With a credit card, they're spending the creditor's money. With a debit card, they're spending your money. Even if all the protections are identical, which do you think will inconvenience you more?
With ACTA and all of these recent developments, I don't think piracy will be so widespread for many more years. It's great theres good services like Spotify and Steam now though - just need similar for TV shows and movies now (and Voddler is coming).
I'm pretty confident the only thing that will curb widespread piracy is widespread availability of the same content at acceptable prices, and in acceptable formats.
Until the content providers figure that out, they will never win.
BitTorrent just seems like a waste of energy for music...but I don't really know why. I suppose it works as well for small files as large... it just feels like more work to search for something so small in the browser, open it in a new app, clutter uTorrent with a thousand tiny downloads...
BitTorrent's role in music sharing is mainly for albums and artist collections. You know, like say if you wanted the complete works of the Beatles. When your typical MP3 player has room for tens of thousands of tracks, you're a lot more likely to look for those large collections to save time, if for no other reason. Got the space, may as well fill it up.
I think this case was merely a token battle on the part of the RIAA. They have to know by now that they're never going to get rid of P2P sharing by going after the software developers, but at the same time they have to make it look like they're still trying.
You don't use a torrent to grab a three or four meg file: swarming protocols work best for sharing large files.
Most people these days who used to use limewire now use torrents to download albums and band collections, then use iTunes to pick up the odd track here and there that was too much trouble to get from a torrent.
Exactly what I was going to post. Not to mention a huge percentage of the stuff on there was fake already a few years ago. I can't imagine it's gotten any better.
It will probably be the future, but not next-gen. (Probably not in the next 10 years actually.) The reason is because download speeds on average in the US are nowhere near fast enough to support such a system as the primary means of delivery for content. A significant percentage of US households still don't have broadband access at all.
Game developers are already having issues with a 9gig DVD not being enough space for modern games, so the size of them is only going to go up. There's no way the US public is ready to download 10GB+ sized games, and probably won't be for the foreseeable future. I definitely see SSD media playing a much bigger role in video game content delivery in the next gen of consoles.
Cars have a lot more speed these days than they need, and a lot more perhaps than you personally assume. My '98 Honda Accord with a V6 hit 115-120MPH with no trouble at all, and had rock solid handling at that speed. I don't know how fast it could safely have gone, because I didn't trust myself to push it to the limit. (Oh, and it came with tires from the factory rated for 149MPH.) If a stock Accord from 12 years ago was safe at that speed, I think it's fair to assume that most cars on the road today can probably hit 100MPH easily and handle safely at that speed, given appropriate road conditions.
So yeah, it's a pretty good analogy. Most dual-core and better processors these days have all the power you need as a home user. For the first time ever, we're in a place where even most machines from 5 years ago are still perfectly viable for most tasks.
Actually, the law DOES matter. The article points out that the lights did not meet statutory requirements. In other words, under that State's law, the light needed to be longer.
If the law didn't matter, then the ticket would have been upheld and we would have no news article. I am sorry you fail to understand this simple fact.
It's called context. You probably shouldn't ignore it.
That is a complete misunderstanding. If you are going at or around the speed limit and the light turns yellow, you attempt to stop. In all but the most extreme situations and unless you are past a threshold, you should have no problem stopping. If you are wondering what that threshold is, I would suggest consulting your State's drivers handbook. Most include the formula that the distance is calculated in.
Except for when the yellow light is too short. Which, again, is what the entire discussion is about.
No, PART of the discussion is about timing. Other parts have been about what the law is regarding intersections, traffic hazards, blocking traffic. Other parts of the discussion have gone off into many tangents.
If you would like to narrow down what you are talking about that is fine, but please go and read the several hundred comments before claiming what a "discussion is about". I think you will notice that a fair amount deal with other issues.
No, the ENTIRE discussion is about timing. Some people misunderstood this (apparently yourself included) and went off on irrelevant, off-topic rabbit trails.
This I absolutely agree with and at no point disputed. However, I have never seen a person prosecuted for this. Every time, without fail, the person tried to "make the light" after the light changed to yellow.
Whether or not someone got prosecuted for running a yellow light they could have easily stopped for is still entirely irrelevant to this discussion. Seriously, did you even read the summary? This whole discussion is about yellow lights being too short and people being ticketed unfairly because they were caught on traffic cameras due to the previously-mentioned too-short yellow lights. Anything else is irrelevant and off-topic. Really.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with discussing off-topic things in the comments, but don't pretend that they have some bearing on the actual topic.
I will disagree with you here. Many States have the assumption that you should ALWAYS stop prior to entering an intersection if a light is yellow OR red. If it extremely dangerous to stop you MAY enter the intersection on a yellow. The time limit for a yellow is not relevant in this case.
It doesn't matter if you disagree or not. It doesn't matter what the law says. If the yellow light is simply too short, there's nothing the driver can do about it. Which, again, is what the fuss is about. If you'd have to start slowing down while the light is still green (assuming safe driving speed of course) in order to stop before the light turns red, the yellow light is too short. Period. No matter what the law says.
Or you could do the safe considerate thing and always stop at a yellow light. The reason several States have this system of law is to prosecute those who gun it through the intersection when the light turns yellow. An action that produces a significantly high number of accidents. When you see a light turn, STOP. There is no safer solution.
I don't think you've been following the discussion. The problem isn't about people deciding whether or not to stop on yellow. The problem is essentially about having to decide whether or not to stop while the light is still green because the yellow light is too short. Except of course, no one should have to make such a decision, hence the fuss about the yellow lights being too short. If the light is still green when you get past the point of being able to safely stop, you shouldn't have to worry about the light turning yellow and then red before you can safely make it through the intersection. That is the issue at hand.
Which still has absolutely nothing to do with what color the light is when you leave the intersection.
On another note, it also doesn't matter what the law says about being allowed to enter the intersection on a yellow light if the yellow light is too short, which is what the whole fuss is about.
If they really wanted us to be safe, they'd put up large easily-readable count-down timers so we'd know exactly how much time we have until it's red. Then even large trucks could be reliably stopped every time because the drivers would know to start slowing down even if the light was still green. Obviously safety isn't really their concern at this point.
If you cannot stop safely, do not speed up but drive cautiously through the intersection.
But that doesn't say that it's illegal to be in the intersection when the light is red. It just tells you what you should do on a yellow light. Going by the excerpt you quoted, if the light turns yellow too late for you to safely stop, it doesn't matter what color the light is as you leave the intersection.
It may not be true for everyone, but it's true for many people. MMOs really have hurt PC gaming more than any other single factor. If you look at the totals for all the popular MMOs, it really hits home still more. I wouldn't be surprised if you'd find a total of more than 20 million active subscription accounts between them all. How many copies does a successful non-MMO title typically sell? One million? Two? Five? Ten? No more than that I think. If even just a quarter or a tenth of all those active MMO subscriptions represent players who used to but no longer buy other PC games, just look at the impact that makes on the sales of those other games.
I know my own spending on other PC games dropped drastically when I started playing MMOs.
But they'll still pirate them knowing that they can buy them on DVD/Blu-ray in less than 5 years. Cheap leaching SOBs. Which totally contradicts your next point...
Which is absolutely completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Honestly, do you even know what it was about?
Oh, and I didn't contradict myself at all. You just think so because apparently you were too stupid to understand my relatively simple points.
Your sense of entitlement doesn't give you the right to rip someone else off of the fruits of their labour. How would you like it if linux code were all public domain in 5 years? No obligation to donate improvements back to the community.
Actually, it does. The public is entitled to having whatever information, idea or creative work they want that's publicly available, for free. Copyright is a short-term agreement that postpones that right (or entitlement) to allow the copyright holder a short time to profit from the item. They're not holding up their end of the agreement, so I'll be damned if I give a shit about what they think I should or should not do. And I really couldn't care less what goody-two-shoes idiots like you think either.
And you clearly haven't had anything relevant to add to this discussion since before the first time you posted, anywhere in this entire story topic, so consider this one-sided "discussion" over.
It's because copyrights have been abused to such absurd extremes that the general public just doesn't give a shit any more. I mean honestly, how the fuck do you go from a maximum of 28 years to life +75? And you seriously wonder why people don't care anymore? Really? I sincerely hope you're not that stupid.
Copyright is supposed to last just long enough to provide an incentive to create works, and not one day more. They're supposed to end when the copyrighted work is still of some relevance and use. People would be far, far less likely to pirate movies if they knew they were going to hit public domain in 5 years.
But of course, none of that touches on how stupid the **AAs etc. have been by not capitalizing on the new distribution methods available, when it was obvious already over 10 years ago that those distribution methods would be used, whether they authorized them or not, and there would ultimately be nothing they could do to stop them.
Give the public a fairly-priced, unencumbered digital version to download and reduce the copyright durations to sane levels, and I'd be willing to bet piracy would all but vanish overnight.
Well I suppose in the land of trivialization it would be too much to ask you to actually back that up with something more substantial?
Yes it would, because no one knows exactly how big the losses are. In fact, there's plenty of evidence to suggest that piracy causes a net gain for the copyright holder rather than a net loss, due to free advertising.
Please feel free to address this double standard and lets leave "because I hate them" at the door.
The only double standard here is that some people have to work for a living, while others get to sit back and collect indefinitely for work they already did.
Make copyright fair, and have it do what it was intended to do. Until then, us average working-class people honestly couldn't care less about all the sob stories or who's losing how much money. The simple fact that we're still paying good money for shit that should have been in the public domain decades ago means we're giving up far more of our income than the content providers ever would to piracy in the worst possible scenario you can realistically come up with.
Also, for those of you who actually are content creators, if you want to determine how long the copyright should be for whatever it was you came up with there's only one real question you have to answer: what is the shortest possible duration the copyright could be while still making you feel like it's going to last long enough to make it worth your while to create said content?
After all, that is the only purpose for copyright: to give content creators the incentive to create the content. Anything more than the minimum duration required to provide that incentive is counterproductive in every possible way.
So there ARE losses, we just can't determine what the amount is.
Whatever the loss is, I'd be willing to stake everything I own that it's not enough to be worth the effort they put into fighting piracy.
Of course, that's assuming there even is a net loss. The free advertising from piracy most likely makes it a net gain, but let's not get too concerned about reality. It's overrated anyway, right?
Slashdot Mirror
With a credit card, they're spending the creditor's money. With a debit card, they're spending your money. Even if all the protections are identical, which do you think will inconvenience you more?
It would be more than inconvenient for the senders if the e-mails were traced back to their sources.
If the source could be linked to the actual sender, he would deserve whatever punishment he got. Something tells me though, that won't be the case.
With ACTA and all of these recent developments, I don't think piracy will be so widespread for many more years. It's great theres good services like Spotify and Steam now though - just need similar for TV shows and movies now (and Voddler is coming).
I'm pretty confident the only thing that will curb widespread piracy is widespread availability of the same content at acceptable prices, and in acceptable formats.
Until the content providers figure that out, they will never win.
Or you could rename it Frostwire. Oh, wait...
Or maybe it means he's listening to the right kind of music. Just sayin'...
It's a lot more popular with the under 25's. Particularly the ones whose parents bought them whatever they wanted from iTunes while they were teens.
BitTorrent just seems like a waste of energy for music...but I don't really know why. I suppose it works as well for small files as large... it just feels like more work to search for something so small in the browser, open it in a new app, clutter uTorrent with a thousand tiny downloads...
BitTorrent's role in music sharing is mainly for albums and artist collections. You know, like say if you wanted the complete works of the Beatles. When your typical MP3 player has room for tens of thousands of tracks, you're a lot more likely to look for those large collections to save time, if for no other reason. Got the space, may as well fill it up.
I think this case was merely a token battle on the part of the RIAA. They have to know by now that they're never going to get rid of P2P sharing by going after the software developers, but at the same time they have to make it look like they're still trying.
You don't use a torrent to grab a three or four meg file: swarming protocols work best for sharing large files.
Most people these days who used to use limewire now use torrents to download albums and band collections, then use iTunes to pick up the odd track here and there that was too much trouble to get from a torrent.
Exactly what I was going to post. Not to mention a huge percentage of the stuff on there was fake already a few years ago. I can't imagine it's gotten any better.
It will probably be the future, but not next-gen. (Probably not in the next 10 years actually.) The reason is because download speeds on average in the US are nowhere near fast enough to support such a system as the primary means of delivery for content. A significant percentage of US households still don't have broadband access at all.
Game developers are already having issues with a 9gig DVD not being enough space for modern games, so the size of them is only going to go up. There's no way the US public is ready to download 10GB+ sized games, and probably won't be for the foreseeable future. I definitely see SSD media playing a much bigger role in video game content delivery in the next gen of consoles.
Cars have a lot more speed these days than they need, and a lot more perhaps than you personally assume. My '98 Honda Accord with a V6 hit 115-120MPH with no trouble at all, and had rock solid handling at that speed. I don't know how fast it could safely have gone, because I didn't trust myself to push it to the limit. (Oh, and it came with tires from the factory rated for 149MPH.) If a stock Accord from 12 years ago was safe at that speed, I think it's fair to assume that most cars on the road today can probably hit 100MPH easily and handle safely at that speed, given appropriate road conditions.
So yeah, it's a pretty good analogy. Most dual-core and better processors these days have all the power you need as a home user. For the first time ever, we're in a place where even most machines from 5 years ago are still perfectly viable for most tasks.
It's called LogMeIn.
Do it, and honestly quantify your uncertainty.
The reason they will never do that is because there's actually a potential net gain in profit due to piracy, via its function as free advertising.
Actually, the law DOES matter. The article points out that the lights did not meet statutory requirements. In other words, under that State's law, the light needed to be longer.
If the law didn't matter, then the ticket would have been upheld and we would have no news article. I am sorry you fail to understand this simple fact.
It's called context. You probably shouldn't ignore it.
That is a complete misunderstanding. If you are going at or around the speed limit and the light turns yellow, you attempt to stop. In all but the most extreme situations and unless you are past a threshold, you should have no problem stopping. If you are wondering what that threshold is, I would suggest consulting your State's drivers handbook. Most include the formula that the distance is calculated in.
Except for when the yellow light is too short. Which, again, is what the entire discussion is about.
No, PART of the discussion is about timing. Other parts have been about what the law is regarding intersections, traffic hazards, blocking traffic. Other parts of the discussion have gone off into many tangents.
If you would like to narrow down what you are talking about that is fine, but please go and read the several hundred comments before claiming what a "discussion is about". I think you will notice that a fair amount deal with other issues.
No, the ENTIRE discussion is about timing. Some people misunderstood this (apparently yourself included) and went off on irrelevant, off-topic rabbit trails.
This I absolutely agree with and at no point disputed. However, I have never seen a person prosecuted for this. Every time, without fail, the person tried to "make the light" after the light changed to yellow.
Whether or not someone got prosecuted for running a yellow light they could have easily stopped for is still entirely irrelevant to this discussion. Seriously, did you even read the summary? This whole discussion is about yellow lights being too short and people being ticketed unfairly because they were caught on traffic cameras due to the previously-mentioned too-short yellow lights. Anything else is irrelevant and off-topic. Really.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with discussing off-topic things in the comments, but don't pretend that they have some bearing on the actual topic.
I will disagree with you here. Many States have the assumption that you should ALWAYS stop prior to entering an intersection if a light is yellow OR red. If it extremely dangerous to stop you MAY enter the intersection on a yellow. The time limit for a yellow is not relevant in this case.
It doesn't matter if you disagree or not. It doesn't matter what the law says. If the yellow light is simply too short, there's nothing the driver can do about it. Which, again, is what the fuss is about. If you'd have to start slowing down while the light is still green (assuming safe driving speed of course) in order to stop before the light turns red, the yellow light is too short. Period. No matter what the law says.
Or you could do the safe considerate thing and always stop at a yellow light. The reason several States have this system of law is to prosecute those who gun it through the intersection when the light turns yellow. An action that produces a significantly high number of accidents. When you see a light turn, STOP. There is no safer solution.
I don't think you've been following the discussion. The problem isn't about people deciding whether or not to stop on yellow. The problem is essentially about having to decide whether or not to stop while the light is still green because the yellow light is too short. Except of course, no one should have to make such a decision, hence the fuss about the yellow lights being too short. If the light is still green when you get past the point of being able to safely stop, you shouldn't have to worry about the light turning yellow and then red before you can safely make it through the intersection. That is the issue at hand.
Which still has absolutely nothing to do with what color the light is when you leave the intersection.
On another note, it also doesn't matter what the law says about being allowed to enter the intersection on a yellow light if the yellow light is too short, which is what the whole fuss is about.
If they really wanted us to be safe, they'd put up large easily-readable count-down timers so we'd know exactly how much time we have until it's red. Then even large trucks could be reliably stopped every time because the drivers would know to start slowing down even if the light was still green. Obviously safety isn't really their concern at this point.
If you cannot stop safely, do not speed up but drive cautiously through the intersection.
But that doesn't say that it's illegal to be in the intersection when the light is red. It just tells you what you should do on a yellow light. Going by the excerpt you quoted, if the light turns yellow too late for you to safely stop, it doesn't matter what color the light is as you leave the intersection.
It may not be true for everyone, but it's true for many people. MMOs really have hurt PC gaming more than any other single factor. If you look at the totals for all the popular MMOs, it really hits home still more. I wouldn't be surprised if you'd find a total of more than 20 million active subscription accounts between them all. How many copies does a successful non-MMO title typically sell? One million? Two? Five? Ten? No more than that I think. If even just a quarter or a tenth of all those active MMO subscriptions represent players who used to but no longer buy other PC games, just look at the impact that makes on the sales of those other games.
I know my own spending on other PC games dropped drastically when I started playing MMOs.
They should have debuted their TEXTp with this video instead:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0
Unfortunately, yeah. A lot of the april fools stuff is funny.
But these videos... I like to have my slashdot in peace and quiet, without having to stop a stupid video on every damn page.
Guess I was wrong. You *are* that stupid.
But they'll still pirate them knowing that they can buy them on DVD/Blu-ray in less than 5 years. Cheap leaching SOBs. Which totally contradicts your next point ...
Which is absolutely completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Honestly, do you even know what it was about?
Oh, and I didn't contradict myself at all. You just think so because apparently you were too stupid to understand my relatively simple points.
Your sense of entitlement doesn't give you the right to rip someone else off of the fruits of their labour. How would you like it if linux code were all public domain in 5 years? No obligation to donate improvements back to the community.
Actually, it does. The public is entitled to having whatever information, idea or creative work they want that's publicly available, for free. Copyright is a short-term agreement that postpones that right (or entitlement) to allow the copyright holder a short time to profit from the item. They're not holding up their end of the agreement, so I'll be damned if I give a shit about what they think I should or should not do. And I really couldn't care less what goody-two-shoes idiots like you think either.
And you clearly haven't had anything relevant to add to this discussion since before the first time you posted, anywhere in this entire story topic, so consider this one-sided "discussion" over.
It's because copyrights have been abused to such absurd extremes that the general public just doesn't give a shit any more. I mean honestly, how the fuck do you go from a maximum of 28 years to life +75? And you seriously wonder why people don't care anymore? Really? I sincerely hope you're not that stupid.
Copyright is supposed to last just long enough to provide an incentive to create works, and not one day more. They're supposed to end when the copyrighted work is still of some relevance and use. People would be far, far less likely to pirate movies if they knew they were going to hit public domain in 5 years.
But of course, none of that touches on how stupid the **AAs etc. have been by not capitalizing on the new distribution methods available, when it was obvious already over 10 years ago that those distribution methods would be used, whether they authorized them or not, and there would ultimately be nothing they could do to stop them.
Give the public a fairly-priced, unencumbered digital version to download and reduce the copyright durations to sane levels, and I'd be willing to bet piracy would all but vanish overnight.
Well I suppose in the land of trivialization it would be too much to ask you to actually back that up with something more substantial?
Yes it would, because no one knows exactly how big the losses are. In fact, there's plenty of evidence to suggest that piracy causes a net gain for the copyright holder rather than a net loss, due to free advertising.
Please feel free to address this double standard and lets leave "because I hate them" at the door.
The only double standard here is that some people have to work for a living, while others get to sit back and collect indefinitely for work they already did.
Make copyright fair, and have it do what it was intended to do. Until then, us average working-class people honestly couldn't care less about all the sob stories or who's losing how much money. The simple fact that we're still paying good money for shit that should have been in the public domain decades ago means we're giving up far more of our income than the content providers ever would to piracy in the worst possible scenario you can realistically come up with.
Also, for those of you who actually are content creators, if you want to determine how long the copyright should be for whatever it was you came up with there's only one real question you have to answer: what is the shortest possible duration the copyright could be while still making you feel like it's going to last long enough to make it worth your while to create said content?
After all, that is the only purpose for copyright: to give content creators the incentive to create the content. Anything more than the minimum duration required to provide that incentive is counterproductive in every possible way.
So there ARE losses, we just can't determine what the amount is.
Whatever the loss is, I'd be willing to stake everything I own that it's not enough to be worth the effort they put into fighting piracy.
Of course, that's assuming there even is a net loss. The free advertising from piracy most likely makes it a net gain, but let's not get too concerned about reality. It's overrated anyway, right?