Actually, I tried to pick some established megabands along with some lesser known but still recognizable bands that weren't completely mainstream. I figured if I had picked bands that most people hadn't heard of, you'd just gripe about that. Of those I listed, I only really listen to Gnarls. Okay, so here goes:
Clem Snide: no ablums Feist: no albums Coralie Clément: no albums Quantic Soul Orchestra: no albums Joseph Arthur: 1 out of 5 albums Kimya Dawson: 2 out of 5 albums Elliot Smith: 3 out of 6 albums Kaki King: 2 out of 3 albums
Okay, so eMusic's not doing to hot even with the music I listen to, eh? I'm not sure what this even has to do with your original claim:
eMusic seems to do that just fine, and they have a bigger cost than BBC: licensing content.
Clearly, eMusic isn't just "licensing content". It appears to be licensing content that it can get fairly cheaply and leaving the rest out in the cold. While the BBC's costs are for ALL the programs it produces. Do you REALLY think this is comparable? The only comparable thing I could find is "eMusic hosts files" and "BBC should host files".
And I brought up the karaoke thing because over half the time when I tried to search for something people have heard of, I only got back karaoke albums. Saying something like "176398 albums" and expecting it to automatically mean their album list is comprehensive is stupid without actually doing some sampling. While searching for the Beatles, I found they have 8 albums from one label of just Beatles cover tunes. Every time I search for an artist, I find at least one or two compilation albums, even when they don't have any albums of their own up there. iTunes has this crap, too, it just has all the other stuff you actually want, as well.
So no, I can't see how you could call eMusic comprehensive by any stretching of the word. It's just not.
I don't doubt that you find bands you never heard of that you like. But that is in no way the definition of comprehensive.
As far as the BBC news webpage goes, it really is no change from an development/programming/site maintenance standpoint to have the site available to just the UK or to everyone. It just takes more bandwidth costs and more server costs. Yes, I very much get your point that these are real costs. But I think it's pretty easily justified for making something like the news available worldwide as opposed to old episodes of Coronation Street.
As far as having license fee payers just pay direct costs - that's a very difficult system to manage. It assumes you already know how many people are going to use it BEFORE they use it. Additionally, all these payments are going to incur more work on the part of accounting and payment systems. And your other suggestion of giving free access to license fee payers - how do you go about doing that? Is there some existing method by which your IP address can be tied to your License? Do we just count all traffic from inside Britain as being ok (screw those folks in the UK without tvs!)? And assuming somehow these authorized users got these feeds, what's to keep them from uploading them to worldwide p2p sites? And if this catches on, what do you think that will do to the revenue stream that comes in from re-selling these shows to other areas of the world? Do you honestly think sales of shows outside of the UK have no impact on the license amount?
You can try to make it sound like near-zero cost, but it's just not.
I also notice eMusic is not very comprehensive. For example, they have nothing by Radiohead. They have three albums by Elvis Presley - one live performance and two compilations. And if you put in Elvis Costello, the only hits they have are for Karaoke. No Gnarls Barkely, no Beatles, no Rolling Stones, no Enya, no Alanis Morissette, no Death Cab For Cutie (well, once again Karaoke). Speaking of which, there are 5988 tracks with Karaoke in their name...
While I'm glad someone out there is trying to make a go of it, I'm not really sure how it's comparable. Would this be like a BBC download site that didn't carry Doctor Who, MP Flying Circus or EastEnders?
You'd definitely know more about it than I would, considering I know nearly zero about the internal workings of the BBC. So it seems that the answer to "why can't we get BBC shows for free in the UK?" is "all we need to do is tear down and rebuild the BBC". Good luck with that.
My main point is that there is no way for them to make the programs available to you that doesn't cost them money. This is especially true for older programs. They have to get them from the old tapes and such and convert and encode them. Then they have to distribute them somehow. Even if they used p2p, they would take a hit from being the initial seeder. Someone would need to manage all this, and IT stuff isn't cheap. So they would have to get money for this from somewhere. What are their sources of money? 1) The TV license, 2) govt money, 3) money from doing deals where people pay to see BBC programs. Both 1 and 2 are going to be coming out of the pocket of UK citizens. So you'll really just be paying to watch anyway. So they pursue #3. Assumedly, the money that is made from this is what causes your TV license to be the price it is. Or does the BBC make a profit that goes to shareholders? If not, then I would think adding new costs for making shows available to the UK for "free" would just increase the license price. And as others have pointed out, if they start putting stuff out for p2p, it makes it more likely that these files will be redistributed worldwide, eroding their ability to make deals for #3, which would think decrease their money and raise your TV license again.
So while I wish they would make all their shows available on p2p for free with no DRM for anyone to download, I think the reality is that if this happens, it will come out of your pocket.
The real solution (if such a thing exists) to p2p is for the companies to post at least their broadcast material ASAP with the ads still in it. Considering they have the original sources, they can post the best quality encoding at the earliest possible moment, beating out the cappers. They could even add in little bonuses every now and then (like maybe a minute of footage that was cut for time) that would make them more attractive. Some people would bother downloading the corporate version, cutting out the ads and reupping it, but they would already be behind all the others who have already seeded the ad-including version. Plus, they might have some quality loss snipping out the ads (I'm not really that clued in on editing a video once it's encoded).
While a lot of us would skip over the ads - plenty of others would not.
Yes, it would hurt their DVD and syndication sales. But that's a moot point as you can already get ad-free high quality copies if you are willing to watch the show the next day.
I think I found the thrust of your post (it was a bit like finding the pony). Basically, the problem is that the windows BT client's wind up getting sold off because most people use windows? And the linux ones never "have this problem" because they're basically worthless to anyone with money to invest? Okay, I'm agreeing with you 100%. But then you get to the part where you said this would be fixed if people would just stop using Windows, you lost me. Wouldn't a lot of people switching to linux actually make it attractive for these kinds of buyouts? Also, I'm not sure what Hitler had to do with this...
the BBC Charter says they must do whatever they can to make their material available to the British public
Does it say "for free"? Not flaming you, just curious. Or at least, does it say "at no additional cost other than your license"? I'm also curious as to how this relates to BBC shows that air in the US on public TV at a later time. For example, they air tons of old British comedies (including that hilarious EastEnders show) that are several years out of date. Am I right in guessing these episodes aren't currently available in the UK? I wonder how that fits with the aforementioned duty.
Well, hopefully you can understand my confusion in that you said "People should be glad that there is a law like that, otherwise people can sell counterfeit concert tickets etc... without any criminal consequences", while it would appear that said law wouldn't apply to counterfeit boarding passes or counterfeit concert tickets, and pre-existing law that had nothing to do with copyright or trademarks would come into play to bring in the criminal consequences. So just take this as a correction to your correction.;)
Kudos to you for finding this information, but I still do not think it is applicable to this case or the ones you brought up. Reading all the various parts of the law, it seems the law is intended to apply to real goods and services. In other words, selling a fake Mickey Mouse doll or an unauthorized Brittney Spears Makeover. It does not appear to be directed towards fraud, where no goods or services are actually delivered. This is what I'm talking about when I think selling fake boarding passes would be considered fraud. I think even selling fake concert tickets would be considered fraud, unless those tickets could actually get you in the door.
First off, you would know because no one else ever gives you boarding passes. Travel agents give you tickets and you print off your OWN boarding passes. Your travel agent does not. If you buy an eticket through a travel agent, you still have to print off your own boarding pass. Having someone give you boarding passes would be as normal as buying a movie ticket and being given a torn stub.
Secondly, without some actual citation of law, I still believe this would fall under general fraud laws, not some special law concerning counterfeiting of tickets or whatever. I do not believe it's the DOCUMENT that is covered by the law, but the actual sale. Can you actually cite a law saying the selling of counterfeiting of boarding passes is illegal?
I think you're exactly right about the egotism/megalomania bit. But I think it's also on the side of the people planning. The only reason we haven't been attacked again is because they have yet to find a juicy target that will outdo 9/11. I seriously suspect the next attack (at least by the same people who follow the escalation plan) to affect a whole city or possibly multiple cities. I really doubt airplanes will have anything to do with it. It's actually playing into the terrorists hands that so much of our time and effort is spent on worrying about airplanes at this point.
But there's no way you could sell a "counterfeit boarding pass", as the person BUYING it would already know something is wrong. You can't buy a boarding pass, as the ticket has to be in your name to begin with. So I would actually kind of doubt there is even a law regarding them since the buyer would already know there's a problem. Doesn't seem parallel to counterfeit concert tickets at all, because there is no way the buyer wouldn't know they are counterfeit.
That's bullshit. Trust is something terrorists LIKE. It was trust that allowed the 9/11 hijackers to do what they did. You say that printing fake boarding passes doesn't increase security. That's not the point. The point is that it makes it crystal clear that we don't HAVE security the way things are set up. And it makes it clear that some of the "security" measures in place do only one thing - inconvenience non-terrorists (you know, the 99.99999% of the traveling public). We either need a security system that is effective and cannot be easily circumvented (or event circumvented with difficulty), or we need to drop those useless measures and accept that we are taking a risk and it's worth it for our freedom.
Right, they requested it. But did you ever say you didn't have it? That's the whole point. You are not REQUIRED to show ID. They just put you through extra screening and let you go on. You probably get on a secret list, too...
Except these wouldn't be plane tickets. They won't get you on a plane. In that sense, they are about as much "plane tickets" as me scrawling "free trip to hawaii" on a sheet of paper.
Right, but at that point, they don't actually check the name against any kind of list.
Just to make it clear:
John Smith buys ticket. Since he is not on the no-fly list, this is not noticed.
John Smith checks in using eticket machine or even online and prints John Smith boarding pass.
John Smith gives his boarding pass to Bob Terror.
Bob Terror creates fake boarding pass with the name of Bob Terror on it.
Bob Terror goes to the airport and goes to the security checkpoint. He gives them his legit Bob Terror ID and fake Bob Terror boarding pass. They check it and see that it matches. They do not have the list with them and unless they happen to recognize the name (yeah, right), they will confirm that the ID matches the boarding pass and allow him through.
Bob Terror goes to his plan and presents the John Smith boarding pass to get on it. Since they no longer check ID on boarding, he passes through without a problem (even if they check for John Smith on the no-fly list at this point).
There is no ??? and Profit.
What about baggage check, you ask? That is a tiny bit more complicated, but not really. You just get John Smith to come to the airport with you and he checks in and checks the bags. Then he goes home and Bob Terror takes it from there. It's even easier in some airports where they have skycaps who I don't think do any ID checking, or automated bag checking with the same problem.
As you can see, the no-fly list is useless because of this flaw. It's a waste of time, money and just hassles people who are NOT terrorists and who have somehow got on the no-fly list, via similar names or simple mistake.
They could make one simple change to make this system better - check ID at boarding. Yeah, it adds a little time and wouldn't stop terrorists with forging connections. I don't think it would actually do much to stop terrorists, either. Especially considering terrorists aren't likely to be on the no-fly list until you figure out they are terrorists and by then it's probably too late. But as it is now, what they are doing is 100% useless. At least that way it would be only 99% useless.
The other thing they could do is just stop the no-fly list and stop checking ID, as both are useless at this point and may never be effective at stopping terrorism. As long as ID is forgable and the method is to check ID, these systems are all just false hope. Unfortunately, it's false hope combined with hassling everyone else that flies.
Actually, I've heard some commentary that explains that. Al-Qaeda and OBL in particular have a modus operandi of "escalating attacks." In other words, each attack should be bigger and better than the last one. They feel this has more of an effect than the Palestinian-Israel style low-level terrorism that people sort of "get used to." I think it has as much to do with the political/psychological impact as it does with the fact that any terrorist activity has the potential to leak information about the planners, get them arrested and seal off future avenues of attack. You can see that pattern in their attacks. So while they could easily blow up a few dozen people here and there, they hold back their resources and wait for something bigger.
Damn,/. needs digg-like editing. I always have an "oh yeah, I meant to add" moment about 30 seconds after posting.
So, anyway...
Oh yeah, I meant to mention this reminds me a lot of the problems with Microsoft's WGA. It's the exact same story. Lots of people posting on web forums saying they are legit but they've had problems with it. Then/. (which is itself a web forum) links to these stories and people post the same thing here. And every now and then there's been an anecdote by a journalist ("my mother's computer told her Windows was pirated"). And I can throw in my own anecdote about it happening with me when I tried a third-party permission setting tool for XP Home and accidentally turned of read access on some directories. But it's all just anecdotes with no actual provable support, because that's the nature of the internet.
Playing devils advocate here (my Wii is doing just fine):
These days, the only place you'll hear about problems, if they exist, are in web forums. Eventually, you'll get news reports whose source is actually the web forums. Then you'll get anecdotal stories from people who are actually well-known (game reporters, bloggers, Penny Arcade, etc.), which is just as bad as web forums. And if you're lucky, eventually eventually eventually the company will admit there is a problem. But only after tons of people have posted to tons of forums and the news sites pick it up. Even then it's not likely. That's how it has been with problems with just about every console since about the PS1.
So, while I have no reason to think there are widespread problems yet, I wouldn't write it off because it came from a forum. I just don't know where else you'd be expected to get the reports. It's not like CNN has a test lab of Wiis or something.
Slashdot Mirror
Clem Snide: no ablums
Feist: no albums
Coralie Clément: no albums
Quantic Soul Orchestra: no albums
Joseph Arthur: 1 out of 5 albums
Kimya Dawson: 2 out of 5 albums
Elliot Smith: 3 out of 6 albums
Kaki King: 2 out of 3 albums
Okay, so eMusic's not doing to hot even with the music I listen to, eh? I'm not sure what this even has to do with your original claim:
Clearly, eMusic isn't just "licensing content". It appears to be licensing content that it can get fairly cheaply and leaving the rest out in the cold. While the BBC's costs are for ALL the programs it produces. Do you REALLY think this is comparable? The only comparable thing I could find is "eMusic hosts files" and "BBC should host files".
And I brought up the karaoke thing because over half the time when I tried to search for something people have heard of, I only got back karaoke albums. Saying something like "176398 albums" and expecting it to automatically mean their album list is comprehensive is stupid without actually doing some sampling. While searching for the Beatles, I found they have 8 albums from one label of just Beatles cover tunes. Every time I search for an artist, I find at least one or two compilation albums, even when they don't have any albums of their own up there. iTunes has this crap, too, it just has all the other stuff you actually want, as well.
So no, I can't see how you could call eMusic comprehensive by any stretching of the word. It's just not.
I don't doubt that you find bands you never heard of that you like. But that is in no way the definition of comprehensive.
I was thinking something like that might be the case. Does this apply to any codec under MPEG, like Xvid, DivX, etc.? Wonder how it applies to WMV.
As far as the BBC news webpage goes, it really is no change from an development/programming/site maintenance standpoint to have the site available to just the UK or to everyone. It just takes more bandwidth costs and more server costs. Yes, I very much get your point that these are real costs. But I think it's pretty easily justified for making something like the news available worldwide as opposed to old episodes of Coronation Street.
As far as having license fee payers just pay direct costs - that's a very difficult system to manage. It assumes you already know how many people are going to use it BEFORE they use it. Additionally, all these payments are going to incur more work on the part of accounting and payment systems. And your other suggestion of giving free access to license fee payers - how do you go about doing that? Is there some existing method by which your IP address can be tied to your License? Do we just count all traffic from inside Britain as being ok (screw those folks in the UK without tvs!)? And assuming somehow these authorized users got these feeds, what's to keep them from uploading them to worldwide p2p sites? And if this catches on, what do you think that will do to the revenue stream that comes in from re-selling these shows to other areas of the world? Do you honestly think sales of shows outside of the UK have no impact on the license amount?
You can try to make it sound like near-zero cost, but it's just not.
I also notice eMusic is not very comprehensive. For example, they have nothing by Radiohead. They have three albums by Elvis Presley - one live performance and two compilations. And if you put in Elvis Costello, the only hits they have are for Karaoke. No Gnarls Barkely, no Beatles, no Rolling Stones, no Enya, no Alanis Morissette, no Death Cab For Cutie (well, once again Karaoke). Speaking of which, there are 5988 tracks with Karaoke in their name...
While I'm glad someone out there is trying to make a go of it, I'm not really sure how it's comparable. Would this be like a BBC download site that didn't carry Doctor Who, MP Flying Circus or EastEnders?
You'd definitely know more about it than I would, considering I know nearly zero about the internal workings of the BBC. So it seems that the answer to "why can't we get BBC shows for free in the UK?" is "all we need to do is tear down and rebuild the BBC". Good luck with that.
Right, so this isn't uprecendented.
My main point is that there is no way for them to make the programs available to you that doesn't cost them money. This is especially true for older programs. They have to get them from the old tapes and such and convert and encode them. Then they have to distribute them somehow. Even if they used p2p, they would take a hit from being the initial seeder. Someone would need to manage all this, and IT stuff isn't cheap. So they would have to get money for this from somewhere. What are their sources of money? 1) The TV license, 2) govt money, 3) money from doing deals where people pay to see BBC programs. Both 1 and 2 are going to be coming out of the pocket of UK citizens. So you'll really just be paying to watch anyway. So they pursue #3. Assumedly, the money that is made from this is what causes your TV license to be the price it is. Or does the BBC make a profit that goes to shareholders? If not, then I would think adding new costs for making shows available to the UK for "free" would just increase the license price. And as others have pointed out, if they start putting stuff out for p2p, it makes it more likely that these files will be redistributed worldwide, eroding their ability to make deals for #3, which would think decrease their money and raise your TV license again.
So while I wish they would make all their shows available on p2p for free with no DRM for anyone to download, I think the reality is that if this happens, it will come out of your pocket.
I know, I know, you were mostly joking about how people in the UK don't seem to be able to record things.
But I did want to mention that they do have TiVo in the UK.
The real solution (if such a thing exists) to p2p is for the companies to post at least their broadcast material ASAP with the ads still in it. Considering they have the original sources, they can post the best quality encoding at the earliest possible moment, beating out the cappers. They could even add in little bonuses every now and then (like maybe a minute of footage that was cut for time) that would make them more attractive. Some people would bother downloading the corporate version, cutting out the ads and reupping it, but they would already be behind all the others who have already seeded the ad-including version. Plus, they might have some quality loss snipping out the ads (I'm not really that clued in on editing a video once it's encoded).
While a lot of us would skip over the ads - plenty of others would not.
Yes, it would hurt their DVD and syndication sales. But that's a moot point as you can already get ad-free high quality copies if you are willing to watch the show the next day.
I think I found the thrust of your post (it was a bit like finding the pony). Basically, the problem is that the windows BT client's wind up getting sold off because most people use windows? And the linux ones never "have this problem" because they're basically worthless to anyone with money to invest? Okay, I'm agreeing with you 100%. But then you get to the part where you said this would be fixed if people would just stop using Windows, you lost me. Wouldn't a lot of people switching to linux actually make it attractive for these kinds of buyouts? Also, I'm not sure what Hitler had to do with this...
the BBC Charter says they must do whatever they can to make their material available to the British public
Does it say "for free"? Not flaming you, just curious. Or at least, does it say "at no additional cost other than your license"? I'm also curious as to how this relates to BBC shows that air in the US on public TV at a later time. For example, they air tons of old British comedies (including that hilarious EastEnders show) that are several years out of date. Am I right in guessing these episodes aren't currently available in the UK? I wonder how that fits with the aforementioned duty.
Dumbest Star Trek captain name, ever.
Actually, yes, wouldn't that be the definition of innovation? Otherwise, don't we just call it implementation?
The Amazon thing was fairly public. I read about it on slashdot, and it's what I thought the submitter was actually talking about.
Well, hopefully you can understand my confusion in that you said "People should be glad that there is a law like that, otherwise people can sell counterfeit concert tickets etc... without any criminal consequences", while it would appear that said law wouldn't apply to counterfeit boarding passes or counterfeit concert tickets, and pre-existing law that had nothing to do with copyright or trademarks would come into play to bring in the criminal consequences. So just take this as a correction to your correction. ;)
Kudos to you for finding this information, but I still do not think it is applicable to this case or the ones you brought up. Reading all the various parts of the law, it seems the law is intended to apply to real goods and services. In other words, selling a fake Mickey Mouse doll or an unauthorized Brittney Spears Makeover. It does not appear to be directed towards fraud, where no goods or services are actually delivered. This is what I'm talking about when I think selling fake boarding passes would be considered fraud. I think even selling fake concert tickets would be considered fraud, unless those tickets could actually get you in the door.
First off, you would know because no one else ever gives you boarding passes. Travel agents give you tickets and you print off your OWN boarding passes. Your travel agent does not. If you buy an eticket through a travel agent, you still have to print off your own boarding pass. Having someone give you boarding passes would be as normal as buying a movie ticket and being given a torn stub.
Secondly, without some actual citation of law, I still believe this would fall under general fraud laws, not some special law concerning counterfeiting of tickets or whatever. I do not believe it's the DOCUMENT that is covered by the law, but the actual sale. Can you actually cite a law saying the selling of counterfeiting of boarding passes is illegal?
I think you're exactly right about the egotism/megalomania bit. But I think it's also on the side of the people planning. The only reason we haven't been attacked again is because they have yet to find a juicy target that will outdo 9/11. I seriously suspect the next attack (at least by the same people who follow the escalation plan) to affect a whole city or possibly multiple cities. I really doubt airplanes will have anything to do with it. It's actually playing into the terrorists hands that so much of our time and effort is spent on worrying about airplanes at this point.
But there's no way you could sell a "counterfeit boarding pass", as the person BUYING it would already know something is wrong. You can't buy a boarding pass, as the ticket has to be in your name to begin with. So I would actually kind of doubt there is even a law regarding them since the buyer would already know there's a problem. Doesn't seem parallel to counterfeit concert tickets at all, because there is no way the buyer wouldn't know they are counterfeit.
That's bullshit. Trust is something terrorists LIKE. It was trust that allowed the 9/11 hijackers to do what they did. You say that printing fake boarding passes doesn't increase security. That's not the point. The point is that it makes it crystal clear that we don't HAVE security the way things are set up. And it makes it clear that some of the "security" measures in place do only one thing - inconvenience non-terrorists (you know, the 99.99999% of the traveling public). We either need a security system that is effective and cannot be easily circumvented (or event circumvented with difficulty), or we need to drop those useless measures and accept that we are taking a risk and it's worth it for our freedom.
Right, they requested it. But did you ever say you didn't have it? That's the whole point. You are not REQUIRED to show ID. They just put you through extra screening and let you go on. You probably get on a secret list, too...
Except these wouldn't be plane tickets. They won't get you on a plane. In that sense, they are about as much "plane tickets" as me scrawling "free trip to hawaii" on a sheet of paper.
Right, but at that point, they don't actually check the name against any kind of list.
Just to make it clear:
There is no ??? and Profit.
What about baggage check, you ask? That is a tiny bit more complicated, but not really. You just get John Smith to come to the airport with you and he checks in and checks the bags. Then he goes home and Bob Terror takes it from there. It's even easier in some airports where they have skycaps who I don't think do any ID checking, or automated bag checking with the same problem.
As you can see, the no-fly list is useless because of this flaw. It's a waste of time, money and just hassles people who are NOT terrorists and who have somehow got on the no-fly list, via similar names or simple mistake.
They could make one simple change to make this system better - check ID at boarding. Yeah, it adds a little time and wouldn't stop terrorists with forging connections. I don't think it would actually do much to stop terrorists, either. Especially considering terrorists aren't likely to be on the no-fly list until you figure out they are terrorists and by then it's probably too late. But as it is now, what they are doing is 100% useless. At least that way it would be only 99% useless.
The other thing they could do is just stop the no-fly list and stop checking ID, as both are useless at this point and may never be effective at stopping terrorism. As long as ID is forgable and the method is to check ID, these systems are all just false hope. Unfortunately, it's false hope combined with hassling everyone else that flies.
Actually, I've heard some commentary that explains that. Al-Qaeda and OBL in particular have a modus operandi of "escalating attacks." In other words, each attack should be bigger and better than the last one. They feel this has more of an effect than the Palestinian-Israel style low-level terrorism that people sort of "get used to." I think it has as much to do with the political/psychological impact as it does with the fact that any terrorist activity has the potential to leak information about the planners, get them arrested and seal off future avenues of attack. You can see that pattern in their attacks. So while they could easily blow up a few dozen people here and there, they hold back their resources and wait for something bigger.
Damn, /. needs digg-like editing. I always have an "oh yeah, I meant to add" moment about 30 seconds after posting.
/. (which is itself a web forum) links to these stories and people post the same thing here. And every now and then there's been an anecdote by a journalist ("my mother's computer told her Windows was pirated"). And I can throw in my own anecdote about it happening with me when I tried a third-party permission setting tool for XP Home and accidentally turned of read access on some directories. But it's all just anecdotes with no actual provable support, because that's the nature of the internet.
So, anyway...
Oh yeah, I meant to mention this reminds me a lot of the problems with Microsoft's WGA. It's the exact same story. Lots of people posting on web forums saying they are legit but they've had problems with it. Then
Playing devils advocate here (my Wii is doing just fine):
These days, the only place you'll hear about problems, if they exist, are in web forums. Eventually, you'll get news reports whose source is actually the web forums. Then you'll get anecdotal stories from people who are actually well-known (game reporters, bloggers, Penny Arcade, etc.), which is just as bad as web forums. And if you're lucky, eventually eventually eventually the company will admit there is a problem. But only after tons of people have posted to tons of forums and the news sites pick it up. Even then it's not likely. That's how it has been with problems with just about every console since about the PS1.
So, while I have no reason to think there are widespread problems yet, I wouldn't write it off because it came from a forum. I just don't know where else you'd be expected to get the reports. It's not like CNN has a test lab of Wiis or something.
Anyone else find it sad that a search for sarcasm on google returns the wikipedia link as the first result?
No, it's just you.