The popular musicians making all the money is simply reality. The idea behind this system is that they charge what people are willing to pay and maximise sales. It has nothing to do with artists' right to a living.
Re:Geeks do- everyone else doesn't.
on
The DRM Scorecard
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Locks are a good way to keep honest people honest, but they should be simple and unobtrusive. The reason why we have key locks on our front doors instead of complicated biometric systems (this may be the wrong audience for this comment) is that they are simple, cheap and less prone to failure. The DRM systems created today are complicated, expensive (especially in hardware cost), unreliable and confusing. A simple restriction against copying marked files in software would do just as well to keep honest users honest and would avoid all the complexity and expense.
Neither DRM nor simple copy prevention will protect against users who really want to get around it as the problem of protecting such media is fundamentally impossible to solve. Even if a perfect system could be devised, until the day CDs become obsolete unrestricted copies will be widely and easily available. Neither consumers nor hardware manufacturers have much incentive to actively support DRM, even if most consumers are only apathetic. Simple economics and the constant competition between vendors will prevent DRM from gaining the strangle-hold required for it to be effective, which is fortunate for us all since such a strangle hold would create its own problems.
The best form of DRM would be standardised machine-readable copyright information that could be embedded as metadata in or alongside a file. This would at least force users to knowingly override copyright restrictions when they copy restricted files. Do this right and you could even get adoption in open source operating systems - I can imagine uses tracking ownership of code and managing packages.
Cloned meat sources simply aren't economically viable. Clonal populations are more susceptible to epidemics as they have no genetic diversity, are expensive to produce (and would still be even if the process could be done on a factory line) and can produce only slight advantages over current breeding methods (e.g. artificial insemination, traditional breeding techniques).
Keeping a sample of cells from each animal slaughtered and selecting which to clone and use for breeding based on factors measured after death such as tenderness of the meat, shelf life and such could be useful but I can't think of any other practical use for cloning in food supply. This wouldn't involve eating cloned animals as the clones would be breeding stock only.
This whole debate is pointless!
Preventing this is really easy. Make the user record a word only they will know and only listen for commands after hearing the word or after a key is pressed. This would protect both against malicious web sites and against complete strangers yelling commands.
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Obviously we can't take your word for it. I bet your passwords are all "password1" or "monkey". If you know any different, prove it!
I don't know about you but the bulk of spam I'm receiving at the moment definitely isn't targeted at anybody's granny!
The popular musicians making all the money is simply reality. The idea behind this system is that they charge what people are willing to pay and maximise sales. It has nothing to do with artists' right to a living.
Locks are a good way to keep honest people honest, but they should be simple and unobtrusive. The reason why we have key locks on our front doors instead of complicated biometric systems (this may be the wrong audience for this comment) is that they are simple, cheap and less prone to failure. The DRM systems created today are complicated, expensive (especially in hardware cost), unreliable and confusing. A simple restriction against copying marked files in software would do just as well to keep honest users honest and would avoid all the complexity and expense.
Neither DRM nor simple copy prevention will protect against users who really want to get around it as the problem of protecting such media is fundamentally impossible to solve. Even if a perfect system could be devised, until the day CDs become obsolete unrestricted copies will be widely and easily available. Neither consumers nor hardware manufacturers have much incentive to actively support DRM, even if most consumers are only apathetic. Simple economics and the constant competition between vendors will prevent DRM from gaining the strangle-hold required for it to be effective, which is fortunate for us all since such a strangle hold would create its own problems.
The best form of DRM would be standardised machine-readable copyright information that could be embedded as metadata in or alongside a file. This would at least force users to knowingly override copyright restrictions when they copy restricted files. Do this right and you could even get adoption in open source operating systems - I can imagine uses tracking ownership of code and managing packages.
Cloned meat sources simply aren't economically viable. Clonal populations are more susceptible to epidemics as they have no genetic diversity, are expensive to produce (and would still be even if the process could be done on a factory line) and can produce only slight advantages over current breeding methods (e.g. artificial insemination, traditional breeding techniques). Keeping a sample of cells from each animal slaughtered and selecting which to clone and use for breeding based on factors measured after death such as tenderness of the meat, shelf life and such could be useful but I can't think of any other practical use for cloning in food supply. This wouldn't involve eating cloned animals as the clones would be breeding stock only. This whole debate is pointless!
Preventing this is really easy. Make the user record a word only they will know and only listen for commands after hearing the word or after a key is pressed. This would protect both against malicious web sites and against complete strangers yelling commands.