Me too. He is quite an intelligent guy overall and I think that came through pretty well in the interview. He also seems to have a good grasp of what he knows vs. what he doesn't know and admits what he doesn't know, which is more than can be said for a lot of people. Granted the interview is a bit long and rambling but I think that is partly a function of its unedited nature. Would anyone have rather had a dumbed down edited interview? I would rather have it straight from the horse's mouth so to speak.
Anyone who agrees with this letter or found it interesting might also want to check out the Street Performer Protocol . It was developed by a couple of cryptographers and offers another way for artists to profit off their work in a world totally devoid of copyrights. Basically, they hold their work for ransom until they recieve whatever amount of money they think they can get from whoever wants to donate it. Then, the work is released and immediately becomes public domain. Check it out it's thought provoking.
It constantly surprises me how much ignorance surrounds this issue. It's not the hardware maker's fault dvd players suck and they are crippled. When they go to the DVD-CCA and say "we want to make a dvd player give us the decoding key" the DVD-CCA makes them sign a contract saying they will build in all this copy-protection crap and not put in firewire etc. etc. If it was up to the hardware people alone we would be seeing all this stuff already cause it would sell more players for them. But DVD-CCA keeps them all in check just like it keeps consumers in check. It's a smart, if misguided, way of doing things...
I would just like to point out that the DMCA affects far more than just the United States. Its main reason for being was to implement the provisions of the 1996 WIPO Copyright treaty. This is where the technological protection measure nonsense was first written. Over 50 countries have signed this treaty, but as far as I know the U.S. is the only one to implement and enforce it so far. Here is a list of signatories, which I got from the WIPO web page :
Argentina, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Denmark, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Monaco, Mongolia, Namibia, Netherlands, Nigeria, Panama, Portugal, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Senegal, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Togo, United Kingdom, United States of America, Uruguay, Venezuela, European Communities (51).
You can go look yourself if you want and read the text of the treaty too. A lot of the stuff on their site is either pdf or MS Word format only though. They are bastards even in that respect. Anyway, go read the WIPO treaty and you will understand a lot better why it will be hard to fight the DMCA on a national level...
NASCAR is super lame though because they keep changing the rules in order to keep the competition close. What's that? Jeff Gordon is winning all the races? Well we better mandate bigger spoilers then so everyone else can catch up. Plus, all the tracks are just ovals. Boring. Give me rally or road racing any day. At least it has right hand turns...
Re:Some copyright is good (heresy, heresy!)
on
At The Crossroads
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· Score: 1
Thus far most discussion seems to assume that the only alternative to our present copyright system is total information anarchy. I just wanted to post a story I found a LONG time ago by a couple of cryptographers outlining a third intellectual property paradigm they call the street performer protocol:
The basic idea is that creators hold their works for ransom. Once they get enough money, the work is released and instantly becomes public domain. Read it before you start flaming, it sounds pretty workable to me...
Open up your My Computer or any other folder. Go to the View menu. Click "folder options." Marvel at the fact that windows is probably hiding tons of files from you if you don't have it set to show hidden files. Anyway, click on the "file types" tab. Find "VBScript (.vbs)" in the list of file types. It will be set to run. Click on edit in the right side of the window there. Pick "edit" off the list of behaviors, then click "set default." Now just click ok a bunch of times and no more VB viruses for you...
Also the DMCA is based on a treaty signed by the U.S. in 1996 and administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization. If Britain and Germany don't have laws similar to the DMCA already they will soon, unless they want to drop out of the WIPO and possibly face trade sanctions from the member coutries (i.e. the U.S.) Get used to it, sucky laws abound everywhere!
Bands cover one another's songs all the time with no problems. Our good friends metallica recently released a cd called Garage Days Revisited which was mostly covers of other people's songs. Virtually every concert I go to the bands play at least a couple of songs they didn't write. I don't know what the legal justification is but I am just saying there is a good precedent set for playing songs you did not write and getting away with it...
I don't see it as a lack of social responsibility to permit the expression of "wrong" views. It is far more socially irresponsible to allow supression of ideas just because someone (be it the majority or a powerful minority) thinks they are wrong. "Wrong" changes with time, despite the frequently made assertion that it does not. While I am not enough of a relativist to think that there are not some things which will always be wrong, the definition changes often enough that we should not dismiss ideas out of hand just because they seem stupid or wrong now. Consider that for many years it was generally considered "wrong" for blacks and whites to sit together in restaurants, and in many places it is still considered "wrong" for them to marry. If we do not allow expression of all views we risk suppressing important ideas and preventing needed change.
Also, it is not the mission of the ACLU to fight for everyone's right to do whatever they want. The ACLU is not out there advocating for the right to murder, slander, or yell "fire" in a crowded theatre. They are arguing for rights constitutionally granted to all Americans.
Finally, as far as this goes:
Would the ACLU sponsor gropus who wanted to get rid of the ACLU on the grouds that the ACLU is violating their rights to prevent people from spreading the wrong message? I doubt it, because any true assertion of 'rightness' is censored by the ACLU.
No one has any "right" to prevent people from spreading the wrong message. I am Jewish and I have no "right" to prevent a neo-nazi or klan group from assembling and telling everyone how evil I am. Nor should I, nor do I want such a right. If I had it, then they would have it as well and could go and shut down my temple, because according to them it is "wrong." The only way to solve this problem is to allow and fight for free speech for all. I will actively fight to counter-act a neo-nazi's message, but I will not fight to prevent him from being able to speak, no matter how much I may hate what he is saying. There is a quote from Voltaire along these lines, which I may be paraphasing because I don't remeber the exact words, but it basically says, "I may hate what it is you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
I think you are drawing some incorrect conclusions from that logic. For example, if you said we should do away with democracy and have a king instead, you would indeed be quite distinct in your thinking. And the ACLU would come to your defense if someone tried to censor you. However, just by defending your right to say something, the ACLU is not also defending what you say as right. This is a small but important point. They do not destroy the distinction between right and wrong in society; they just protect your right to be "wrong." People should not be censored just because they are stupid or wrong. Recall that when the country was founded many thought that the revolutionaries advocating independence were "wrong." If you start taking away the citizenry's right to be wrong and stupid you are starting down the slippery slope of censorship and majority-defined definitions of what is "right." The ACLU does argue that everyone's view is essentially equally valid in that everyone has the right to state their view. It does not argue that everyone's view is equally right or that we must actually pay attention to everyone. If you are convinced it does then you do not understand its purpose and you minimize the valuable role it plays in safegaurding EVERY american's constitutional rights.
I love the fact that at the bottom of every/. discussion page, it says "Comments are owned by the poster." Look now if you don't believe me. It seems they have this little disclaimer on the page just to cover their own asses in case someone says something dumb on here, but willfully ignore it when Katz wants to publish a book. Then, they strip the names off the comments and claim them as their own. This is pretty stupid and has, IMO, significantly eroded whatever credibility Katz and/. had on intellectual property issues.
May I point out that half-life has been out for PC for well over a year and is just now coming out for dreamcast? I don't want to wait a year to play a game on a console even if it does have better graphics and sound, and I doubt if it really does. And can you use mods with dreamcast half life? Somehow I doubt it. The only reason I still play that game is cause of Counter Strike. I don't think I could do that with a Dreamcast.
As I understand it the only reason they still use ILS and not GPS is that the gov't messes up the GPS signal so it is not accurate enough. They are investigating ways to fix it up becuase GPS would be a lot safer and more accurate than ILS, at least in theory. But you are right that aviation is generally a conservative business, which is as it should be. If I get on a plane to go somewhere I want it to work. I don't want to be put in the role of test pilot for some new, unproven technology someone thought had a high "gee-whiz" factor...
If you are that pissed why don't you make an account and login? Then you too will get moderator points and stop bitching about how everyone else is doing such a poor job...
Actually Neoplanet can supposedly use netscape 6.0 or mozilla also, although I admit I have not tried either of these yet because they are reputed to be too buggy. I use up all of my patience with buggy code on my own:)
Whatever the government ends up doing in this case, they should not force the removal of Internet Explorer from Windows. This would be a bad thing for a couple of reasons:
It is not the government's place to tell companies exactly what they can or cannot put in their software. Forcing MS to remove IE would set a rather dangerous precedent. Consider this analogy: Say ford makes cars that don't have radios. Pioneer is making radios for ford (and other) cars and lots of people are using them and like them. Ford sees this, and decides to include a radio as a standard feature on all its new cars. Gov't would not tell ford they were not allowed to do this, so why are they telling MS they can't? It's essentially the same situation. A third party company was making a useful addition to a product which the product's maker decided to include as standard.
Furthermore, there is currently nothing in windows which prevents you from using a browser other than IE. Yes, IE is on every windows system and is nearly impossible to get off, but that doesn't mean you have to use it. I personally have IE, Netscape, and this other thing called Neoplanet on my computer and they all work great. So don't whine that everyone HAS to use IE just because MS integrated it into their OS.
I am all for reigning in MS, but the government needs to be very careful about how they do it. If they mess it up it could be totally ineffective, or worse, set a bad precendent for the whole technology industry.
May be too late for anyone to see this, but anyway...
Just because IE is in windows doesn't mean you have to use it. I have netscape 4.7 and IE and I will admit to using both of them because they are both good for different things. Just because IE is built in to the OS and and I can't easily get rid of it doesn't prevent me from using a differnet program if I so choose...
The government that you applaud for dealing heavy-handedly against your foes can just as easily enslave you, and if it's powerful enough to do things for you that you cannot do yourself; it is more powrful than you. This being the case, what safeguard do you have against it turning against you someday? None at all.
I am hoping here by "you" you mean the whole people of the US and not just each individual. The government exists for the SOLE PURPOSE of doing things for me that I can't do myself. I can't keep banks from charging prohibitive interest and convienience stores from lying in their advertising. The government does this and more FOR ME because it is in MY INTEREST just as it is in pretty much every citizen's interest. If the government were only allowed to do things that I could also do myself what would be the point of even having it???
It seemed pooped and lame. Bill Gates' company hasn't dominated any of the significant technological movements and evolutions of the late 90s: open source, nano-technology, AI, genetic research, hand-held and wireless computing, supercomputers.
Maybe I am just some sort of luddite, but it seems to me that NO ONE is dominating any of these fields yet because they are still too new. Have any of them (other than open source) had a significant impact on your life? I can't see how they have on mine. Nano-tech is not yet doing anything for me, nor is gene research. AI is improving but it exists in so many forms (AI of a UT bot vs. AI of the phone company's voice recognition for example) that it's difficult to pin down exactly what "AI" means. Advanced supercomputers might be nice so that no one has to test atomic bombs anymore and we get better weather forecasts but in reality they have very little impact on MY life. So I find it difficult to see why I should care if Microsoft is dominant or not in any of these categories.
I also have to agree. I have both an intellieye mouse and a sidewinder gamepad and they are both very well made and confortable. I also feel like I paid a fair price for each.
Forcing MS to take IE out of windows is extremely dumb and would set a dangerous precedent of the gov't saying what can and can't go into software. Consider this example:
Ford makes lots and lots of cars. They don't have radios. There is another company, say pioneer, which makes radios for fords and lots and lots of people like having radios in their car so they buy them. Ford sees this and starts including a radio as a basic free feature on the car. Users rejoice but unfortunately pioneer has just been squeezed out...
This is exactly what is happening with IE and netscape. No one would say ford shouldn't be allowed to include a radio with all of their cars just because pioneer will have to do something different then. Why should ms be told not to include a browser, which most all users would want, just because it might hurt netscape? Too bad but that is business....
According to the article we are theoretically discussing here (anyone but me actually read it?) copyright law currently protects work copyrighted by individuals for their entire lifetime plus 70 years. Copyrights owned by corporations last for 95 years. It is still not legal to copy and distribute either of the movies you mentioned regardless of the media you chose to do so on. It doesn't matter if you use a dvd or vhs or beta or hi-8 or whatever; you still don't own the copyright and thus are entitled only to "fair use." What this means is somewhat up in the air, but it has been becoming more restrictive in recent years....
The article seems to suggest that Congress has been lengthening copyright terms mainly to protect companies such as disney, who make their living from copyrighted characters. If this is really their motivation, I think they should just pass some kind of "mickey-mouse act" which would extend protection on mickey mouse et. al, but stop preventing us from getting access to the thousands of other works which come under the wider law now in place. While this acknowledges the special interests of Disney and its bretheren to a sickening degree, at least we would be honest with ourselves about what is really going on...
I am also at a small liberal arts campus (oberlin) and I think all they have here is one or two T1's for all 3000 students plus faculty. I have also been told they banned napster here but I don't know cause I never used it anyway. It seemed like a big security risk to me and I have other ways to get mp3's if I want them. Anyway for a small campus a couple T1's is fine. I get pings of about 120 to most quake and unreal servers and files download pretty quick. Not every college has the money or need for TREMEDOUSLY fat pipes...
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Me too. He is quite an intelligent guy overall and I think that came through pretty well in the interview. He also seems to have a good grasp of what he knows vs. what he doesn't know and admits what he doesn't know, which is more than can be said for a lot of people. Granted the interview is a bit long and rambling but I think that is partly a function of its unedited nature. Would anyone have rather had a dumbed down edited interview? I would rather have it straight from the horse's mouth so to speak.
Anyone who agrees with this letter or found it interesting might also want to check out the Street Performer Protocol . It was developed by a couple of cryptographers and offers another way for artists to profit off their work in a world totally devoid of copyrights. Basically, they hold their work for ransom until they recieve whatever amount of money they think they can get from whoever wants to donate it. Then, the work is released and immediately becomes public domain. Check it out it's thought provoking.
It constantly surprises me how much ignorance surrounds this issue. It's not the hardware maker's fault dvd players suck and they are crippled. When they go to the DVD-CCA and say "we want to make a dvd player give us the decoding key" the DVD-CCA makes them sign a contract saying they will build in all this copy-protection crap and not put in firewire etc. etc. If it was up to the hardware people alone we would be seeing all this stuff already cause it would sell more players for them. But DVD-CCA keeps them all in check just like it keeps consumers in check. It's a smart, if misguided, way of doing things...
Argentina, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Denmark, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Monaco, Mongolia, Namibia, Netherlands, Nigeria, Panama, Portugal, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Senegal, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Togo, United Kingdom, United States of America, Uruguay, Venezuela, European Communities (51).
You can go look yourself if you want and read the text of the treaty too. A lot of the stuff on their site is either pdf or MS Word format only though. They are bastards even in that respect. Anyway, go read the WIPO treaty and you will understand a lot better why it will be hard to fight the DMCA on a national level...
NASCAR is super lame though because they keep changing the rules in order to keep the competition close. What's that? Jeff Gordon is winning all the races? Well we better mandate bigger spoilers then so everyone else can catch up. Plus, all the tracks are just ovals. Boring. Give me rally or road racing any day. At least it has right hand turns...
The Street Performer Protocol
The basic idea is that creators hold their works for ransom. Once they get enough money, the work is released and instantly becomes public domain. Read it before you start flaming, it sounds pretty workable to me...
Open up your My Computer or any other folder. Go to the View menu. Click "folder options." Marvel at the fact that windows is probably hiding tons of files from you if you don't have it set to show hidden files. Anyway, click on the "file types" tab. Find "VBScript (.vbs)" in the list of file types. It will be set to run. Click on edit in the right side of the window there. Pick "edit" off the list of behaviors, then click "set default." Now just click ok a bunch of times and no more VB viruses for you...
Also the DMCA is based on a treaty signed by the U.S. in 1996 and administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization. If Britain and Germany don't have laws similar to the DMCA already they will soon, unless they want to drop out of the WIPO and possibly face trade sanctions from the member coutries (i.e. the U.S.) Get used to it, sucky laws abound everywhere!
Bands cover one another's songs all the time with no problems. Our good friends metallica recently released a cd called Garage Days Revisited which was mostly covers of other people's songs. Virtually every concert I go to the bands play at least a couple of songs they didn't write. I don't know what the legal justification is but I am just saying there is a good precedent set for playing songs you did not write and getting away with it...
I don't see it as a lack of social responsibility to permit the expression of "wrong" views. It is far more socially irresponsible to allow supression of ideas just because someone (be it the majority or a powerful minority) thinks they are wrong. "Wrong" changes with time, despite the frequently made assertion that it does not. While I am not enough of a relativist to think that there are not some things which will always be wrong, the definition changes often enough that we should not dismiss ideas out of hand just because they seem stupid or wrong now. Consider that for many years it was generally considered "wrong" for blacks and whites to sit together in restaurants, and in many places it is still considered "wrong" for them to marry. If we do not allow expression of all views we risk suppressing important ideas and preventing needed change.
Also, it is not the mission of the ACLU to fight for everyone's right to do whatever they want. The ACLU is not out there advocating for the right to murder, slander, or yell "fire" in a crowded theatre. They are arguing for rights constitutionally granted to all Americans.
Finally, as far as this goes:
Would the ACLU sponsor gropus who wanted to get rid of the ACLU on the grouds that the ACLU is violating their rights to prevent people from spreading the wrong message? I doubt it, because any true assertion of 'rightness' is censored by the ACLU.
No one has any "right" to prevent people from spreading the wrong message. I am Jewish and I have no "right" to prevent a neo-nazi or klan group from assembling and telling everyone how evil I am. Nor should I, nor do I want such a right. If I had it, then they would have it as well and could go and shut down my temple, because according to them it is "wrong." The only way to solve this problem is to allow and fight for free speech for all. I will actively fight to counter-act a neo-nazi's message, but I will not fight to prevent him from being able to speak, no matter how much I may hate what he is saying. There is a quote from Voltaire along these lines, which I may be paraphasing because I don't remeber the exact words, but it basically says, "I may hate what it is you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
I think you are drawing some incorrect conclusions from that logic. For example, if you said we should do away with democracy and have a king instead, you would indeed be quite distinct in your thinking. And the ACLU would come to your defense if someone tried to censor you. However, just by defending your right to say something, the ACLU is not also defending what you say as right. This is a small but important point. They do not destroy the distinction between right and wrong in society; they just protect your right to be "wrong." People should not be censored just because they are stupid or wrong. Recall that when the country was founded many thought that the revolutionaries advocating independence were "wrong." If you start taking away the citizenry's right to be wrong and stupid you are starting down the slippery slope of censorship and majority-defined definitions of what is "right." The ACLU does argue that everyone's view is essentially equally valid in that everyone has the right to state their view. It does not argue that everyone's view is equally right or that we must actually pay attention to everyone. If you are convinced it does then you do not understand its purpose and you minimize the valuable role it plays in safegaurding EVERY american's constitutional rights.
I love the fact that at the bottom of every /. discussion page, it says "Comments are owned by the poster." Look now if you don't believe me. It seems they have this little disclaimer on the page just to cover their own asses in case someone says something dumb on here, but willfully ignore it when Katz wants to publish a book. Then, they strip the names off the comments and claim them as their own. This is pretty stupid and has, IMO, significantly eroded whatever credibility Katz and /. had on intellectual property issues.
May I point out that half-life has been out for PC for well over a year and is just now coming out for dreamcast? I don't want to wait a year to play a game on a console even if it does have better graphics and sound, and I doubt if it really does. And can you use mods with dreamcast half life? Somehow I doubt it. The only reason I still play that game is cause of Counter Strike. I don't think I could do that with a Dreamcast.
As I understand it the only reason they still use ILS and not GPS is that the gov't messes up the GPS signal so it is not accurate enough. They are investigating ways to fix it up becuase GPS would be a lot safer and more accurate than ILS, at least in theory. But you are right that aviation is generally a conservative business, which is as it should be. If I get on a plane to go somewhere I want it to work. I don't want to be put in the role of test pilot for some new, unproven technology someone thought had a high "gee-whiz" factor...
May I again point out that, according to its own website, neoplanet supposedly works with mozilla/netscape 6 as well as IE. Thank you.
If you are that pissed why don't you make an account and login? Then you too will get moderator points and stop bitching about how everyone else is doing such a poor job...
Actually Neoplanet can supposedly use netscape 6.0 or mozilla also, although I admit I have not tried either of these yet because they are reputed to be too buggy. I use up all of my patience with buggy code on my own :)
Whatever the government ends up doing in this case, they should not force the removal of Internet Explorer from Windows. This would be a bad thing for a couple of reasons:
I am all for reigning in MS, but the government needs to be very careful about how they do it. If they mess it up it could be totally ineffective, or worse, set a bad precendent for the whole technology industry.
May be too late for anyone to see this, but anyway...
Just because IE is in windows doesn't mean you have to use it. I have netscape 4.7 and IE and I will admit to using both of them because they are both good for different things. Just because IE is built in to the OS and and I can't easily get rid of it doesn't prevent me from using a differnet program if I so choose...
The government that you applaud for dealing heavy-handedly against your foes can just as easily enslave you, and if it's powerful enough to do things for you that you cannot do yourself; it is more powrful than you. This being the case, what safeguard do you have against it turning against you someday? None at all.
I am hoping here by "you" you mean the whole people of the US and not just each individual. The government exists for the SOLE PURPOSE of doing things for me that I can't do myself. I can't keep banks from charging prohibitive interest and convienience stores from lying in their advertising. The government does this and more FOR ME because it is in MY INTEREST just as it is in pretty much every citizen's interest. If the government were only allowed to do things that I could also do myself what would be the point of even having it???
It seemed pooped and lame. Bill Gates' company hasn't dominated any of the significant technological movements and evolutions of the late 90s: open source, nano-technology, AI, genetic research, hand-held and wireless computing, supercomputers.
Maybe I am just some sort of luddite, but it seems to me that NO ONE is dominating any of these fields yet because they are still too new. Have any of them (other than open source) had a significant impact on your life? I can't see how they have on mine. Nano-tech is not yet doing anything for me, nor is gene research. AI is improving but it exists in so many forms (AI of a UT bot vs. AI of the phone company's voice recognition for example) that it's difficult to pin down exactly what "AI" means. Advanced supercomputers might be nice so that no one has to test atomic bombs anymore and we get better weather forecasts but in reality they have very little impact on MY life. So I find it difficult to see why I should care if Microsoft is dominant or not in any of these categories.
I also have to agree. I have both an intellieye mouse and a sidewinder gamepad and they are both very well made and confortable. I also feel like I paid a fair price for each.
Forcing MS to take IE out of windows is extremely dumb and would set a dangerous precedent of the gov't saying what can and can't go into software. Consider this example:
Ford makes lots and lots of cars. They don't have radios. There is another company, say pioneer, which makes radios for fords and lots and lots of people like having radios in their car so they buy them. Ford sees this and starts including a radio as a basic free feature on the car. Users rejoice but unfortunately pioneer has just been squeezed out...
This is exactly what is happening with IE and netscape. No one would say ford shouldn't be allowed to include a radio with all of their cars just because pioneer will have to do something different then. Why should ms be told not to include a browser, which most all users would want, just because it might hurt netscape? Too bad but that is business....
According to the article we are theoretically discussing here (anyone but me actually read it?) copyright law currently protects work copyrighted by individuals for their entire lifetime plus 70 years. Copyrights owned by corporations last for 95 years. It is still not legal to copy and distribute either of the movies you mentioned regardless of the media you chose to do so on. It doesn't matter if you use a dvd or vhs or beta or hi-8 or whatever; you still don't own the copyright and thus are entitled only to "fair use." What this means is somewhat up in the air, but it has been becoming more restrictive in recent years....
The article seems to suggest that Congress has been lengthening copyright terms mainly to protect companies such as disney, who make their living from copyrighted characters. If this is really their motivation, I think they should just pass some kind of "mickey-mouse act" which would extend protection on mickey mouse et. al, but stop preventing us from getting access to the thousands of other works which come under the wider law now in place. While this acknowledges the special interests of Disney and its bretheren to a sickening degree, at least we would be honest with ourselves about what is really going on...
I am also at a small liberal arts campus (oberlin) and I think all they have here is one or two T1's for all 3000 students plus faculty. I have also been told they banned napster here but I don't know cause I never used it anyway. It seemed like a big security risk to me and I have other ways to get mp3's if I want them. Anyway for a small campus a couple T1's is fine. I get pings of about 120 to most quake and unreal servers and files download pretty quick. Not every college has the money or need for TREMEDOUSLY fat pipes...