And that's why this is relevant. Because it is not common knowledge outside the IT field, and it makes an appearance in the New York Times. The article could be more in-depth, or provide more conclusive evidence I agree, but getting the facts out there to the average (NYT reading) Joe is a good first step. And the **AA's can just as easily get some of their own IT "professionals" to put out an article pointing out flaws in this study. That's what concerns me. A study like this with even some of its credibility cast in doubt is generally worse than none at all.
True, pirates don't connect to a tracker to observe, but the point being made is that an entity that was only observing (not doing anything illegal or warranting a takedown notice) is being pinned as a pirate. Yes, but when has the **AA ever cared about that? They'll find some way to make this everyone else's fault as well.
I know I'm being too cynical, but somehow in light of all they've managed to get away with over the past few years, this just doesn't look like it's going to be strong enough stuff to hurt them at all.
Even more interesting is another thing they mention in the paper, but conveniently leave out of the article: not all trackers can be spoofed in this manner.
Also, you'll run into some issues trying to copy someone else's IP on a LAN. You'd first have to force another IP address to their PC before you could grab the one they had. Which would be just as effective, unless your DHCP server keeps a time-stamped record of all IP addresses and changes.
and the burden of proof needs to rest with the RIAA to demonstrate that you are a "pirate" by your actions, not simply guilt by association I could not agree more. The problem is, currently IP addresses are the only means of "proof" they can reasonably get. There really is nothing else. Sure, they can take that extra step and make sure every IP address they're accusing is actually transferring portions of the torrent files, but really what's the point? If you're connected to the tracker, odds are about 99,999,999,999 to 1 that you're uploading or downloading -- or at least trying to. And whether or not you are is kind of a moot point - their results are still only as valid as the only data they can collect: IP addresses.
In short, all this information can ultimately do is put more burden on everyone else to keep better records of IP addresses so their "proof" is valid.
The point is, if you're caught connected to a tracker for a copyrighted torrent, it's valid to assume you're not there just to monitor it (unless of course you're one of *them*). I do totally agree with the whole innocent until proven guilty point, but that hasn't seemed to stop them much so far. It's just, I'd be surprised if they don't have one of their own guys tear apart this article and cause it to backfire somehow. And who knows to what ends they might go to get a law passed, enforcing all DHCP connected to the internet to be documented every minute. After all, people are "stealing" their stuff, and it's just not fair if they can't rob them for 1,000x more than the "stolen item" was worth.
While I'm all for anything and everything that helps bring down the MAFIAA, sadly the case in this article is very weak. It only points out two things, both of which are already commonly known by almost everyone in IT.
1. IP addresses can be spoofed. 2. IP addresses assigned by DHCP will not always be assigned to the same MAC address.
Then there's a lot of hand-waving and implications that there's also all kind of other likely flaws in the methods used to find out who's participating in file-sharing.
The worst part of it though is how they throw in the whole thing of "we weren't actually downloading or sharing anything". No, they were just connecting to the tracker. And of course, everyone knows "pirates" commonly connect to torrent trackers to do nothing.
This bothers because if anyone were to point out how weak this case is in main-stream media, it could end up doing more harm than good.
We need some heavy ammo to shut them down, and I'm afraid this is not it.
It actually sounds like a good idea. Sure, it's not as fast as broadband, but it's still a good five times faster than dialup. And ten times faster than a lot of people get in those rural areas where no wired broadband is available.
I've played demos of WoW, EQ2 and Eve, other than that I've only played MUDs, which are pretty much the same without graphics.
I spent a couple of hours or so getting to level 6, that should be enough to judge a game. Well, there's something you need to realize about MMO's that sets them apart from all other video games, including MUDs. MMO's are huge interactive worlds with 3D graphics, where players are meant to spend thousands of hours of gameplay. Not the 6-50 hours expected in a typical single-player game, or the few hundred most players end up spending in a good multiplayer game. That means they have to spread it out somehow, which means every minute will not be action-packed and extremely fun. So no, a couple of hours is not enough to judge an MMO.
Although I admit I am having a lot of problems with Vista. I thought that after all these years they'd have made their OS better, rather than worse. Yeah, you'd think so. But then, we are talking about Microsoft here.
If WoW is the best of the lot, then I think I'll stick to sports and action games. That's probably a good conclusion for you to make. MMO's definitely are not for everyone.
But is there really time to do all that in a ten day trial, most of which is taken up by Vista not working?
If I were making a game, I'd make it fun from the outset. I learnt mining and got a pick, but couldn't find an actual mine. Is WoW the only MMO you've ever tried? Because it sure looks like it.
If anything, your problem was not with the game but Vista. If you only played enough to get to level 6, you barely played enough to even figure out if you liked the UI.
I've yet to see an MMO that even comes close to WoW in terms of being "fun from the outset".
No, it was an orc. Okay, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. *cough*...
So how does the game get more interesting? Is there anything more than grinding on mobs/quests until you get to the top level? The game gets more interesting as you get a lot more moves and better gear, and actually start playing with people. Which is, you know, the primary point of an MMO. And then there's the PvP that a lot of people enjoy, which you haven't even touched yet.
I can't explore too far as then everything kills me. That's pretty true in any RPG. And exploring is always fun. So it's one of the "carrots" you're playing for. Of course you won't be able to explore it all by level 6. What fun would that be?
Where are the interesting non-orange places? Everywhere except the starting zone for the race you chose. Literally. Durotar is the only zone in the game with that color scheme. Some of the zones are really fun to explore.
Congrats, you played an Orc hunter to level 6. That's like reading the title on the cover of a music CD and deciding you know all about their music and that it sucks.
You're absolutely right. I myself finally quit playing WoW, but it's a pretty safe bet they got 10 new subs at the same time to replace mine. Their number of subs is still increasing. Ten million and counting (if not 11 mil by now). I wish there were another better MMO coming soon to replace WoW, but there's not. Nothing anywhere on the radar will even make a dent. AoC and Warhammer will both have less than 500K subs at the end of this year, and WoW's number will still be going up as well.
Yeah, there's a difference in post quality. You're wrong on what it is though. One of the two forums is a discussion board about polygraphs. Yes, of course you'll have some dross mixed in. The other forum is a Q&A board, where you ask a Q and the A (almost invariably posted by a mod) boils down to "STFU idiot".
--- and to answer that, I think they actually *do* give away free months of subscription when their servers suffer outages... so _maybe_ they pass the test for a company who deserves the right to control their software. Not anymore they don't. They did, back when they were still trying to ensure that WoW would be a success. By which I mean, in the first year after release. Just a couple weeks ago there was a problem that caused downtime for well over half the US realms for most of a day (somewhere around 18 hours as I recall). In addition of course to the "scheduled maintenance" for which they *have* to shut down all servers for 8 hours every tuesday. No, Blizzard is certainly not a company that cares any more about "productivity lost".
The "shrinking" reason is bogus. Planing is what reduces the size. As someone else posted, if you go to a sawmill where they prepare lumber for the lumberyard, a 2x4 is actually 2"x4" before they plane it. There isn't necessarily any reason you *have* to plane off a quarter inch on each side, but they did it so lumber sizes would still be standardized, and a quarter inch is generally enough to make sure each side will end up smooth and splinter-free.
You're the only one being naive here. Did you really think I hadn't thought about those kinds of issues? Of course I did. That's not what your post was about. Your previous post was pretty stupid, and not at all relevant to the discussion. Also, you seem to assume I agree with the GP and think his idea is a great way to do it. You're wrong. Personally, I haven't seen any IP taxation idea yet that I considered good enough to work (as described by the person who posted it), but so far the one I liked best in the last article about this topic was one variation of the mandatory auction idea.
And you're being amazingly stupid here. We're not talking about actual "letters" here. We're talking about copyrights. You only have to pay the tax if you care about someone making a copy of it. If your "precious letter" is really that precious to you, it's a pretty safe bet to assume that A.) only the writer and yourself know about it and B.) no one else would care about it, even if they did know.
In summary, the only reason you'd be paying taxes is if you'd be willing to take someone to court for copying what you have.
Its also the case that if IP was taxed, then owning IP would carry an on going cost associated with it. That would act against entrepreneurs, as they would find it harder to hold onto their ideas, and so harder to get started, as holding onto their ideas would carry an ongoing cost. (For MegaCorp that's not a problem, as they have the money to dominate, so this change would help them dominate more... great so even less chance to escape their control of our inventions and them earning the majority of the profits from our ideas). (Its also the argument why the huge costs of often needing multiple patents work against individuals who work to invent something new, but for MegaCorps its not an issue). This IP tax would be creating another tax holding the small guys back, while MegaCorp's wouldn't feel it. Also the Venture Capital people would love it, as it would give them even more power to exploit the small guy inventors. So this tax would hold back a lot of inventors.
While to idea of an IP tax on the surface may sound appealing to some people, in some situations, its however got wider repercussions and its going to be gamed by people with money. That's actually not that difficult to solve. Give all copyrights a tax-free period, like the first 5 years. At that point, either your IP will be worth enough to get you a nice chunk of change on the open market, or your taxes will be low enough it doesn't matter. Remember, with the auction idea you can keep out-bidding everyone else, as long as it doesn't bump your value high enough that the taxes are too expensive for you. If it gets to that point, you simply don't bid again and let it go to the highest bidder.
Re:Micro-Transactions and game balance
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The Future of MMOs
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· Score: 1
This is simply, untrue. Almost every MMOG has resource monetization. While it's true players prefer not to link endgame content to real-world money, micro transactions are wildly popular and there is little stigma to "buying in" to an elevated gear/skill level. Micro-transactions are unpopular in the US because Americans for the most part want convenience above everything else. One monthly fee that happens automatically is pretty darn convenient. Having to confirm payment for craploads of little $1 purchases all the time is not convenient.
Buying gold or a max-level character is not at all the same thing is a micro-transaction. Micro-transactions in WoW terms would be that every piece of epic gear would have a small price in real world money. Like perhaps a cheap epic from heroics would sell for a buck, while BT gear would go for $15 a piece. A legendary item would be about $100.
No, it reads like something written by the average user who makes up probably 95% of MS's customer base. You know, the type of user who doesn't care so much why something doesn't work, they just care that it used to work and now it doesn't. These are the people that make up MS's money cow.
And every other OS that uses IPv6 has a built-in system to fall back on IPv4 when 6 doesn't work. So yes, it is Vista's fault.
Re:Circuit City shoppers are the Slashdot standard
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Hostile ta Vista, Baby
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· Score: 1
You don't get it do you? If enough people have enough personal complaints about Vista that they'd rather use anything but Vista, it doesn't make any difference at all how big or legitimate those complaints are. And frankly, the type of people that use Facebook make up the majority of the Windows customer base. Power users and people in the Slashdot crowd are a minority. And the complaints the author had are exactly the types of things that will frustrate John and Jane Doe and turn them off of Vista.
Re:Circuit City shoppers are the Slashdot standard
on
Hostile ta Vista, Baby
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· Score: 1
EA is good at marketing, yes. But then so is McDonalds. And despite their insane popularity, there's very few restaurants out there that don't serve better food than McDonalds.
Out of the dozens of "games" EA has released in the last 5 years, I can count on one hand the ones that were both fun to play and not complete bug-ridden crap. The same cannot be said about the number of stellar franchises they've purchased and subsequently trashed in the same time period. There's reasons people bash EA. Lots of reasons. And they far outnumber the reasons to like them.
Despite all that, I'm still willing to give them another round to prove they can in fact release something other than turds. Guess we'll just have to wait and see how Warhammer Online and the next BioWare releases turn out. Sadly though, I'm afraid we'll be disappointed.
Slashdot Mirror
I know I'm being too cynical, but somehow in light of all they've managed to get away with over the past few years, this just doesn't look like it's going to be strong enough stuff to hurt them at all.
Even more interesting is another thing they mention in the paper, but conveniently leave out of the article: not all trackers can be spoofed in this manner.
Also, you'll run into some issues trying to copy someone else's IP on a LAN. You'd first have to force another IP address to their PC before you could grab the one they had. Which would be just as effective, unless your DHCP server keeps a time-stamped record of all IP addresses and changes.
[sarcasm]Yes, of course I missed the part about the printer.[/sarcasm]
What I did miss was their explanation in the article on exactly what they did to get the printer implicated.
In short, all this information can ultimately do is put more burden on everyone else to keep better records of IP addresses so their "proof" is valid.
The point is, if you're caught connected to a tracker for a copyrighted torrent, it's valid to assume you're not there just to monitor it (unless of course you're one of *them*). I do totally agree with the whole innocent until proven guilty point, but that hasn't seemed to stop them much so far. It's just, I'd be surprised if they don't have one of their own guys tear apart this article and cause it to backfire somehow. And who knows to what ends they might go to get a law passed, enforcing all DHCP connected to the internet to be documented every minute. After all, people are "stealing" their stuff, and it's just not fair if they can't rob them for 1,000x more than the "stolen item" was worth.
While I'm all for anything and everything that helps bring down the MAFIAA, sadly the case in this article is very weak. It only points out two things, both of which are already commonly known by almost everyone in IT.
1. IP addresses can be spoofed.
2. IP addresses assigned by DHCP will not always be assigned to the same MAC address.
Then there's a lot of hand-waving and implications that there's also all kind of other likely flaws in the methods used to find out who's participating in file-sharing.
The worst part of it though is how they throw in the whole thing of "we weren't actually downloading or sharing anything". No, they were just connecting to the tracker. And of course, everyone knows "pirates" commonly connect to torrent trackers to do nothing.
This bothers because if anyone were to point out how weak this case is in main-stream media, it could end up doing more harm than good.
We need some heavy ammo to shut them down, and I'm afraid this is not it.
It actually sounds like a good idea. Sure, it's not as fast as broadband, but it's still a good five times faster than dialup. And ten times faster than a lot of people get in those rural areas where no wired broadband is available.
I spent a couple of hours or so getting to level 6, that should be enough to judge a game. Well, there's something you need to realize about MMO's that sets them apart from all other video games, including MUDs. MMO's are huge interactive worlds with 3D graphics, where players are meant to spend thousands of hours of gameplay. Not the 6-50 hours expected in a typical single-player game, or the few hundred most players end up spending in a good multiplayer game. That means they have to spread it out somehow, which means every minute will not be action-packed and extremely fun. So no, a couple of hours is not enough to judge an MMO. Although I admit I am having a lot of problems with Vista. I thought that after all these years they'd have made their OS better, rather than worse. Yeah, you'd think so. But then, we are talking about Microsoft here. If WoW is the best of the lot, then I think I'll stick to sports and action games. That's probably a good conclusion for you to make. MMO's definitely are not for everyone.
If I were making a game, I'd make it fun from the outset. I learnt mining and got a pick, but couldn't find an actual mine. Is WoW the only MMO you've ever tried? Because it sure looks like it.
If anything, your problem was not with the game but Vista. If you only played enough to get to level 6, you barely played enough to even figure out if you liked the UI.
I've yet to see an MMO that even comes close to WoW in terms of being "fun from the outset".
Whoops, sorry for mistakenly assuming your hunter was an Orc. Clearly it was a Troll.
Congrats, you played an Orc hunter to level 6. That's like reading the title on the cover of a music CD and deciding you know all about their music and that it sucks.
You're absolutely right. I myself finally quit playing WoW, but it's a pretty safe bet they got 10 new subs at the same time to replace mine. Their number of subs is still increasing. Ten million and counting (if not 11 mil by now). I wish there were another better MMO coming soon to replace WoW, but there's not. Nothing anywhere on the radar will even make a dent. AoC and Warhammer will both have less than 500K subs at the end of this year, and WoW's number will still be going up as well.
Yeah, there's a difference in post quality. You're wrong on what it is though. One of the two forums is a discussion board about polygraphs. Yes, of course you'll have some dross mixed in. The other forum is a Q&A board, where you ask a Q and the A (almost invariably posted by a mod) boils down to "STFU idiot".
The "shrinking" reason is bogus. Planing is what reduces the size. As someone else posted, if you go to a sawmill where they prepare lumber for the lumberyard, a 2x4 is actually 2"x4" before they plane it. There isn't necessarily any reason you *have* to plane off a quarter inch on each side, but they did it so lumber sizes would still be standardized, and a quarter inch is generally enough to make sure each side will end up smooth and splinter-free.
You're the only one being naive here. Did you really think I hadn't thought about those kinds of issues? Of course I did. That's not what your post was about. Your previous post was pretty stupid, and not at all relevant to the discussion. Also, you seem to assume I agree with the GP and think his idea is a great way to do it. You're wrong. Personally, I haven't seen any IP taxation idea yet that I considered good enough to work (as described by the person who posted it), but so far the one I liked best in the last article about this topic was one variation of the mandatory auction idea.
And you're being amazingly stupid here. We're not talking about actual "letters" here. We're talking about copyrights. You only have to pay the tax if you care about someone making a copy of it. If your "precious letter" is really that precious to you, it's a pretty safe bet to assume that A.) only the writer and yourself know about it and B.) no one else would care about it, even if they did know.
In summary, the only reason you'd be paying taxes is if you'd be willing to take someone to court for copying what you have.
While to idea of an IP tax on the surface may sound appealing to some people, in some situations, its however got wider repercussions and its going to be gamed by people with money. That's actually not that difficult to solve. Give all copyrights a tax-free period, like the first 5 years. At that point, either your IP will be worth enough to get you a nice chunk of change on the open market, or your taxes will be low enough it doesn't matter. Remember, with the auction idea you can keep out-bidding everyone else, as long as it doesn't bump your value high enough that the taxes are too expensive for you. If it gets to that point, you simply don't bid again and let it go to the highest bidder.
Buying gold or a max-level character is not at all the same thing is a micro-transaction. Micro-transactions in WoW terms would be that every piece of epic gear would have a small price in real world money. Like perhaps a cheap epic from heroics would sell for a buck, while BT gear would go for $15 a piece. A legendary item would be about $100.
No, it reads like something written by the average user who makes up probably 95% of MS's customer base. You know, the type of user who doesn't care so much why something doesn't work, they just care that it used to work and now it doesn't. These are the people that make up MS's money cow.
And every other OS that uses IPv6 has a built-in system to fall back on IPv4 when 6 doesn't work. So yes, it is Vista's fault.
You don't get it do you? If enough people have enough personal complaints about Vista that they'd rather use anything but Vista, it doesn't make any difference at all how big or legitimate those complaints are. And frankly, the type of people that use Facebook make up the majority of the Windows customer base. Power users and people in the Slashdot crowd are a minority. And the complaints the author had are exactly the types of things that will frustrate John and Jane Doe and turn them off of Vista.
You've never worked in tech support, have you?
Yeah, but when choosing between carrying that or an Eee, in a backpack for a year... I know which I'd pick.
EA is good at marketing, yes. But then so is McDonalds. And despite their insane popularity, there's very few restaurants out there that don't serve better food than McDonalds.
Out of the dozens of "games" EA has released in the last 5 years, I can count on one hand the ones that were both fun to play and not complete bug-ridden crap. The same cannot be said about the number of stellar franchises they've purchased and subsequently trashed in the same time period. There's reasons people bash EA. Lots of reasons. And they far outnumber the reasons to like them.
Despite all that, I'm still willing to give them another round to prove they can in fact release something other than turds. Guess we'll just have to wait and see how Warhammer Online and the next BioWare releases turn out. Sadly though, I'm afraid we'll be disappointed.