In my opinion, they already have, with a massive 5 year nationwide extortion campaign, use of unlicensed investigators, unlawful collection tactics, criminal violations of the federal computer fraud and abuse act, criminal price fixing in negotiating settlements, many instances of perjury....... yeah, I still don't get why there has only been 1 case where RICO has been brought against them- they must spend a lot of effort picking and choosing "friendly counties" to hound after the letters are sent- I do wonder what goes on in the back room strategy that way as to what they drop and how many they expect to settle since they obviously have under qualified representation, I mean most of the time I have looked the lawyers up that the RIAA presents, they are either first or second years practicing or have really poor records, it's as if they really don't expect to win any of the cases at all If they happen to go to court.
Unless it's licensed, not sold:) but a piece of hardware is not licensed, it is sold- I don't recall anywhere where when i have bought a console or handled it stated that I am "licensing" the hardware (which would be a lease not a purchase), only that the manufacturer takes no liability if the unit is opened or modified- truth is it doesn't matter if I put a mod chip in it or a toaster in it, I bought the hardware and so it is mine do do with what I please- apple tried to pull that crap on the old power PC's back in the day when the first imacs came out and I got a letter saying that they wanted to recall my homebuilt power pc (traced my registration of the motherboard) because it "violated their licensing" when they stopped granting the rights to build them. I wrote a letter back telling them to kindly fuck off and have never bought another apple product again to this day.
Likewise if a law is introduced that says you cannot modify your games console to allow it to play illegal games then your argument is incorrect chipping a console is not modifying it to play illegal games- it is unlocking the console, period. I have modded DS's and PSP's- I use them for making loops (I am an electronic musician) and as cheap text readers as well as emulator consoles and a number of other things. Besides, the PSP actually works better once you flash it because it runs faster off the memory stick than the umd and you don't have to carry around umd's- does that mean I don't buy games? no, I rip them to the memory stick and play them that way.
I don't know that I could ever bring myself to own or use 'i'* products. The whole idea makes my skin crawl and the addition of a vowel to the beginning of a word doesn't make me want it more.
yes, but if you can write katakana, there is a good chance of communicating in english with someone who can't speak it in japan- if you use simple enough language most words when written with the japanese enunciation have at least a common slang meaning in conversational japanese.
China gets in wars/military actions like anyone else, but when they do it, the purpose is to take away freedoms. one word
nanking
look it up and shut your face
I bet the Chinese have a better sense of humor than you. I am Chinese and I don't find it amusing (the post- not south park- though I think it has gotten really stale as of late).
Honestly there are a lot of us- not just Chinese, but all Asians that get pissed off a lot because it's not okay to use the 'n' word or make black jokes or use derogatory terms for Jews or Hispanics- but I hear Gook and Chink and Slant eyed or and every other term in the book thrown around (my favorite was being called "indian nigger" when I was in the midwest) not to mention the lame assed white guy Chinese accent and it's just fine according to society. Honestly as much as I am not a fan of china (my dad escaped after the revolution) I honestly think it's funny that they are kicking our ass economically and love the fact that Japan and South Korea put our tech to shame because we are so afraid to get our heads out of our asses in this country and take anyone seriously who isn't white.
I couldn't believe the other day I was flipping channels and "mind of mencia" was on and he had some rant about how stupid and dirty chinese people were and seriously, I was really offended. I mean if you were to put any other race in that rant of his most people would be angry, but chinese people *pfft* who cares right? they won't complain, they are a "model minority" because they don't say anything and are good at math (which I am not, really- I work in legal tech but have a degree in fine arts and have taught post graduate studies in design and audio composition and engineering).
So? Knowing how to use a computer doesn't make an expert on software patent reform or IP reform. (Two things most often quoted as being 'tech issues' even though they really aren't.) Heck, judging by the comments on Slashdot being able to use a computer doesn't do anything for your knowledge of these issues. wrong, it takes both camps of knowledge to understand the issues- I say this from the point of view of someone that is on all sides of the issue (a musician in support of loosening IP laws, my day job is in civil litigation dealing with e-discovery and database integration as well as chain of custody and defensibility and have worked extensively on IP cases- mainly B2B)
It is true that some people talk out of their ass a lot on here, but you do need to realize that when it comes down to it, the people on \. are the ones that are affected by these misguided laws that people like McCain proposes w/o the knowledge of what he is proposing. Also, how can you trust someone to make their own call on an issue that they know nothing about? doesn't this lead to taking the convenient lane of listening to lobbyists and contributors, since they have your ear?
b) In assessing damages under subsection (a) for any violation of section 32(1)(a) of this Act or section 220506 of title 36, United States Code, in a case involving use of a counterfeit mark or designation (as defined in section 34(d) of this Act), the court shall, unless the court finds extenuating circumstances, enter judgment for three times such profits or damages, whichever amount is greater, together with a reasonable attorney's fee, if the violation consists of-- how is this supposed to be determined "three times such profits or damages" is a very subjective term- you can pretty much claim anything or nothing.....
it could be an awesome defense or a beat down from the litigant
Actually, it's far worse than anyone thought. They aren't filtering a few minor websites, they are actually blocking major portions of USENET: I think this is a good start actually. If we block usenet we can get a substantial amount of child pornography offline, and then we can concentrate next on blocking all http: and ftp: protocols since they contain child pornography too. I mean, honestly, do you think anyone uses http: protocols for anything but child exploitation and terrorism?
(sarcasm in case you didn't notice)
Yes, except the person who worked hard and invested their own money to produce the content you want to share. I am one of those people and I have turned away a number of labels in favor of indie releases and actually encourage people to share my files and ask to purchase merchandise and come to see shows- I constantly spar with other artists on the issue as I firmly believe that, like most businesses we as artists need to understand that we are not selling access to our music, we are selling a community and a lifestyle and need to take advantage of this aspect of the business and though the music is the foundation, it doesn't need to be exclusive in order to make $.
t would be great if you knew what you were talking about. I spend a lot of effort trying to interact with my kids. I spend a lot of time talking to them, and listening to them. However, they spend a lot more time talking to their friends and being on-line. It's easy to do nothing and then point the blame at the parents when things go wrong. so instead video games are to blame right? maybe your kid has jackass friends- this is why the PTA and other community organizations were formed initially, to bring community involvement by parents to the children of the community and let parents communicate with each other to come to a consensus around parenting.
also- sure there are going to be other influences than you in your kid's life- but your job is to make sure that your kid realizes that those people are jackasses and that they don't need to fall into the peer pressure, you can't expect their friends to do that for you.
"The Internet promises to have particularly far-reaching effects on cognition....The Internet, an immeasurably powerful computing system, is subsuming most of our other intellectual technologies. It's becoming our map and our clock, our printing press and our typewriter, our calculator and our telephone, and our radio and TV. When the Net absorbs a medium, that medium is recreated in the Net's image." In other words, as we "go online" in increasing numbers and to an increasing degree, are we losing our ability to think coherently and deeply, preferring instead to process byte-sized information quickly, regurgitate 140-character "tweets," and skim thought? Is the concern overblown or are we becoming the Web that we created?" I don't see how this makes us any less intelligent- if you are using a clock, typewriter, calculator, telephone, radio and TV how does that make you smarter? it makes you more inefficient.
when it comes down to it you have one forum of machines doing the work instead of a series of machines in your house doing the work- watching internet TV is no less intelligent than watching regular TV, and the calculator on your computer works the same as the one you hold in your hand.
the idea that at&t should be able to du usage based pricing is lame- usage based pricing on cable is to encourage those on the same community pipe to slow down a bit- at&t is DSL - dedicated lines- they upgrade the infrastructure and you go to town, that is the benefit of DSL over cable- there are no "peak hours"- which is why you get a solid 5-6 mbps on a 6 mps connection.
I wonder though, what the deal will be with those of us like me that are under contract with them already- will they just terminate it? that doesn't seem feasible, though if they offer speed upgrades with bandwidth caps I can sort of see charging for usage, though it is still lame as hell since you are giving someone the ability to easily overuse their data transfer- I for one don't want to end up paying $300 a month for data transfer because I decided to watch youtube too much or was gaming too much- or I decided to update my software- etc. etc. etc.
granted, I prolly don't hit the cap of '40 gigs' that they put on transfer for cable (I am prolly about half that) on my PC, but I have no idea how much I am using on my wii and my ps3 when I am online gaming or browsing youtube
this as well as the fact that no matter how secure your software or OS is you also need to take into account hardware- all it itakes is one jackass to write a few lines into silicon and there isn't much that you can do about it- and you can guarantee that if people like M$ don't have the ability to monitor and control the OS that they will push collusion to intel or broadcomm to do it for them
I have been an early adopter on this one- I was one of the first US people to receive the wibrain b1h- it is a nice little machine and runs xp like a charm- also the via integrated video is damn cool for a unit not much bigger than a psp, but can run warcraft III smoothly
no, it's actually ackbar obama http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admiral_Ackbar admiral of the rebel fleet during the attack on the second death star,
but that was a long time ago, and in a galaxy far far away- I don't expect too many people to remember .....don't vote for mccain "IT'S A TRAP!!"
the big thing to remember here is NOT who you are protecting, but the mechanics of the law itself- the problem with it isn't child abuse itself- (I and I am pretty sure damn near all of us are against it), the problem is that the law is attempting to legislate thoughts and intents and not acts. When you begin to legislate what people can think about or how they think about a subject you open the floodgates for very scary laws and rulings when the wrong person comes to power or the wrong judge sits on a bench. Lets face it- if you can legislate intent and morality this may be the start, but who is to say that you don't use the precedence of a law like this to say- you can't display the intent of political upheaval in order to protect from riots or negative images of religion (umm kind of like a lot of middle eastern countries) or any number of things that a person or group of people in power plain don't like.
People don't buy video games for an actor in the same way they go see a movie for an actor in it. I don't go to movies for an actor- I go for the movie- I will be turned away if there are bad actors in it- but I never sy oooo so-and-so is in the movie I am going to see it
They should throw the book at her. Speaking as someone who has been harassed on other online form of communication, it would set a good example for others to look to. Yes, that's a lot of years, but that little girl isn't going to get up again... the problem is though that one of the charges is "impersonation" which would put all of us in jail- that is unless it says meshmaster on your ID- I know it doesn't say vuffi_raa on mine. I personally never put my last name on social networking sites, purely for the fact that if you know me you will find me and if you don't- I'm not interested in adding you- yet again that is "impersonation" since my last name ins't "X" It is sad what happened to the girl, but creating a law that allows the government to bully people that it desn't like is not an answer to the issue
One section is designed to make it clear that live Webcam broadcasts of child abuse are illegal, which the bill's authors argue is an "open question this has to be wrong- how do you get funding to pay for promotion to push a bill- the bill should be voted on on it's own otherwise anyone can get $ allocated for an agenda
First off, 99% of all polls are bullshit. They are not scientifically created and are almost always written to get the response the poller is looking for. can you source that? I have been looking and I am not finding a bullshit ratio in any poll %'s. usually there is a margin of error in the poll, but not a bullshit qualification....
99% seems a little high, so I would be concerned where you get your numbers-
Slashdot Mirror
either that or it will attempt to turn off the user of the device
I don't know that I could ever bring myself to own or use 'i'* products. The whole idea makes my skin crawl and the addition of a vowel to the beginning of a word doesn't make me want it more.
yes, but if you can write katakana, there is a good chance of communicating in english with someone who can't speak it in japan- if you use simple enough language most words when written with the japanese enunciation have at least a common slang meaning in conversational japanese.
nanking
look it up and shut your face
Honestly there are a lot of us- not just Chinese, but all Asians that get pissed off a lot because it's not okay to use the 'n' word or make black jokes or use derogatory terms for Jews or Hispanics- but I hear Gook and Chink and Slant eyed or and every other term in the book thrown around (my favorite was being called "indian nigger" when I was in the midwest) not to mention the lame assed white guy Chinese accent and it's just fine according to society. Honestly as much as I am not a fan of china (my dad escaped after the revolution) I honestly think it's funny that they are kicking our ass economically and love the fact that Japan and South Korea put our tech to shame because we are so afraid to get our heads out of our asses in this country and take anyone seriously who isn't white.
I couldn't believe the other day I was flipping channels and "mind of mencia" was on and he had some rant about how stupid and dirty chinese people were and seriously, I was really offended. I mean if you were to put any other race in that rant of his most people would be angry, but chinese people *pfft* who cares right? they won't complain, they are a "model minority" because they don't say anything and are good at math (which I am not, really- I work in legal tech but have a degree in fine arts and have taught post graduate studies in design and audio composition and engineering).
It is true that some people talk out of their ass a lot on here, but you do need to realize that when it comes down to it, the people on \. are the ones that are affected by these misguided laws that people like McCain proposes w/o the knowledge of what he is proposing. Also, how can you trust someone to make their own call on an issue that they know nothing about? doesn't this lead to taking the convenient lane of listening to lobbyists and contributors, since they have your ear?
it could be an awesome defense or a beat down from the litigant
(sarcasm in case you didn't notice)
also- sure there are going to be other influences than you in your kid's life- but your job is to make sure that your kid realizes that those people are jackasses and that they don't need to fall into the peer pressure, you can't expect their friends to do that for you.
when it comes down to it you have one forum of machines doing the work instead of a series of machines in your house doing the work- watching internet TV is no less intelligent than watching regular TV, and the calculator on your computer works the same as the one you hold in your hand.
the idea that at&t should be able to du usage based pricing is lame- usage based pricing on cable is to encourage those on the same community pipe to slow down a bit- at&t is DSL - dedicated lines- they upgrade the infrastructure and you go to town, that is the benefit of DSL over cable- there are no "peak hours"- which is why you get a solid 5-6 mbps on a 6 mps connection.
I wonder though, what the deal will be with those of us like me that are under contract with them already- will they just terminate it? that doesn't seem feasible, though if they offer speed upgrades with bandwidth caps I can sort of see charging for usage, though it is still lame as hell since you are giving someone the ability to easily overuse their data transfer- I for one don't want to end up paying $300 a month for data transfer because I decided to watch youtube too much or was gaming too much- or I decided to update my software- etc. etc. etc.
granted, I prolly don't hit the cap of '40 gigs' that they put on transfer for cable (I am prolly about half that) on my PC, but I have no idea how much I am using on my wii and my ps3 when I am online gaming or browsing youtube
this as well as the fact that no matter how secure your software or OS is you also need to take into account hardware- all it itakes is one jackass to write a few lines into silicon and there isn't much that you can do about it- and you can guarantee that if people like M$ don't have the ability to monitor and control the OS that they will push collusion to intel or broadcomm to do it for them
I have been an early adopter on this one- I was one of the first US people to receive the wibrain b1h- it is a nice little machine and runs xp like a charm- also the via integrated video is damn cool for a unit not much bigger than a psp, but can run warcraft III smoothly
no, it's actually ackbar obama http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admiral_Ackbar admiral of the rebel fleet during the attack on the second death star,
.....don't vote for mccain "IT'S A TRAP!!"
but that was a long time ago, and in a galaxy far far away- I don't expect too many people to remember
the big thing to remember here is NOT who you are protecting, but the mechanics of the law itself- the problem with it isn't child abuse itself- (I and I am pretty sure damn near all of us are against it), the problem is that the law is attempting to legislate thoughts and intents and not acts. When you begin to legislate what people can think about or how they think about a subject you open the floodgates for very scary laws and rulings when the wrong person comes to power or the wrong judge sits on a bench. Lets face it- if you can legislate intent and morality this may be the start, but who is to say that you don't use the precedence of a law like this to say- you can't display the intent of political upheaval in order to protect from riots or negative images of religion (umm kind of like a lot of middle eastern countries) or any number of things that a person or group of people in power plain don't like.
hand delivered in a sealed lockbox- that's how we transfer confidential data at work
It is sad what happened to the girl, but creating a law that allows the government to bully people that it desn't like is not an answer to the issue
99% seems a little high, so I would be concerned where you get your numbers-