Where's the kaboom? You call that an earth shattering kaboom?
Oh. Wait.
I
It's on the moon, silly. That should be a "moon shattering kaboom". And it seems on-one has ever heard one of those, so we don't know how they sound like.
What stroke me more is at the end of the video they suggest to stay indoors during meteor showers.
I'd say the risk of your bulding being struck is higher than that of a space-walking astroaut, due to the larger area. And such a 5-ton-TNT hit is a pretty devastating blow to pretty much anything we can build. That is, unless they'd go deep underground (for more reasons than meteorites a good idea).
Because the cdn is probably (hosted at) a different company; not hosted on your own server (that has the database and provides all dynamic content and user logins and whatnot - keeping all that important information in house), but that seriously bandwidth-eating stuff comes from say Amazon or some cloud server.
Now why such foocdn would need cookies, that'd be the real question. That's supposed to be static content, downloaded via direct links in the main html.
The easy way out of that is to include a default white list. Which of course should be open and configurable (add/remove sites from whitelist; disable whitelist completely).
I have been blocking third-party cookies since I found out Mozilla (yes, back then) allowed me to do so. And when switching to Firefox when it became useful I did the same. Never had any problems with it.
Oh my god, I never thought I'd ever hear those words coming out of my own mouth. As someone who suffered through Windows 3.1 (reboot to change the number of colors on screen!)
Why reboot? Exiting Windows, back to DOS, then restarting it (win.exe) should do the trick. Unless for fiddling with config.sys and autoexec.bat I don't recall much rebooting. I do recall a lot of starting and quitting Windows though.
This shouldn't be too hard: request a video stream, get the advertising video streamed first followed by the content you intended to see. That would overcome ad blockers as well (come to think of it, with ABP there indeed is no advertising on YouTube).
Microsoft creates a version of YouTube that blocks advertising, and still Microsoft is the scum of the known universe.
Apparently it is not as much a case of MS blocking advertising, it is more like they simply don't include advertising - they basically didn't implement the advertising delivery part.
Whether or not there is financial gain should not matter for the question whether it is allowed or not. So whether it's a free open-source app, or an app MS supplies (and that app is free, too) to enhance their platform is irrelevant for the question whether they broke some license/TOS/AUP/whatever or not.
The financial gain matter is only a factor in determining punishment, if someone is found to be wrong.
Maybe they're just presenting the web site in a different way than intended by the maker. In how far is one obliged to follow the HTML standard when displaying a page? To run all the javascript? Get all third-party bits and pieces (e.g. advertisements)? Many Firefox add-ons change how a page looks like, by adding things, or blocking things. AdBlockPlus is a thorn in the eye of many advertisers, yet it seems they can't do much against it.
Call my argumentation ridiculous - I know it is. But it is that kind of interpretation is what opens up mazes in the law, and if you have your argumentation right, you may very well be within your legal rights.
How enforceable is a TOS really? MS never signed anything to access YouTube, and possible never even read it - iirc you don't even have to tick something like "i agree to the TOS" when accessing YouTube.
So I'm breaking their TOS hard... AdBlockPlus takes care of the ads, and a youtube downloader whose name I forgot gives me direct download links for the videos. Oh well. I'm not Microsoft so not likely that Google will sue me.
And there are obviously people who don't like to hear reason - hence my comment was down modded.
I for one treat them the same as I treat everyone else in this matter. Found to be infringing - be informed - they take down the offending material & come with a plausible explanation on how it came to be; case closed for me. If copyright holders don't think so, let them take action. That's how it should be.
Unfortunately those organisations themselves don't tend to be reasonable... the ridiculous fines they help impose on infringers are just one aspect of that.
They may have good reasons to not splash those names around on general news sites, for risking defamation suits or so. That is something for them to settle with the copyright holder. Let them first figure out what happened really before naming and shaming people.
Is it so strange to buy photos off an image bank for your web site? I'd say that is normal practice for someone that actually DOES care about copyrights, becuase they paid for the stuff. Image bank claims they have the rights to the stuff; while they didn't; then image bank is bad. No simple copy/paste done.
I'm trying not to fall for the hype as everyone does, and give them the benefit of the doubt.
They claim they bought the photos from an image bank: if so, at least they tried to do the right thing, by paying for photos. I myself have been looking into buying stuff for my web site that way - didn't do it as it didn't have the material I wanted.
So if they really did buy from an image bank, and the original photographer did not license the image bank to sell their images for them, then the image bank should be the one being sued, not the web site the material appears on. If you can't even be sure that you do not get legal problems (other than requirement to stop using such material), why use the image bank at all?
You can not expect a web site developer to double check all copyright claims. They need an image, find a suitable one on an image bank, pay the fee, use it. Just like when you go to say iTunes, download a movie or some songs, and you assume that you have a legit copy.
To me it seems that this Canpire should simply stop using the images in question, and claim back their money from the image bank where they bought the material. And the photographers should sue the image bank for unlawful distribution of their work.
I thought small claims court meant "no lawyers". So not only can you represent yourself, you pretty much have to represent yourself, as you can't get a lawyer to represent you.
It also means that the other party (the firm sending those letters) must send a non-lawyer to court to represent the company. That person may have the backing of lawyers in preparing the case but they have to argue the case there and then.
As patents are public by nature, disclosing information you learn by reverse engineering can not violate a patent. Building something using that information however, can.
Copyright is also not an issue as long as you do not redistribute anyting - learning how stuff works is not a copyright related issue. You may analyse how itunes stores its information, for example, and even write something that can read/write that format, and you won't break any copyright laws in the process.
NDA not sure: if you learn in your own time, how would that be covered under an NDA?
In Europe exactly that's been the practice for a long time - and the reason why many countries have relatively low drink-driving cases. They will put up checkpoints at main roads (typically exit roads of cities, after major events), and everyone has to blow. No exception.
Also the quoted drop in traffic deaths is related to that: not just the drop in limit, but also the increased checking, plus general drink driving awareness campaigns. It is now normal for people when they go out that one of the group (the designated driver) simply does not drink.
Just read the letter in the linked article. Reeks of troll. Typical Nigerian-type content: they refer to material stolen from their client, without naming either. Not who that client (presumably copyright holder) might be; nor what content was allegedly stolen. I'm seeing similar vaguely worded e-mails time and again - and most of them are Nigerian scams. They are also intentionally vague, trying to have the reader fill in the gaps (which people automatically do), and make the reader feel as if it's targeting them while it's really a standard letter sent to hundreds if not thousands of people.
If I'd receive such a letter, I'd probably just toss it in the trash, like I do with similar e-mails. They'd at least have to identify the alleged stolen content, and with that, who their client would be.
Or would it be possible to file a complaint with police, and have them initiate a criminal investigation? May be hard in practice for a single letter but if more people are targeted they may act on it.
Slashdot Mirror
Where's the kaboom? You call that an earth shattering kaboom?
Oh. Wait.
I
It's on the moon, silly. That should be a "moon shattering kaboom". And it seems on-one has ever heard one of those, so we don't know how they sound like.
What stroke me more is at the end of the video they suggest to stay indoors during meteor showers.
I'd say the risk of your bulding being struck is higher than that of a space-walking astroaut, due to the larger area. And such a 5-ton-TNT hit is a pretty devastating blow to pretty much anything we can build. That is, unless they'd go deep underground (for more reasons than meteorites a good idea).
Because the cdn is probably (hosted at) a different company; not hosted on your own server (that has the database and provides all dynamic content and user logins and whatnot - keeping all that important information in house), but that seriously bandwidth-eating stuff comes from say Amazon or some cloud server.
Now why such foocdn would need cookies, that'd be the real question. That's supposed to be static content, downloaded via direct links in the main html.
The easy way out of that is to include a default white list. Which of course should be open and configurable (add/remove sites from whitelist; disable whitelist completely).
I have been blocking third-party cookies since I found out Mozilla (yes, back then) allowed me to do so. And when switching to Firefox when it became useful I did the same. Never had any problems with it.
Oh my god, I never thought I'd ever hear those words coming out of my own mouth. As someone who suffered through Windows 3.1 (reboot to change the number of colors on screen!)
Why reboot? Exiting Windows, back to DOS, then restarting it (win.exe) should do the trick. Unless for fiddling with config.sys and autoexec.bat I don't recall much rebooting. I do recall a lot of starting and quitting Windows though.
And suddenly I'm feeling old.
* Embed ads in the raw video
This shouldn't be too hard: request a video stream, get the advertising video streamed first followed by the content you intended to see. That would overcome ad blockers as well (come to think of it, with ABP there indeed is no advertising on YouTube).
Microsoft creates a version of YouTube that blocks advertising, and still Microsoft is the scum of the known universe.
Apparently it is not as much a case of MS blocking advertising, it is more like they simply don't include advertising - they basically didn't implement the advertising delivery part.
You mean they actually still add those region locks to DVD players? Well over a decade since I've encountered one of them.
Whether or not there is financial gain should not matter for the question whether it is allowed or not. So whether it's a free open-source app, or an app MS supplies (and that app is free, too) to enhance their platform is irrelevant for the question whether they broke some license/TOS/AUP/whatever or not.
The financial gain matter is only a factor in determining punishment, if someone is found to be wrong.
This greasemonkey script adds a download button on the YouTube page. Choose flv or mp4.
Did they actually go ahead and sue any of them? Or were this all empty threats?
Maybe they're just presenting the web site in a different way than intended by the maker. In how far is one obliged to follow the HTML standard when displaying a page? To run all the javascript? Get all third-party bits and pieces (e.g. advertisements)? Many Firefox add-ons change how a page looks like, by adding things, or blocking things. AdBlockPlus is a thorn in the eye of many advertisers, yet it seems they can't do much against it.
Call my argumentation ridiculous - I know it is. But it is that kind of interpretation is what opens up mazes in the law, and if you have your argumentation right, you may very well be within your legal rights.
How enforceable is a TOS really? MS never signed anything to access YouTube, and possible never even read it - iirc you don't even have to tick something like "i agree to the TOS" when accessing YouTube.
So I'm breaking their TOS hard... AdBlockPlus takes care of the ads, and a youtube downloader whose name I forgot gives me direct download links for the videos. Oh well. I'm not Microsoft so not likely that Google will sue me.
And there are obviously people who don't like to hear reason - hence my comment was down modded.
I for one treat them the same as I treat everyone else in this matter. Found to be infringing - be informed - they take down the offending material & come with a plausible explanation on how it came to be; case closed for me. If copyright holders don't think so, let them take action. That's how it should be.
Unfortunately those organisations themselves don't tend to be reasonable... the ridiculous fines they help impose on infringers are just one aspect of that.
They may have good reasons to not splash those names around on general news sites, for risking defamation suits or so. That is something for them to settle with the copyright holder. Let them first figure out what happened really before naming and shaming people.
Is it so strange to buy photos off an image bank for your web site? I'd say that is normal practice for someone that actually DOES care about copyrights, becuase they paid for the stuff. Image bank claims they have the rights to the stuff; while they didn't; then image bank is bad. No simple copy/paste done.
They removed the offending material (which they bought from an image bank, a very reasonable claim), so apparently they do care.
I'm trying not to fall for the hype as everyone does, and give them the benefit of the doubt.
They claim they bought the photos from an image bank: if so, at least they tried to do the right thing, by paying for photos. I myself have been looking into buying stuff for my web site that way - didn't do it as it didn't have the material I wanted.
So if they really did buy from an image bank, and the original photographer did not license the image bank to sell their images for them, then the image bank should be the one being sued, not the web site the material appears on. If you can't even be sure that you do not get legal problems (other than requirement to stop using such material), why use the image bank at all?
You can not expect a web site developer to double check all copyright claims. They need an image, find a suitable one on an image bank, pay the fee, use it. Just like when you go to say iTunes, download a movie or some songs, and you assume that you have a legit copy.
To me it seems that this Canpire should simply stop using the images in question, and claim back their money from the image bank where they bought the material. And the photographers should sue the image bank for unlawful distribution of their work.
So much effort. I'd just consider the site "broken", click the <back> button, and go on with my life.
I thought small claims court meant "no lawyers". So not only can you represent yourself, you pretty much have to represent yourself, as you can't get a lawyer to represent you.
It also means that the other party (the firm sending those letters) must send a non-lawyer to court to represent the company. That person may have the backing of lawyers in preparing the case but they have to argue the case there and then.
As patents are public by nature, disclosing information you learn by reverse engineering can not violate a patent. Building something using that information however, can.
Copyright is also not an issue as long as you do not redistribute anyting - learning how stuff works is not a copyright related issue. You may analyse how itunes stores its information, for example, and even write something that can read/write that format, and you won't break any copyright laws in the process.
NDA not sure: if you learn in your own time, how would that be covered under an NDA?
In Europe exactly that's been the practice for a long time - and the reason why many countries have relatively low drink-driving cases. They will put up checkpoints at main roads (typically exit roads of cities, after major events), and everyone has to blow. No exception.
Also the quoted drop in traffic deaths is related to that: not just the drop in limit, but also the increased checking, plus general drink driving awareness campaigns. It is now normal for people when they go out that one of the group (the designated driver) simply does not drink.
Many deaths that are a result of drink driving are not the drunk drivers, but pedestrians or cyclists that were overrun.
Just read the letter in the linked article. Reeks of troll. Typical Nigerian-type content: they refer to material stolen from their client, without naming either. Not who that client (presumably copyright holder) might be; nor what content was allegedly stolen. I'm seeing similar vaguely worded e-mails time and again - and most of them are Nigerian scams. They are also intentionally vague, trying to have the reader fill in the gaps (which people automatically do), and make the reader feel as if it's targeting them while it's really a standard letter sent to hundreds if not thousands of people.
If I'd receive such a letter, I'd probably just toss it in the trash, like I do with similar e-mails. They'd at least have to identify the alleged stolen content, and with that, who their client would be.
Or would it be possible to file a complaint with police, and have them initiate a criminal investigation? May be hard in practice for a single letter but if more people are targeted they may act on it.