As a previous poster pointed out, in most countries, "constitutional right" doesn't have the meaning you seem to think it has.
This is an UNALIENABLE RIGHTS as I've mentioned before and CAN'T under any laws be deem ILLEGAL.
Sorry, we're owned by rich people. They determine what the laws will protect. People are, in general, too stupid to know what's happening to their rights. If you can convince them that you're doing something good and moral (not hard to do, just talk about the children and stuff.. doesn't hurt to mention God a few times either), they'll back you up as you strip their rights away. They don't listen to rational arguments, they vote with their emotions, which is why politicians have the ability to manipulate public into supporting their idiotic legislation.
The "war on drugs" is a classic example of this. Tell people that the whole reason you need to be able to take people's property with no evidence whatsoever of wrongdoing is in order to protect the children from the evil drug dealers and they'll give you all the power you want. After all, they'll only enforce the screwed up laws against the "bad guys."
I'm also a bit confused by Derek Simkowiak's stated intent to write "to clear up the nasty reputation they've received on the Internet" since he never actually explains how he intended to do so.
Well, I don't know whether this is an elaborate hoax or not, but if so, Derek's statements, at least, make sense. He's giving them the opportunity to assuage the Linux community's misgivings about the company by explicity asking the questions that everyone wants the answers to. This gives them the ability to respond and explain why they've done things the way they have. If they are legitimate, they should have decent explanations, even if they only say that they screwed up and explain how they will fix the matter. If they are not legitimate, they will continue to hide behind psuedo-legal bs and dodge questions as long as possible.
I've read the letters and the text of the lawsuit, and I still think it's stupid. MP3.com hasn't done anything to allow piracy or rip anyone off. If any piracy is taking place, it's being done independently of MP3.com's service.
Re:Before y'all get your panties in a twist...
on
RIAA Sues MP3.com
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· Score: 2
How can they require someone to prove ownership of a CD? Say I have a friend to makes backups of all his CDs. Then one of the originals is destroyed. He still has the backup and can listen to that. Then later I give my friend $.50 for that backup CD because he doesn't want it anymore. That CD becomes my property. I can't really prove it's mine, other than the fact that I have possession of it. I can't prove that it's a legitimate copy at all. How then can MP3.com truly verify ownership? Do I have to repurchase my entire CD collection in order to have access to it online? I'm sure the RIAA would love that since it means they get to further rip off consumers.
If I can obtain the CD long enough to put it in my drive, then I could just as easily rip the tracks, convert them to MP3s, and upload them to MP3.com. Doing this would only require access to the CD for a few minutes, but would give me permanent access to the copy. I don't see how MP3.com's service is in any way contributing to piracy. If any piracy occurs, it occurs independently of MP3.com's service.
Re:Before y'all get your panties in a twist...
on
RIAA Sues MP3.com
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· Score: 2
If the person has access to the CD and can put it in their drive to demonstrate that they have possession of the licensed material, then they could just as easily rip the tracks from the CD and convert them to MP3s on their drive and upload them to MP3.com. They are just saved from those extra steps by MP3.com giving them access to an archived copy. MP3.com did nothing to help them obtain an illegal copy, if that is what they are using. The customer obtained that copy prior to using MP3.com's service.
I've talked (online) to girls that play Quake too, but they represent a tiny fraction of the total FPS market. I don't think that that's because of the advertising alone. In fact, I think advertising is only a very minor contributing factor. I think the main reason is that girls grow up being pushed in a completely different direction. They shouldn't bother with computers. That's guy stuff. If they're going to play games, they should be playing nice games like Tetris.. on Gameboy.
If more girls were encouraged to get into computers, there would be more female programmers. At least some of these female programmers would get into creating games. These games would probably attract a larger female following than games made by guys for other guys like themselves.
Where are the female coders? Why don't they write some games for female gamers? We've got a ton of guys coding games for guys, what the women need is for women to start writing games for them. Why? I'll tell ya why... err no.. you already said it:
This crud is selling because girls are growing up pushed towards this stuff. It is a symptom of a much larger problem.... Whole generations of women have been growing up under this brainwashing. No/wonder/ we have so few women in science and technology.
Larger market segments get more magazines targeting them. You happen to be part of a smaller segment with fewer magazines competing for fewer dollars.
I get most of my gaming info from Computer Games: Strategy Plus, various gaming websites, and a little from Maximum PC.
If you don't like mags like Incite or PC Accelerator, don't buy them. There are obviously plenty of people who do like them though, and I think that that's fine too. To each his/her own. You can't expect every gaming mag to be aimed at people like you. There probably are some out there that appeal to you, you just have to look for them.
If companies target this audience, we'd have bankrupt companies left and right.
Have you seen the top selling games lately? Depending on what you consider "real games", I think at least half of the top ten sellers last month were aimed at the casual gamer.
#1 Who Wants To Be A Millionaire
#5 Barbie Generation Girl Gotta Groove
#6 Deer Hunter III
#7 Toy Story 2 Action Game
#8 Frogger
I doubt anyone would go bankrupt by targeting casual gamers.
The implication behind your satire is that games aren't for girls. Full stop.
That's not the way I understood it at all. I think the implication was that some types of entertainment simply don't appeal to some types of people. Therefore, there's no sense in trying to market to those people.
Now, if there is an adolescent boy somewhere trying to figure out what FPS game is cool to buy, then the advertising might influence him. It appeals to him. Since the advertising appeals to (or at least doesn't offend) the majority of the people that are interested in FPS games like Unreal Tournament or QuakeIII, they are getting the best return for their advertising dollar. If their ad can sway some people to buy UT instead of Q3, then they've done their job. If you only like games like Bomberman and Mario Kart, then you aren't likely to purchase Unreal Tournament, no matter what kind of ads they use, simply because the game itself doesn't appeal to you and the marketing isn't aimed at you.
Are you saying that significantly more women would buy Unreal Tournament if it was marketed differently? It's still the same game. The object is still primarily to annihilate the other players. How would different advertising make it appeal to people that aren't already interested in that type of game?
In other words, does Unreal Tournament, as a game, appeal to people who are offended by the ads?
...Hasbro with its crop of incredibly bad Barbie games - no WONDER the young girls won't play them.
I can't argue that they aren't bad, but they seem to be selling. "Barbie Generation Girl Gotta Groove" is number 5 on PC Data's Top Ten list for December '99. Check it out.
Seems like you can't do that anymore. You try to build a better one, only to be sued by some corporation you've never heard of that has a patent on "Method of detaining rodents by eliminating their ability to depart the immediate vicinity of the trap mechanism," as well as "Method of terminating rodents by relieving them of their lives."
Hmmm.. when you look at it that way, Microsoft's decision to venture into gaming could do great things for Linux gaming. I certainly hope things continue along the track they're currently on. Seems like something cool related to Linux gaming is being announced every week now.
I can't beleive that anyone would think that its ok for a company to make an agreement with another company and then go back on it.
Or worse yet, deceive anti-trust investigators by licensing your technology to prove that there is competition and then revoking the license when the investigation is over. Then whining about how someone else competing in the chipset market with you. Damn. Some companies have a lot of nerve.
such as this - if a company knows of a material defect in their product and conceals such to the consumer, resulting in losses to the consumer - said greedheads are liable under the higher standards of gross-negligence, recklessness, or even intentional tort, resulting in statutory treble damages or unlimited punitive damages in some cicumstances.
The greedheads are already well on their way to taking care of that little problem. Go read up on UCITA.
It's not that they're paying too much attention to copy protection, there really isn't any for cds. It's the fact that they're trying to take action against the MP3 format, which is legitimately used by many to make perfectly legal copies of cds that they own. Sure, there's piracy, but there's piracy in almost every media format. They just need to live with it or develop media that they can protect better. If I can't make personal copies, then I simply won't purchase that media.
The film industry screwed up by creating a pathetically weak protection scheme for DVDs. They then proceeded to try to take away people's rights when the scheme was broken. The record industry screwed up by trying to take away people's rights because they feel threatened by MP3s.
Whether MP3 makes piracy easy or not, the RIAA is not justified in attacking it. I use it to make personal copies of my CDs, which is perfectly legal (although the RIAA would love to get rid of that right). They have ulterior motives in this case and I don't want to see them further degrade our rights. Copyright isn't a God-given right that they posess. It's granted to them by the government, but there are conditions attached. They're trying to get around these.
If they want to make their music harder to copy, that's their right. If it gets to the point that personal copies are too difficult to make, then I'll take that into consideration when I'm deciding whether or not to buy their product. Otherwise, they have no right to screw with my ability to make legitimate copies of CDs that I've already purchased. I purchased them with the understanding that I could make personal copies. Trying to take that ability away after I've already purchased the product is just a scam. Who the hell are they to try to take away my ability to exercise my right to copy music that I've purchased legitimately?
I just bought 2 cds in the last couple weeks that I would not have bought had I not been able to listen to the mp3s first. They were from rather obscure bands (here in the states anyway). I liked the songs I heard though, so I bought the cds. This wasn't the first time either. I don't have a large MP3 collection. I do have some that are illegal, but most are from CDs that I now own. As for the illegal ones, I have no intention of buying the whole cd when I only like one song. If the record companies were smart, they'd sell custom-made cds online and then I would actually buy these songs. Nevertheless, they didn't lose a sale since they were never going to get that sale in the first place. It certainly doesn't seem like the situation is much worse than it was with cassette tapes.
If the RIAA would quit trying to whip up a hysteria about piracy to convince the public that any and all copying is illegal, perhaps I'd be more inclined to consider their point of view. As it stands, I don't feel an ounce of sympathy for them. They are the true pirates. As long as they are going to try to deceive people, they deserve whatever they get.
There was some evidence presented in the case where Microsoft prevented some vendors from packing in Lotus SmartSuite with new computers, but let's be realistic -- the Office Suite marketshare of people who got it for free is irrelevant. (I've formated SmartSuite off of more IBM computers than I can count.)
Who cares if it was removed later or not? The fact is that Microsoft has the kind of power to prevent OEMs from loading what they want to load on the computers they sell. That shows that they do, in fact, have monopoly power, and that they abuse it.
It's not a real remedy for monopoly. (MS's monopoly is built on a stronger foundation than some cheezy transitory file formats.)
Definitely. But one of the easiest ways for competition to be created is for other companies to have the ability to make their products compatible with Microsoft's products. File formats are an important part of being compatible.
Rather, all the actions that they take are supposed to restore competition rather than simply hurt Microsoft. That's why they can't just say, fine them $20 billion dollars.
Right, that will be left to others to do with civil suits if/when Microsoft loses this case.
This seems entirely appropriate. If Microsoft's illegal actions harmed others, then they should be compensated. Triple damages are awarded as a punishment.
I think the key word in his statement is "force." Borland(Inprise), Lotus, etc, don't "force" anything on anyone. They don't have the power of an OS monopoly to allow them to do so. They play by Microsoft's rules if they want to play with Windows. Since Windows has been the only game in town with some 90% marketshare, they have little choice in the matter. They either play with Windows by Microsoft's rules, or they end up as a tiny little niche company or die out completely. Unfortunately, since they are directly competing in the office suite market with Microsoft, Microsoft has very little incentive to allow a level playing field to exist for the office suite market. End result? Consumers suffer a lack of real choice. Only one company has the information to allow it to excel(npi) in the office suite market. That happens to be because it also controls the OS that the office suite runs on.
Actually, k is pretty easy when you know you're supposed to make just one line. I learned Graffiti in about 5 minutes. It was simple and intuitive. Granted, it does take longer to write some letters than Xerox's system, but I'm not sure that it's a significant difference. I don't do a whole lot of writing on my Visor, but when I do, I don't have to try to remember how to make certain letters. It just works. It could be improved, I'm sure, but I think it's better to have the symbols at least resemble the letters they represent, rather than have nearly arbitrary symbols like Xerox's system.
I like Graffiti MUCH better. Trying to write with that would suck and take a lot longer to learn.
Re:Media monopoly time ...
on
AOL Nation
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· Score: 1
The problem is that most won't avoid it. Sure, you can avoid it because you are conciously doing so. Most will see nothing else. That's all that needs to happen in this fine democracy of ours. Most people will see what the media wants them to see and act on that. Being the majority, they can really screw things up for the rest of us.
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It's a CONSTITUTIONAL rights.
As a previous poster pointed out, in most countries, "constitutional right" doesn't have the meaning you seem to think it has.
This is an UNALIENABLE RIGHTS as I've mentioned before and CAN'T under any laws be deem ILLEGAL.
Sorry, we're owned by rich people. They determine what the laws will protect. People are, in general, too stupid to know what's happening to their rights. If you can convince them that you're doing something good and moral (not hard to do, just talk about the children and stuff.. doesn't hurt to mention God a few times either), they'll back you up as you strip their rights away. They don't listen to rational arguments, they vote with their emotions, which is why politicians have the ability to manipulate public into supporting their idiotic legislation.
The "war on drugs" is a classic example of this. Tell people that the whole reason you need to be able to take people's property with no evidence whatsoever of wrongdoing is in order to protect the children from the evil drug dealers and they'll give you all the power you want. After all, they'll only enforce the screwed up laws against the "bad guys."
I'm also a bit confused by Derek Simkowiak's stated intent to write "to clear up the nasty reputation they've received on the Internet" since he never actually explains how he intended to do so.
Well, I don't know whether this is an elaborate hoax or not, but if so, Derek's statements, at least, make sense. He's giving them the opportunity to assuage the Linux community's misgivings about the company by explicity asking the questions that everyone wants the answers to. This gives them the ability to respond and explain why they've done things the way they have. If they are legitimate, they should have decent explanations, even if they only say that they screwed up and explain how they will fix the matter. If they are not legitimate, they will continue to hide behind psuedo-legal bs and dodge questions as long as possible.
I've read the letters and the text of the lawsuit, and I still think it's stupid. MP3.com hasn't done anything to allow piracy or rip anyone off. If any piracy is taking place, it's being done independently of MP3.com's service.
How can they require someone to prove ownership of a CD? Say I have a friend to makes backups of all his CDs. Then one of the originals is destroyed. He still has the backup and can listen to that. Then later I give my friend $.50 for that backup CD because he doesn't want it anymore. That CD becomes my property. I can't really prove it's mine, other than the fact that I have possession of it. I can't prove that it's a legitimate copy at all. How then can MP3.com truly verify ownership? Do I have to repurchase my entire CD collection in order to have access to it online? I'm sure the RIAA would love that since it means they get to further rip off consumers.
If I can obtain the CD long enough to put it in my drive, then I could just as easily rip the tracks, convert them to MP3s, and upload them to MP3.com. Doing this would only require access to the CD for a few minutes, but would give me permanent access to the copy. I don't see how MP3.com's service is in any way contributing to piracy. If any piracy occurs, it occurs independently of MP3.com's service.
If the person has access to the CD and can put it in their drive to demonstrate that they have possession of the licensed material, then they could just as easily rip the tracks from the CD and convert them to MP3s on their drive and upload them to MP3.com. They are just saved from those extra steps by MP3.com giving them access to an archived copy. MP3.com did nothing to help them obtain an illegal copy, if that is what they are using. The customer obtained that copy prior to using MP3.com's service.
I've talked (online) to girls that play Quake too, but they represent a tiny fraction of the total FPS market. I don't think that that's because of the advertising alone. In fact, I think advertising is only a very minor contributing factor. I think the main reason is that girls grow up being pushed in a completely different direction. They shouldn't bother with computers. That's guy stuff. If they're going to play games, they should be playing nice games like Tetris.. on Gameboy.
If more girls were encouraged to get into computers, there would be more female programmers. At least some of these female programmers would get into creating games. These games would probably attract a larger female following than games made by guys for other guys like themselves.
Where are the female coders? Why don't they write some games for female gamers? We've got a ton of guys coding games for guys, what the women need is for women to start writing games for them. Why? I'll tell ya why... err no.. you already said it:
This crud is selling because girls are growing up pushed towards this stuff. It is a symptom of a much larger problem. ... Whole generations of women have been growing up under this brainwashing. No /wonder/ we have so few women in science and technology.
Larger market segments get more magazines targeting them. You happen to be part of a smaller segment with fewer magazines competing for fewer dollars.
I get most of my gaming info from Computer Games: Strategy Plus, various gaming websites, and a little from Maximum PC.
If you don't like mags like Incite or PC Accelerator, don't buy them. There are obviously plenty of people who do like them though, and I think that that's fine too. To each his/her own. You can't expect every gaming mag to be aimed at people like you. There probably are some out there that appeal to you, you just have to look for them.
If companies target this audience, we'd have bankrupt companies left and right.
Have you seen the top selling games lately? Depending on what you consider "real games", I think at least half of the top ten sellers last month were aimed at the casual gamer.
I doubt anyone would go bankrupt by targeting casual gamers.
The implication behind your satire is that games aren't for girls. Full stop.
That's not the way I understood it at all. I think the implication was that some types of entertainment simply don't appeal to some types of people. Therefore, there's no sense in trying to market to those people.
Now, if there is an adolescent boy somewhere trying to figure out what FPS game is cool to buy, then the advertising might influence him. It appeals to him. Since the advertising appeals to (or at least doesn't offend) the majority of the people that are interested in FPS games like Unreal Tournament or QuakeIII, they are getting the best return for their advertising dollar. If their ad can sway some people to buy UT instead of Q3, then they've done their job. If you only like games like Bomberman and Mario Kart, then you aren't likely to purchase Unreal Tournament, no matter what kind of ads they use, simply because the game itself doesn't appeal to you and the marketing isn't aimed at you.
Are you saying that significantly more women would buy Unreal Tournament if it was marketed differently? It's still the same game. The object is still primarily to annihilate the other players. How would different advertising make it appeal to people that aren't already interested in that type of game?
In other words, does Unreal Tournament, as a game, appeal to people who are offended by the ads?
I can't argue that they aren't bad, but they seem to be selling. "Barbie Generation Girl Gotta Groove" is number 5 on PC Data's Top Ten list for December '99. Check it out.
Seems like you can't do that anymore. You try to build a better one, only to be sued by some corporation you've never heard of that has a patent on "Method of detaining rodents by eliminating their ability to depart the immediate vicinity of the trap mechanism," as well as "Method of terminating rodents by relieving them of their lives."
Hmmm.. when you look at it that way, Microsoft's decision to venture into gaming could do great things for Linux gaming. I certainly hope things continue along the track they're currently on. Seems like something cool related to Linux gaming is being announced every week now.
I can't beleive that anyone would think that its ok for a company to make an agreement with another company and then go back on it.
Or worse yet, deceive anti-trust investigators by licensing your technology to prove that there is competition and then revoking the license when the investigation is over. Then whining about how someone else competing in the chipset market with you. Damn. Some companies have a lot of nerve.
such as this - if a company knows of a material defect in their product and conceals such to the consumer, resulting in losses to the consumer - said greedheads are liable under the higher standards of gross-negligence, recklessness, or even intentional tort, resulting in statutory treble damages or unlimited punitive damages in some cicumstances.
The greedheads are already well on their way to taking care of that little problem. Go read up on UCITA.
http://www.troubleshooters.com/ucita/
http://www.2bguide.com/nccusl.html
Here's a list of Infoworld articles on UCITA
You can find a whole lot more besides these by doing a Google search.
It's not that they're paying too much attention to copy protection, there really isn't any for cds. It's the fact that they're trying to take action against the MP3 format, which is legitimately used by many to make perfectly legal copies of cds that they own. Sure, there's piracy, but there's piracy in almost every media format. They just need to live with it or develop media that they can protect better. If I can't make personal copies, then I simply won't purchase that media.
The film industry screwed up by creating a pathetically weak protection scheme for DVDs. They then proceeded to try to take away people's rights when the scheme was broken. The record industry screwed up by trying to take away people's rights because they feel threatened by MP3s.
Whether MP3 makes piracy easy or not, the RIAA is not justified in attacking it. I use it to make personal copies of my CDs, which is perfectly legal (although the RIAA would love to get rid of that right). They have ulterior motives in this case and I don't want to see them further degrade our rights. Copyright isn't a God-given right that they posess. It's granted to them by the government, but there are conditions attached. They're trying to get around these.
If they want to make their music harder to copy, that's their right. If it gets to the point that personal copies are too difficult to make, then I'll take that into consideration when I'm deciding whether or not to buy their product. Otherwise, they have no right to screw with my ability to make legitimate copies of CDs that I've already purchased. I purchased them with the understanding that I could make personal copies. Trying to take that ability away after I've already purchased the product is just a scam. Who the hell are they to try to take away my ability to exercise my right to copy music that I've purchased legitimately?
I just bought 2 cds in the last couple weeks that I would not have bought had I not been able to listen to the mp3s first. They were from rather obscure bands (here in the states anyway). I liked the songs I heard though, so I bought the cds. This wasn't the first time either. I don't have a large MP3 collection. I do have some that are illegal, but most are from CDs that I now own. As for the illegal ones, I have no intention of buying the whole cd when I only like one song. If the record companies were smart, they'd sell custom-made cds online and then I would actually buy these songs. Nevertheless, they didn't lose a sale since they were never going to get that sale in the first place. It certainly doesn't seem like the situation is much worse than it was with cassette tapes.
If the RIAA would quit trying to whip up a hysteria about piracy to convince the public that any and all copying is illegal, perhaps I'd be more inclined to consider their point of view. As it stands, I don't feel an ounce of sympathy for them. They are the true pirates. As long as they are going to try to deceive people, they deserve whatever they get.
There was some evidence presented in the case where Microsoft prevented some vendors from packing in Lotus SmartSuite with new computers, but let's be realistic -- the Office Suite marketshare of people who got it for free is irrelevant. (I've formated SmartSuite off of more IBM computers than I can count.)
Who cares if it was removed later or not? The fact is that Microsoft has the kind of power to prevent OEMs from loading what they want to load on the computers they sell. That shows that they do, in fact, have monopoly power, and that they abuse it.
It's not a real remedy for monopoly. (MS's monopoly is built on a stronger foundation than some cheezy transitory file formats.)
Definitely. But one of the easiest ways for competition to be created is for other companies to have the ability to make their products compatible with Microsoft's products. File formats are an important part of being compatible.
Rather, all the actions that they take are supposed to restore competition rather than simply hurt Microsoft. That's why they can't just say, fine them $20 billion dollars.
Right, that will be left to others to do with civil suits if/when Microsoft loses this case.
This seems entirely appropriate. If Microsoft's illegal actions harmed others, then they should be compensated. Triple damages are awarded as a punishment.
I think the key word in his statement is "force." Borland(Inprise), Lotus, etc, don't "force" anything on anyone. They don't have the power of an OS monopoly to allow them to do so. They play by Microsoft's rules if they want to play with Windows. Since Windows has been the only game in town with some 90% marketshare, they have little choice in the matter. They either play with Windows by Microsoft's rules, or they end up as a tiny little niche company or die out completely. Unfortunately, since they are directly competing in the office suite market with Microsoft, Microsoft has very little incentive to allow a level playing field to exist for the office suite market. End result? Consumers suffer a lack of real choice. Only one company has the information to allow it to excel(npi) in the office suite market. That happens to be because it also controls the OS that the office suite runs on.
Actually, k is pretty easy when you know you're supposed to make just one line. I learned Graffiti in about 5 minutes. It was simple and intuitive. Granted, it does take longer to write some letters than Xerox's system, but I'm not sure that it's a significant difference. I don't do a whole lot of writing on my Visor, but when I do, I don't have to try to remember how to make certain letters. It just works. It could be improved, I'm sure, but I think it's better to have the symbols at least resemble the letters they represent, rather than have nearly arbitrary symbols like Xerox's system.
I like Graffiti MUCH better. Trying to write with that would suck and take a lot longer to learn.
The problem is that most won't avoid it. Sure, you can avoid it because you are conciously doing so. Most will see nothing else. That's all that needs to happen in this fine democracy of ours. Most people will see what the media wants them to see and act on that. Being the majority, they can really screw things up for the rest of us.