Sorry if what I wrote looked stupid. I'm still forming my positions.
No, it's not a given that anyone who would pirate a game would buy it--esp. not in places like Brazil, where corps. typically charge more for content than anyone not completely obsessed would pay. I'll accept that.
It's also not a given that no one has pirated a game that he wouldn't have bought if piracy were not an option.
It's not current supply that's hurt by pirating--it's future supply. The games already written will not mysteriously disappear if they are pirated--hey, they're less likely to disappear. But many corps. use money from present games to fund future games; this scheme works only if less money is lost directly from piracy than is gained from piracy-related advertising.
This said, I can understand anyone's pirating from Sony: Sony broke the contract with a certain rootkit. Hey, if you do find a working imitation Playstation, go for it! But I don't believe that all games for Playstations are made by Sony, and the financial tipping points for smaller corps. are lower than they would be for Sony. So if you pirate, be careful...
Plays usually have one playwright per play. Sometimes two.
Films are often written by committee. We can have up to four writers under "written by," perhaps another four under "story idea," another if the work adapts an extant non-film, and any number of unacknowledged minor writers.
First, I never said that the kid did it. I meant to say that it could be argued that the songs "downloaded" might never have gone through a file-sharing app or the 'Net! They might have come directly from the sis's CDs.
Second, "beyond reasonable doubt" is the criminal standard. The civil standard is "preponderance of evidence." If the civil standard was "beyond reasonable doubt," fewer people would settle on lawsuits from the RIAA--the RIAA's cases are known to be tenuous.
Third, the record labels don't sell licenses for music. The record labels sell physical and digital objects containing music; the strength of current copyright laws just gives them a lot more control over distribution than can be gotten for normal physical objects.
I sincerely doubt that any American judge is going to accept the right to replace music via P2P.
But of course, I am not a lawyer...
There is a difference between simply not buying Sony's stuff, and taking pirated Sony stuff.
The conventional trade agreement with Sony is this: they give you stuff, you give them money.
If you neither buy nor use Sony's stuff, they don't get your money, but they have no claim to your money because you don't have their stuff. If they aren't making something worth buying, let it be on their head.
If you get pirated Sony stuff for free, then they don't get your money, but you get their stuff. The agreement is then broken. Because of those who do this, Sony makes less stuff worth buying, partly because they don't have as much money to pay developers, partly because they spend much of what money they do have for anti-pirating mechanisms (aka DRM). Everyone loses.
It's the film fans who call Bergman and Antonioni "auteurs." I'm not sure if they called themselves that.
They got called "auteurs" because it is believed that their directorial vision colored their work enough that they effectively authored it--regardless of who wrote the screenplay.
Those intending to sell films the way books get sold should use directors, not screenwriters.
Is Ozzy Osbourne finding work as a musician? Reality shows are just a way to pay the bills...
The labels haven't laid the Rolling Stones off, but their label no longer promotes their albums effectively. Still, that's not because the Stones are big--it's because they're a '60s band, and the labels want to spend their marketing energy on new acts who don't read record contracts closely.
The major labels control the advertising.
How many indie songs do you hear on the average radio station? The major labels pay independent promoters to get the stations/radio cartels to play their work. The average indie label can't pay what the promoters charge.
Advertising creates demand. Record stores stock what people ask for and what they think people will ask for, which will mostly be major-label artists. The CD department of big box stores isn't big enough to stock much else.
Logic flaw understood. I'm not always logical.
But there is that "statute of limitations" thing as well. The incidents, if they happened at all, happened over five years ago, in the age of Limewire and Kazaa and Napster.
Why would the courts care if the trax came from CDs his sister owned?
The argument you refer to says that the tracks were not downloaded off the 'Net, but instead were taken from those CDs his sister owned. If the trax weren't downloaded off the 'Net, then he didn't upload anything onto the 'Net to get them.
It's uploading that the RIAA really wants stopped. It just is that with P2P applications, almost everybody who downloads also uploads.
That's what I getting for skimming the fine article.
The settlement requires things that the law requires to prevent Sony from grandfathering this sort of thing in. Sony rootkits had been known to install even when you clicked "No."
This settlement is both better and worse than I thought:
On the one hand, apparently this will cost Sony $150 per proven wrecked computer + one non-rootkitted CD per rootkitted CD (when you consider how highly the RIAA valuies songs, that's a major price for them)+ "change your ways"!
On the other hand, this decision still allows Sony future copy protection software. This future DRM software could still limit use sharply as long as it said what it did in the EULA. It could even still phone home: Sony can collect info, they just can't do marketing with it. It won't be a rootkit at least--we'll know it's there, & we can remove it--but come 2008, we could get some interesting headaches...
BTW, the current limitations of Fairplay trax are detailed in the iTunes documentation. There is no even entering the iTunes store without iTunes--that's made clear when you try. So no dice there.
We are speaking about shiny plastic discs here.
If you did not legally purchase a shiny plastic disc, and it was not given to you by someone who did, then either you shoplifted--in which case it's a case for the cops--or the person you bought it from is a "pirate"/bootlegger, and the RIAA should go after him & his presses.
I assumed that you were speaking of wireless routers because the original parent (whom I realize is not you) cited a municipal wi-fi set-up in his example. I'll presume that getting a warrant for a municipal router would fall somewhere between searching a home router and searching an internet trunk.
Sorry about my misunderstanding.
Searching internet packets that are not covered by the search warrant is illegal.
The FBI must search each packet on a shared wireless router before they know if the packet is covered by the search warrant.
Catch-22?
Seriously, your logic would either forbid searches on wireless routers and the like altogether, or require that generalized full-pipe searches be legal. The first option is more constitutional, but the second option would be more likely even if they hadn't already started doing it.
Aren't there states where it's legal to walk around with a gun sticking out of your pocket?
We're talking about America, which has the right to bear arms, more or less. The cops couldn't bust a fella who was just walking around with a gun for planning a robbery. They could bust him for violating concealed-carry in some states, or for carrying a gun in a no-gun zone in some places, but that would be about it.
American cops should not arrest people for armed robbery until there actually is an armed robbery. They should only arrest someone for attempted armed robbery if he actually attempts it. In America, walking around with a gun isn't in itself evidence of criminal activity.
What if the FBI wrote "Name: 'John Doe'(unknown)" on the warrant?
If they knew the name of the guy they wanted to tap, they could just tap that guy's computer, phone line, DSL line, or cable at his physical address. They wouldn't need to tap an entire ISP.
If the bank robber lives with you, the cops would probably assume that he did the serial killing. After all, no one ever suspected that you were a serial killer. Bank robbers are criminals--who knows what they're capable of?;)
The rest of the Hubble Telescope is still working. We want the parts that are still working to be maintained: they served us well for twenty years, so we might as well squeeze a little more out of them.
Better just the ACS than the whole telescope.
And hey, if we're fortunate, they might put in another nice camera in 2008 to hold everyone over until that infrared one gets launched. They can make time for it--this was clearly a well-loved camera, and the people and science boards have some voice.
I really think that the safety concerns for space shuttle trips are pushed too hard. We know space is dangerous, we know we're still exploring, so why can't we just accept the risks?
If the Fairplay AAC music must legally stay on the computer or iPod, then the rip&replace method of removing Fairplay DRM can't be done legally.
For the moment, there appears to be no legal way to remove Fairplay if the song can't leave the computer. (Though Norway might legalize a Fairplay-stripper at the rate things are going.)
If there is no legal way to remove the DRM, and no one can make players that tolerate Fairplay but Apple, then you get lock-in on the portable-music front. Maybe even on the jukebox front; it didn't occur to me before, but likely no jukebox other than iTunes can tolerate Fairplay either.
Apparently not.
I have noted before that I use iTunes 6.x. (The current vs. is 7.x.) But often, when I go online, I firewall iTunes completely off the 'Net when I run it. I've found that iTunes in online mode + Yahoo! Messenger tend to crash my system if I have them both running for long--something about my CPU having only so many cycles. Occas. iTunes can do it by itself. If I'm not using Gracenote, then the iTunes jukebox/manager seems to work whether iTunes is allowed on the 'Net or not.
So, just now, I went to Apple's site, with my copy of iTunes firewalled off the 'Net, and tried to enter the iTunes Store. I was blocked with the error message that they didn't detect a copy of iTunes on my computer. So I shut that window down.
So, you can't enter the Store unless the Store detects a copy of an iTunes jukebox.
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Sorry if what I wrote looked stupid. I'm still forming my positions.
No, it's not a given that anyone who would pirate a game would buy it--esp. not in places like Brazil, where corps. typically charge more for content than anyone not completely obsessed would pay. I'll accept that.
It's also not a given that no one has pirated a game that he wouldn't have bought if piracy were not an option.
It's not current supply that's hurt by pirating--it's future supply. The games already written will not mysteriously disappear if they are pirated--hey, they're less likely to disappear. But many corps. use money from present games to fund future games; this scheme works only if less money is lost directly from piracy than is gained from piracy-related advertising.
This said, I can understand anyone's pirating from Sony: Sony broke the contract with a certain rootkit. Hey, if you do find a working imitation Playstation, go for it! But I don't believe that all games for Playstations are made by Sony, and the financial tipping points for smaller corps. are lower than they would be for Sony. So if you pirate, be careful...
Plays usually have one playwright per play. Sometimes two.
Films are often written by committee. We can have up to four writers under "written by," perhaps another four under "story idea," another if the work adapts an extant non-film, and any number of unacknowledged minor writers.
Perhaps. Orson Welles was an American auteur, and he wasn't even allowed to complete his second film...
First, I never said that the kid did it. I meant to say that it could be argued that the songs "downloaded" might never have gone through a file-sharing app or the 'Net! They might have come directly from the sis's CDs.
Second, "beyond reasonable doubt" is the criminal standard. The civil standard is "preponderance of evidence." If the civil standard was "beyond reasonable doubt," fewer people would settle on lawsuits from the RIAA--the RIAA's cases are known to be tenuous.
Third, the record labels don't sell licenses for music. The record labels sell physical and digital objects containing music; the strength of current copyright laws just gives them a lot more control over distribution than can be gotten for normal physical objects.
I sincerely doubt that any American judge is going to accept the right to replace music via P2P.
But of course, I am not a lawyer...
There is a difference between simply not buying Sony's stuff, and taking pirated Sony stuff.
The conventional trade agreement with Sony is this: they give you stuff, you give them money.
If you neither buy nor use Sony's stuff, they don't get your money, but they have no claim to your money because you don't have their stuff. If they aren't making something worth buying, let it be on their head.
If you get pirated Sony stuff for free, then they don't get your money, but you get their stuff. The agreement is then broken. Because of those who do this, Sony makes less stuff worth buying, partly because they don't have as much money to pay developers, partly because they spend much of what money they do have for anti-pirating mechanisms (aka DRM). Everyone loses.
It's the film fans who call Bergman and Antonioni "auteurs." I'm not sure if they called themselves that.
They got called "auteurs" because it is believed that their directorial vision colored their work enough that they effectively authored it--regardless of who wrote the screenplay.
Those intending to sell films the way books get sold should use directors, not screenwriters.
Is Ozzy Osbourne finding work as a musician? Reality shows are just a way to pay the bills...
The labels haven't laid the Rolling Stones off, but their label no longer promotes their albums effectively. Still, that's not because the Stones are big--it's because they're a '60s band, and the labels want to spend their marketing energy on new acts who don't read record contracts closely.
The major labels control the advertising.
How many indie songs do you hear on the average radio station? The major labels pay independent promoters to get the stations/radio cartels to play their work. The average indie label can't pay what the promoters charge.
Advertising creates demand. Record stores stock what people ask for and what they think people will ask for, which will mostly be major-label artists. The CD department of big box stores isn't big enough to stock much else.
Logic flaw understood. I'm not always logical.
But there is that "statute of limitations" thing as well. The incidents, if they happened at all, happened over five years ago, in the age of Limewire and Kazaa and Napster.
Why would the courts care if the trax came from CDs his sister owned?
The argument you refer to says that the tracks were not downloaded off the 'Net, but instead were taken from those CDs his sister owned. If the trax weren't downloaded off the 'Net, then he didn't upload anything onto the 'Net to get them.
It's uploading that the RIAA really wants stopped. It just is that with P2P applications, almost everybody who downloads also uploads.
That's what I getting for skimming the fine article.
The settlement requires things that the law requires to prevent Sony from grandfathering this sort of thing in. Sony rootkits had been known to install even when you clicked "No."
This settlement is both better and worse than I thought:
On the one hand, apparently this will cost Sony $150 per proven wrecked computer + one non-rootkitted CD per rootkitted CD (when you consider how highly the RIAA valuies songs, that's a major price for them)+ "change your ways"!
On the other hand, this decision still allows Sony future copy protection software. This future DRM software could still limit use sharply as long as it said what it did in the EULA. It could even still phone home: Sony can collect info, they just can't do marketing with it. It won't be a rootkit at least--we'll know it's there, & we can remove it--but come 2008, we could get some interesting headaches...
BTW, the current limitations of Fairplay trax are detailed in the iTunes documentation. There is no even entering the iTunes store without iTunes--that's made clear when you try. So no dice there.
We are speaking about shiny plastic discs here.
If you did not legally purchase a shiny plastic disc, and it was not given to you by someone who did, then either you shoplifted--in which case it's a case for the cops--or the person you bought it from is a "pirate"/bootlegger, and the RIAA should go after him & his presses.
"By the way, since when does the US use SI units?"
On 2-liter bottles, and on products that we hope to export to Canada or Mexico. You'd be surprised.
I assumed that you were speaking of wireless routers because the original parent (whom I realize is not you) cited a municipal wi-fi set-up in his example. I'll presume that getting a warrant for a municipal router would fall somewhere between searching a home router and searching an internet trunk.
Sorry about my misunderstanding.
Searching internet packets that are not covered by the search warrant is illegal.
The FBI must search each packet on a shared wireless router before they know if the packet is covered by the search warrant.
Catch-22?
Seriously, your logic would either forbid searches on wireless routers and the like altogether, or require that generalized full-pipe searches be legal. The first option is more constitutional, but the second option would be more likely even if they hadn't already started doing it.
Aren't there states where it's legal to walk around with a gun sticking out of your pocket?
We're talking about America, which has the right to bear arms, more or less. The cops couldn't bust a fella who was just walking around with a gun for planning a robbery. They could bust him for violating concealed-carry in some states, or for carrying a gun in a no-gun zone in some places, but that would be about it.
American cops should not arrest people for armed robbery until there actually is an armed robbery. They should only arrest someone for attempted armed robbery if he actually attempts it. In America, walking around with a gun isn't in itself evidence of criminal activity.
What if the FBI wrote "Name: 'John Doe'(unknown)" on the warrant?
If they knew the name of the guy they wanted to tap, they could just tap that guy's computer, phone line, DSL line, or cable at his physical address. They wouldn't need to tap an entire ISP.
How many IPs are in a full pipe?
If the bank robber lives with you, the cops would probably assume that he did the serial killing. After all, no one ever suspected that you were a serial killer. Bank robbers are criminals--who knows what they're capable of? ;)
The original fine article also mentioned the new camera. Therefore, there will be a new camera.
The rest of the Hubble Telescope is still working. We want the parts that are still working to be maintained: they served us well for twenty years, so we might as well squeeze a little more out of them.
Better just the ACS than the whole telescope.
And hey, if we're fortunate, they might put in another nice camera in 2008 to hold everyone over until that infrared one gets launched. They can make time for it--this was clearly a well-loved camera, and the people and science boards have some voice.
I really think that the safety concerns for space shuttle trips are pushed too hard. We know space is dangerous, we know we're still exploring, so why can't we just accept the risks?
The Virgin Galactic passengers will be flying up there specifically to see that radiation close up. That is what auroras are made of, right?
Have they done any of that kind of research with manned spacecraft? Or will Virgin Galactic's passengers be guinea pigs?
If the Fairplay AAC music must legally stay on the computer or iPod, then the rip&replace method of removing Fairplay DRM can't be done legally.
For the moment, there appears to be no legal way to remove Fairplay if the song can't leave the computer. (Though Norway might legalize a Fairplay-stripper at the rate things are going.)
If there is no legal way to remove the DRM, and no one can make players that tolerate Fairplay but Apple, then you get lock-in on the portable-music front. Maybe even on the jukebox front; it didn't occur to me before, but likely no jukebox other than iTunes can tolerate Fairplay either.
Apparently not.
I have noted before that I use iTunes 6.x. (The current vs. is 7.x.) But often, when I go online, I firewall iTunes completely off the 'Net when I run it. I've found that iTunes in online mode + Yahoo! Messenger tend to crash my system if I have them both running for long--something about my CPU having only so many cycles. Occas. iTunes can do it by itself. If I'm not using Gracenote, then the iTunes jukebox/manager seems to work whether iTunes is allowed on the 'Net or not.
So, just now, I went to Apple's site, with my copy of iTunes firewalled off the 'Net, and tried to enter the iTunes Store. I was blocked with the error message that they didn't detect a copy of iTunes on my computer. So I shut that window down.
So, you can't enter the Store unless the Store detects a copy of an iTunes jukebox.