you and Moscow Donald, the Steele dossier produced by Fusion GPS has pointed the way to treason, money laundering, and other crimes in a very accurate and reliable way.
The more it's investigated the more it's proven true. Kind of a silly document to point to as proof that someone other than Trump and his crime family is guilty of treason.
then you have legally purchased the rights to use the game in perpetuity, regardless if the original company goes belly up, or decides to discontinue sales of the game in question. In fact, under contract law, an argument could certainly be made that shutting down the online game server breeches that contract, and allows the purchaser to do whatever necessary to protect their investment from breech of the contract, including filing suit against the company and/or setting up their own version of an online server to remedy the breech.
Hello Russian troll and/or idiot.
Fusion GPS is/was a non partisan opposition research firm WHICH WAS FIRST HIRED BY GOP to do oppo on Trump. Literally every candidate ever has people doing opposition research on every other candidate and themselves. This not thing special. Fake news.
British Spy (Christopher Steele) was an expert on Russian affairs at Mi6. Russia is a state run criminal enterprise. Putin and his cronies are sucking the country dry, while doing everything they can to destabilize the west for their own gain. Putin found in Trump the most useful of idiots, because Trump is a scumbag who's the diametric opposite of discrete. You think the Trump Dossier is the first accusation against him? Donald Trump dragged his wife by hair round the bedroom and raped her. Just one example of thousands of Trump being a creep that literally everyone knew about him. His ties with the mob. His bankruptcies. His MANY failed ventures which fucked people left and right and still crashed and burned.
Back to your "points."
No FISA warrant on Trump you fucking idiot. FISA warrants on scumbags who've already plead guilty and are now cooperating with Mueller to fill out the picture of the most crooked and corrupt administration in this country's history. Seriously, its just a cavalcade of crooks. Flynn, Manafort, Gates, Papadopoulos, are just the tip of the iceberg. Trump's "Best People" are a literal walking criminal lineup. Anyway back to the FISA warrants. Carter Page was under Fisa warrant because he was involved in a Russian Spy network before he even met Trump. It just so happened that several Russian spys or agents penetrated Trumps organization at the same time. The warrants were beyond justified and roped a bunch dumb asses into Treason.
Blah blah blah ohbummmerrr.. Seriously all you idiots do is spit blame on literally anyone you can just to avoid having to admit that you've been scammed or that you're in on the scam. Seriously you so called "conservatives" have demonstrably gone back on every single tenant you pretend to stand for. You want sanctity of marriage? You hire the biggest sex creep the world has ever seen. You want to lower the deficit? Guess what, it just went up $1.5T. You want to drain the swamp? Here's a list of his appointees who've had to resign in shame already.
Rob Porter - Beat the shit out of two of wives.
Brenda Fitzgerald - Served in the CDC while owning Tobacco stocks
Omarosa Manigualt - Dragged kicking and screaming out of the whitehousse
Tom Price - Bilked the tax payers for a million bucks taking free trips around the world for fun in military jets
Sebastian Gorka - Actual Nazi (memeber of the Order of Vitéz, google it) fired for being a Nazi, suprise surprise
Steve Bannon - Fired for going to war with Jervanka, ratted Trump out to a fucking journalist, now cooperating with the Mueller investigation. His quote exactly btw:
“The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor - with no lawyers. They didn’t have any lawyers,” Bannon was quoted as saying in excerpts of the book seen by Reuters.
“Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad shit, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately.”
You notice how nobody is denying it? That's because he let Michael Wolff record him.
Anthony Scaramucci - well who doesn't remember that one?
Less notably
Reince Priebus
Sean Spicer
Michael Dubke
Walter Shaub
If i were to give you a full list it would take me all night. Name another administration where so many people stepped doing because they were caught being this shady?
And yes, the whole world knows Russia hacked the election. They've been trying to hack every election. They hit out of the ball park because if fucking delusional idiots like yourself, or paid trolls like yourself. The only two options here...
First, I'm not saying your wrong in any way. I'm making no statement about their use of the term treason. I'm just pointing out where the problem lies.
The "we" in their statement isn't overly defined, but in the context it likely includes gamers. Gamers are more likely to be younger than older. As everyone knows, younger people are much less likely to vote. For example, the 18-29 age group had ~46% turn out in 2016. Their comment about people staying home during the last election is perfectly valid, in the context.
This is an interactive medium. If it's not playable, it's not fucking preserved! That's not blurry at all!
/me Gives you a gold star for paying attention in government class.
American Democracy... Nothing 13 people, $8000, and a few faceplant and twit accounts can't fix.
FTFY.
Sasha you've been posting this on the internet for a year now. So I'm sure you're well informed that most americans don't like either candidate and more people did vote for hillary than for trump.
I can already hear ..but but but electoral college!!!
Yes that may be true and trump consequently won the election but it doesn't change the falseness of the statement that people voted in droves in 2016 or the implication that they did moreso for putin's candidate.
I'm not sure if it's feigned ignorance, legitimate ignorance of events in america, or your limited mastery of American English but you are indeed incorrect my friend.
If we cared half as much about treason as we do about our video games we wouldn't have stayed home jacking off during the last election....
This of course doesn't mean that we can't tell you're a troll viktor, you're even more obvious but I won't correct associates who are slated to be fired next sprint.
Wasn't one of the key reasons for copyright to enrich the public wealth of culture by encouraging the creation of artistic works to eventually be released into the public domain by granting time-limited exclusivity to the creator? Doesn't its use, now, to keep artistic works out of the public domain and, effectively, cause them to cease to exist, fly in the face of the spirit of copyright? On those grounds alone, the gaming industry should be given a swift kick in the ass by the courts; and I say this as someone who makes his entire living on copyright law.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
As a former City of Heroes player, all I can say is Fuck You ESA.
I read the internet for the articles.
> It's actually called the oligarchy of the electoral college ignoring the voters.
That's an an interesting twist/spin on representation that doesn't make it trivial for New York and LA to bend over the rest of the country.
Are you equally butt hurt about Congress? It's set up the same way.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Democracy in context of modern western state is a system of electing political representative based on established ruleset in a democratic fashion.
I'm genuinely confused as to why you think that overwhelming majority of Western nations are "a farce". Most Western states don't actually have a two party system, and have prime minister rather than president as the political top job that leads the country. Which means that these people are elected by far fewer than a quarter of people in the nation.
And there's nothing farcical about it. The best part about Western style liberal democracy is that pluralism of opinions is what results in the outcome, and that whoever gets to the top must secure sufficient support from the political representatives of the populace who are in turn elected in a democratic vote by their constituents.
In order to not come off as too biased you could have mentioned the Sinclair Broadcast Group as well here.
But what the frak is up with people here? Yes, some AC had to bring up politics, but why are you guys taking the bait? So if you think that trolls are harmless, look at what they've already done to this community.
If only there was some consumer protection law that requires a product guaranteed to last at least for a reasonable life cycle of said product... For software running on a supported computer, this would be infinite, as the computer itself is more likely to decay compared to the software running on it.
Speaking of decaying multiplayer, even old games such as Doom, Quake, and related didn't stop working simply because some multiplayer master server went down. If only modern developers knew how to implement that feature as well...
> Name another administration where so many people stepped doing because they were caught being this shady?
"The presidency of Ronald Reagan in the United States was marked by multiple scandals, resulting in the investigation, indictment, or conviction of over 138 administration officials, the largest number for any U.S. president."
via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan_administration_scandals
Not saying that the current administration won't trump Reagan's eight year record, it is certainly on track to set a new Republican record.
What were the official numbers compared to previous elections. Certainly the inauguration was not well attended.
WTF does any of this political bullshit have to do with game and game servers? Jesus Christ. Do you guys have nothing better to do than to bitch/moan/cry/complain/try to sound smart/informed [and fail miserably at both]? I bet none of you whiners didn't even vote and yet you feel the need to push your worthless agendas and "I'd" take 100 Trumps over your asses any day of the week. At least "HE" got our of his mother's basements and is actually doing something. Good or bad, his IS doing more than any of you EVER will.
Why in particular do you think it's OK for the minority in the fly-over states to bend-over the rest of the country?
The electoral college was /not/ designed to reduce the voting power of the majority of people, it was designed to ensure that the states had voting rights relative to their population. If it was, California would have 180+ votes, to either Dakota's 3, instead of 55.
Your shit is broken, just because it did you a favor this time around doesn't make it any less broken.
I just checked, there is no such right.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
If they arent selling it, and arent running the servers, their net income is ZERO.
This could only make them money.
Fuck big corporations and their lawyers.
You know what's funny to me?
The attitude for a lot of Americans is basically the fittest survive (hence welfare programs should be eliminated).
Some states, ironically most pro welfare, are performing excellently in terms of people and cash... so why shouldn't those states have more power? They're doing something right
If you think that 13 trolls are more dangerous than Koch and Bloomberg, you really aren't thinking this shit through.
Apparently that is a common thing these days.
13 is the number of people indicted. The number of indicted Koch and Bloombergs is 0 as a comparison.
The number of non-indicted trolls is a lot higher and if you follow the trail to the top you will find people a lot worse than Koch and Bloomberg.
You know the kind of evil you usually only see in movies, when the big boss have his henchmen cut someone up in little pieces just to send a message or where someone is tortured for days just because they spoke up against the tyranny?
Koch and Bloomberg might be evil, but they aren't close to what the Russian top have done to get to their position.
Under no circumstances whatsoever should copyright be usable to deprive the public of access to something that has already been published. Why? Because loss of access to information and culture leads straight back into the dark ages.
Games that requires servers whose binaries/executables are private and will never be disclosed ...
Shouldn't be protected by copyright at all.
How you can have copyright of a work that is never distributed? It is a paradox.
That's called a trade secret.
The protocol and data that made up the story was distributed though, you could argue those are protected under that guise, as opposed to the server binary distribution if you want to take that logic.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
The number of people under investigation (vs already pleading guilty) in the Trump administration is not yet public. That said, I would take ANY cash bet it will exceed the 134 under Reagan for Iran Contra etc.
If, on the shrink wrapped box, it says you are buying the ability to play online then online multiplayer play is part of the "product". If you purchased this product then you, per the terms and conditions of the product, are entitled to the online multiplayer play component because that's what was sold as part of the product. If the product says "we only guarantee access to multiplayer online play for 2 years" and they give it to you for 2 years and then take down the servers, that's what you paid for. Probably what game manufacturers need to do is be more specific about what you are actually purchasing such that it constitutes a legally binding agreement. For example, this is no different than a product warranty. If you guarantee a product warranty, you the manufacturer are required to comply with the terms and conditions of the warranty. The product manufacturer can't just say "Oh I don't feel like honoring the warranty". Obviously an alternative to being obligated to host multiplayer servers is to let the community do it. ID Software and EPIC did this all the time and it didn't hurt them financially. I don't see what the problem is.
We'll make great pets
What were the official numbers compared to previous elections. Certainly the inauguration was not well attended.
Doesn't matter; the winner won and the loser lost. Popular vote doesn't count. Inauguration numbers indicate nothing.
Next time you want to spout off, remember that had it not been for the non-white vote trump would have lost. If trump had relied only on white males, he would have lost. He won because he appealed to a large cross-section of the population.
One of the dumbest things I've ever heard. Copyright is the antithesis of freedom of information, man.
How fragile must these companies be if a gaming museum operating a private server on a closed network is a threat to their bottom line?
If the museum were operating a private server on the public internet and letting just anyone log in and play then maybe they'd have a valid argument.
Maybe these companies should just make a deal with the gaming museum's "Hey, want to host our old servers for us? You do all the support and pay for all the upkeep, and you can let however many people you want play on them provided you charge them a subscription fee and give us our cut. Oh, and you're not allowed to change any of the code or the assets (cause you're a museum and we're only giving you this 'deal' for the sake of historical preservation)."
You're going to get modded into oblivion sadly. I agree with you. Look, I get it, Trump is an asshole. He doesn't exactly give people the warm fuzzies. But he's not stupid enough to condone lowering the Federal Reserve prime rate at a time when every economics expert would tell you not to and create the housing bubble that led to the foreclosure crisis. That's way more important than what anyone thinks about his personality. I care about my quality of life and if it takes a leader with actual balls to make that happen, I'm all for it. I don't care how it gets done.
We'll make great pets
...Asheron's Call on player run servers right now. It's still a thing with all of its grindy, bot-powered goodness. The XP to hit the upper levels is still stratospherically high, and traveling anywhere in the world still takes bloody forever. I still have friends from that community, but I don't miss the inefficiency of the game itself. They are welcome to it. Still, it is interesting to look back on and compare to the current crop of MMOs to see how far that style of gaming has come.
Democracy in context of modern western state is a system of electing political representative based on established ruleset in a democratic fashion.
You are correct. But there is a problem and it was identified by Harvard University that what we see, as the result of the Great Recession, is excessive fragmentation in political parties. What that means is that due to that fragmentation, Congress is not effectively making decisions because there is SIGNIFICANT political in-fighting. This results in the, for all intents and purposes, indecisive lawmaking that we have observed for some time in Congress that citizens are frustrated with. In that context, Democracy actually doesn't work. It results in an indecisive Congress that does nothing instead of something. I don't know what the solution to that problem is other than to ride out the transition while the Conservative and Liberal parties redefine themselves. The Great Recession significantly altered America and Western Europe.
If you're interested, here is the Harvard Lecture entitled "Globalization and the Backlash of Populism" by Mark Blyth on the subject.
We'll make great pets
"it won't be done so without a migration strategy"
Ha.
Haha.
Hahahahahahahahahaha
Quite an interesting hypothesis considering that as I pointed above, most western liberal democracies do not operate in a two party system. Which means that they by nature have far more fragmented political party base than US.
And yet, they are governed just fine.
The electoral college was /not/ designed to reduce the voting power of the majority of people, it was designed to ensure that the states had voting rights relative to their population.
Do you have something you can cite that shows this, because it's not my understanding, and it doesn't even make sense.
A popular vote ensure that the states had voting rights relative to their population. More population, more votes.
My understanding (possibly misguided) was that the electoral college was designed to ensure that states with less population still had at least some voice in the decision making.
The difference between Harvard's claim and your claim is that Harvard actually has data as you can see in the lecture. And the data spans a significant amount time. What do you have to support your position to disagree with Harvard University's professors?
We'll make great pets
Overwhelming majority of liberal democracies across the world, their party structure and the way they handle governance.
I have no idea how you missed this particular part of my argument, it being central to it and all.
You obviously don't understand how peer reviewed claims come to be accepted by an academic community. There are several problems with your content:
1) It doesn't state your claim proposition clearly
2) There is no evidence or logic supplied to support your position
3) Your statements are solely composed of conjecture and anecdotes which you should know cannot form the basis for an argument
I'd be really interested in your thoughts if you can state them as clearly as Harvard University can. I can understand their lecture clearly but I do not understand you but I am interested if you can make it coherent what you are trying to present.
We'll make great pets
Right to repair needs to = no rebuying software.
There was this one VM system that replaced the MB of the old system (X86 chip set tied os + custom pci card that booted the system + was also the storage) that controlled hardware over the parallel port. An no that OS on the pci card will not run on newer X86 hardware right as the os only had drivers for the chip set in came on.
But they where forced to sell it and give the Original IP holders an cut. (there is a much bigger story with it) But the point that is wrong is why should people be forced to re buy the IP rights to fix there own hardware. We don't need any chilling effect from things like this.
Like why does apple not want farmers to be able to do tractor repair with out needing to pay dealer fees.
I want to be able to buy the rights to use roms in my own emulator and not be locked into the inferior payed ones that piggyed backed on all of the work done by the free ones that came years before them. There are to many to list but some are like why pay for this when the older free (that are still being updated) ones can do stuff the payed can't?
I know this is slashdot. I will probably be downvoted in flames as a capitalist pig. Still, I want to give you the scoop from this side:
I am currently making an MMO. I will have a few servers that people can connect to.
Why don't I release a version of my server so people can run their own servers?
This is not my first game, and from experience I can tell you piracy is just rampant. By controlling the servers I don't have to worry about piracy anymore.
I can offer my game for free, which directly benefit my users, and support my game by having a built in vanity store. You can complete 100% of the game without paying a dime, but if you think those wings look pretty, fork a few bucks and support development. If I give the server away, I no longer have this revenue stream, and my servers will be competing with other people's servers and pirated servers. Thus it would be impossible for me to offer my game for free.
Now, Ideally the game will never die, I will keep developing it for ever. But let's say that it is not profitable, if I give away the code so people can run their own servers and I develop new games, I will end up competing with my own game. Worst, people will blame me for bugs, or their kids purchased something by accident. I will end up dragged into support even though I won't be making money.
Moreover, people might perceive my game as dead whether justified or not. They might decide to sue me to release the server. Now I have to deal with a lawsuit because I made a game.
So yes, forcing me to give away my servers now or in the future will hurt me.
If you are seriously expecting me to invest time in writing a peer-review grade thesis because someone on internet forums asked for it, you must think very highly of yourself.
In real world on the other hand, I will simply stick to my previous argument, which you still fail to address in any meaningful way.
i listen very well about your website at offline market.so today i seen that. it is so good neat and clean use themes nice work.keep it up!
attitude status
When I was a kid, I had a Viewmaster, and several picture discs.
Last week, I saw the modern equivalent on a shelf at Walmart. Runs on a smartphone. As far as I can tell, the picture discs don't have pictures on them. Just codes for downloading them. The fine print said "We reserve the right to terminate the app after 10/31/17." So while you can still buy it, but it might not even work now. Even if it is still up, you have no idea how long anything you buy will work.
It's terrible, but has become the norm.
It's actually called the oligarchy of the electoral college ignoring the voters.
As far as I can tell, almost every Electoral College voter actually voted the way the general populace in his/her district voted. There were seven EC voters who voted differently from their state. Seven out of 531. Not much faithlessness there.
If you want to complain, complain about the "winner take all" that almost (almost, because they don't have to, and some don't) every state uses to decide its electoral vote. I know people are all up in arms about the "popular vote," but the United States is a confederation of 50 states, not a giant conglomeration of 323m people. Each state votes. Moving the EC away from WTA would cause the EC vote to more closely resemble the overall popular vote anyway.
The Electoral College is fine. The problem is that almost every state chooses a "winner take all" format for electoral votes. They don't have to, but every President has run a campaign that exploited and benefited from the winner-take-all format, so they don't have a lot of motivation to change it.
My understanding (possibly misguided) was that the electoral college was designed to ensure that states with less population still had at least some voice in the decision making.
It was actually designed so that states with less *franchised* population had the weight of their *non-franchised* population.
The large gap between electors-per-elector for our largest and smallest states these days is a product of the fact that we haven't increased the number of representatives in the House of Representatives in 100 years. It wasn't that way initially. The gap was very small. What it did allow for, was states where only landed citizens could vote, having the electoral clout of all the people in their state that couldn't vote (slaves, people without land)
As far as I can tell, almost every Electoral College voter actually voted the way the general populace in his/her district voted.
No- not even close. Not even close to close.
Almost every EC elector voted the way the majority of voters in their *state* voted.
Had it been by district, it would have been a near-tie, or a Hillary win in the EC.
States are winner-take-all (minus 2). The largest plurality gets 100% of elector votes.
My understanding (possibly misguided) was that the electoral college was designed to ensure that states with less population still had at least some voice in the decision making.
Section 2 of the fourteenth amendment seems pretty clear on the matter: "Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers..."
The smaller states have less people, hence less representatives, but it's wildly disproportionate in the smaller states.
You are correct and GP is simply appealing to authority.
Harvard sounds nice and all, but the reality is that political fragmentation in Western Europe is something different than the rise of populism, although they are related a bit. It is also a vastly different situation than the corrupt and insanely polarized red-blue situation in the US legislative branch.
Increased political fragmentation is actually a result of (social) freedom, with fewer people voting 'the way their parents voted', or along religious or other strong cultural group lines; People are far more flexible in which party they vote for. Besides that, civilization has become much more media-oriented and collectively we are all more susceptible to the vastly increased number of bells, whistles and rattles that these rich media offer. Thus newcomers touting attractive soundbites can amass lots of votes before (generally) crashing and burning due to lack of organisation and experience. This includes populist parties.
The 'rise of populism' is something in which 9/11 and the geopolitics around it cannot be ignored. The only troublesome 'populist' parties are pretty much all anti-Muslim or more generally anti-brown-foreigner. Raging wars in the Middle East have increased and are increasing the global cultural divides. It's a pretty big ask for democracies in Western Europe to prevent the populist parties from feeding on that. It's not going great, but it could be much much worse.
Why can't this be treated the same way old time BIOSes were developed: one team wrote the specs by RE, the other "clean room" team wrote original code based on the specs. The open up your server (using your own DNS servers, so games connect to gamerserver.mygame.mycompany.com as per usual, just get your IP address back) to people that assert to never to have accepted the game's EULA.
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
and iso to usb writer will be black listed in windows so it's harder to install / hell they maybe bios lock systems to windows only with new windows logo requirements
banning steam = anit trust and EU issues
gfwl also tried to have limited modding and sand boxing that may of made it so that an map editor can not have it's own EXE.
Oh I so expected to be -1 in 2 seconds flat, because, well truth stings and I am pretty sure there was going to be a lot of butthurt after I posted it. But hey it's easier to just go with the flow sometimes.
They're entirely unrelated. Example: In my country, the current government consists of three parties. This is supposed to be the "populist" government. Previous government consisted of SIX parties. That's double the current party amount in government. That was the government that didn't include the populist party in it.
The amount of parties in parliament depends on how state's political sphere has developed. In most cases, you get quite a few parties that represent certain sections of populace, none of whom can reach 50% support to form government alone. So they have to negotiate with other parties and reach a consensus on government platform.
And this is how political pluralism is traditionally achieved in representative democracy. In case of states like US, where there are only two parties, plurality is present, but more tied into the party structure itself. As in a single party represents specific voting blocks that fight within the party for influence. The process is more rigid than the alternative by definition, because when you vote for a certain party, you also effectively vote for other interest groups represented by that party. So the larger the party is and the more interest groups it represents, the less influence your vote has.
I thought that the EC voters voted their districts, and then when a majority was reached, all votes switched to that winner, but sure, maybe they don't even bother with that first step. Makes sense to me. Either way, it's winner-takes-all, which is the problem.
Electors are selected by the state legislature, by whatever the relevant statutes are. The state is allocated an amount of electors they're allowed to select based on the amount of representatives they have in congress, so while there there is a close relationship to districts, no state is bound to apply any particular strategy to how electors are selected. Technically speaking, a state doesn't even need to hold a popular election to select its electors (and several states have done exactly that in the history of the country).
These days, there are 2 methods in place for elector allocation, the legislature allows the winning party of the popular vote to select all of the electors allocated to the state (making faithless electors less likely) and proportional allocation by parties according to popular vote ratio (2 states)
[The rise of populism and political fragmentation in Western Europe are] entirely unrelated.
Wouldn't you agree that the greater flexibility of the people in their voting decisions is at least in part responsible for the rise in ease with which political parties in Western Europe can gain influence? Look at parties such as the Pirate Party or in the Netherlands the Party for the Animals. I'd say that such parties would not have had any chance in the 50's, but such parties now have seats in parliaments in Western Europe. The same mechanism also allows all kinds of silly populist parties to pop up (and as said, generally crash and burn quickly).
In most cases, you get quite a few parties that represent certain sections of populace
That is of course largely true, but the one issue parties (as mentioned) are definitely a thing now and they are influencing the political agenda and discourse. I think their existence shows that people approach voting differently now. Instead of generally agreeing with the ideology of a party and choosing representatives, (some) people see voting for parliament as a referendum on the issue they care about the most. Not: "I want to do my part in choosing capable people to run the country in a good way", but "I want to be heard". In a way, it is a more egocentric approach and an extension of increased individualism (Remember when everybody was really worried about that in the 90's?).
In case of states like US, where there are only two parties
This is not true. There are more parties in the US (Jill Steins Greens, for instance), but the winner takes all system stabilizes (in the game theoretic sense) on two large parties. It clearly works very badly. I hope the Americans are going to get around to fixing their politics soon, but I have little hope for that.
If you expect me to take your claims seriously without any evidence or reason, then you are not of sound mind. I just dismiss you as a lot of useless talk.
We'll make great pets
And here we go... you say "GP is appealing to authority". Excuse me but fuck you. I made no statement about my opinions of collectivism vs. individualism to base that claim on. I am merely stating facts. See, I can state facts whether they align with my personal preferences or not. Just because I share peer-reviewed information doesn't mean I like it. That's the thing about facts, they are true whether you like them or not and whether you believe them or not. You're either interested in knowing the truth of what is going on or you're not.
We'll make great pets
Evidence has in fact been provided to you. Structure of clear majority of Western liberal democracies.
The fact that you're so keen on just dismissing the majority of Western liberal democracies as "evidence or reason" is weird.
Of course, I would agree. That is the point of democracy, and why it's generally a very stable form of governance - it enables demos, "the people" to air their grievances in a way that doesn't cause a massive systemic upheaval in the country and yet in a way that country's arestos, "the elite" cannot easily ignore. So there are populist parties that only address certain things that do indeed burn up after they succeed or fail in addressing their issues. Example: UK's UKIP.
Or you get the parties that show that their issues are relevant and they are capable of addressing them, becoming a long term fixture of political structure of their state. Example: Austria's FPÖ.
On your last point, you're missing the forest for the trees in my message. I'm not talking about parties that have no meaningful access to power (i.e. representation in national or supernational parliaments). I'm talking about parties that are in fact elected to power on national or supernational level and as such have access to the benefits that democratic election system grants those that succeed in it.
Henceforth, you have been deemed irrational and of questionable mental state. It is pointless to continue to talk to a person who dismisses entire areas of academia including logical syllogism which has been around for thousands of years originating with the ancient Greek Philosophers. You live in your own narcissistic parallel universe where everything revolves around you and there is only one truth: you are right and everyone else is wrong. Congratulations. I don't care dude. Live in your fantasy world. If that's what it takes for you to cope with your life because your too much of a wuss to deal with reality, it's cool. I understand. Sorry to hear that you're weak.
We'll make great pets
Oh and by the way, here is the problem with people like you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?.... I doubt you'll understand what I'm getting at given the way your mental framework is structured.
We'll make great pets
That I deny your religious views and cite long standing reality as a counterpoint?
It's a problem for you. Not me.
I dismissed nothing. I merely provided a counter claim based in long standing reality. The core principle of peer review as a concept, and scientific view in general is that people are actually allowed to provide counter points without being attacked on personal level for it.
Notably, the fact that you noted that citing counter point based in long standing reality is "a dismissal" tell us a lot of how you view your own claim.
The rest of your tirade is a marvellous projection. More power to you I say.
you get "monetary benefits in-kind" when you share software or other digital good, even if no actual cash changes hands, so therefore the GPL is still being "economically used" AND SUPPORTED (as much as it was ever supported, so no loss of utility, the same thing).
so try again, plz.