1. What's all this talk in the article about DeCSS being used to copy DVDs over the internet? I thought the CSS prevented you from copying from DVD to VHS.
CSS is the Content Scrambeling System. It is an encryption that is used on the raw video/audio on the DVD to prevent reading the data. You can still copy the encrypted video/audio data byte for byte from the DVD. It has nothing to do with VHS copying.
2. From the article: "The First Amendment also protects a process called reverse-engineering, which was used to create DeCSS. Reverse engineers take things apart in order to learn how to put them back together in a better form. In other words, to build a better mousetrap. The right to take things apart--whether breakfast cereals or pharmaceutical compounds--is a time-honored tenet in American law, held to encourage innovation."
Is that true? Is reverse engineering part of the First Amendment?? Isn't it covered under patent law? Aren't we talking about copyright law? And isn't reverse engineering only protected for purposes of interoperability?
Well it is protected. You can take stuff apart to see how it works. It wasn't a movie that was taken apart. It was the software, specifically the player, that is used to decrypt the data on the DVD to get the keys. There would not be different brands of cars if reverse engineering was illegal. There would not be generic drugs in the pharmacy if it were illegal. Mac users would not be able to play PlayStation games if it were illegal. Molog
I'm sorry but the Home Audio Recording Act of 1992 was amended in 1998 to allow digital backup copies as a means of fair use. The info on the RIAA web site is out of date and does not acknowlege the amendment added to it. Molog
Ok, give me an example. I have access to a machine with Motif. Give me a link with the source of a program that looks nice and I will see for myself
netscape has a pleasant appearance;
What? You are shitting me right? Netscape is ugly. I hate it with a passion. One of the reasons why I use Mozilla so much is becuase I can stand looking at it. You are right, netscape doesn't crash that much but it is one horrifically ugly program and this Motif's fault. I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I find Motif's widgets uglier then road kill on a hot day. Molog
Owning a CD does not mean you can make personal use mp3's of it. According to the Audio Home Recording Act, putting your CD into a computer and ripping it to mp3 on the hard drive or whatever is a FELONY!
Actually no. The Audio Home Recording Act was amended by a district court judge some time in early 99 I believe. It was found that home users making archived digital copies were legal as fair use and an amendment was added to the law. The RIAA web site has not come to terms with that yet. Remember there was a lot of bru-ha-ha about this a little bit over a year ago when the record industry was trying to ban the MP3 format and this was the result. Molog
Do you really want every company around to rip of the GPL'd code that people use? Personally I think we should scare them a little bit. This was not an honest mistake. If companies are going to use the GPL then they better abide by it. If authors continuously let companies get off scott free then the GPL is nothing then a barking dog without teeth. Molog
This link will take you to a page that lists them. Specifically most of the ripping tools require you to have a specific player. The page does list DeCSS but the other rippers, DoD Speed Ripper, DVD Ripper, DVD Matrix and DVD2MPEG have been out longer then DeCSS. Take DeCSS out of the mix and you have all the tools you need to copy a DVD to your hard drive. How is our utility that allows us to play movies on Linux going to more harm then what is there. My appologies for using the term piracy. I should have said copyright violation. Molog
At a seminar on e-commerce and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act at Yale University this week, Gregory P. Goeckner, vice president and deputy general counsel of the MPAA, said that DeCSS greatly increased the threat of movie piracy on the Internet.
I took this from the article linked to. DeCSS does not increase the threat of movie piracy and here is why. DeCSS is being argued that you can copy a movie onto your hard drive and thus can post it on the internet. You can get an MPEG-2 of a DVD movie from some of the players that are on Windows. If all you wanted to do was post an MPEG-2 you could either set up a huge buffer for the movie in the player or use on of the utilities out there taking advantage of the player. In fact most would see it as more of a pain in the ass to compile DeCSS then to just use the tools already out there. That nulls the comment above because if DeCSS is a tool for piracy it is nothing more then a redundancy. Molog
The threat of a small extremist group making a craft that is capable of going into orbit is highly unlikely. First, even if you don't have write offs for $400 hammers the cost of making a craft like this is enormous. You need a launching platform, heat shielding, and a lot of other stuff I don't even know about. Not to mention rocket fuel. The cost and complexity of such a project makes it almost impossible for a small group, even if they were well funded, to do. Making a bomb is another story. Sorta complex but much, much, MUCH easier then building a shuttle. We have more to fear from someone walking into a city with a brief case that blows it to kingdom come then we do from an orbiting craft raining death on the western world. Molog
The fastest 3d video available now for linux is from Nvidia.
Linux is more then just the x86 chips. As far as I know the Nvidia cards won't work on PPC flavor or on the Alpha flavor of Linux. I don't want to leave out our *BSD friends either. It can easily be argued though, that the games that are available for Linux right now are pretty much all x86 closed source. The fact remains though that if any of the other platforms that Linux runs on or the *BSD people want to do anything with these cards they are SOL. Would it really give competitors and advantage to release the register programming interface for their cards? Molog
A) Open your specs to please 100 or so OSS fanatics, and in addition give up even 5% of your technological advantage to your competitors.
How will giving out register programming information give their competitors an advantage? From the reviews I have read their competitors have been kicken their ass in the Linux realm(mostly because their drivers suck. If you don't think so play Quake III with a Gforece and then try the Voodoo III) and now it looks like their competitors have equally good, if not better performance in their own home of Windows.
If you don't release designs for your board but release the registers the need to be set for what ever the heck they do, will that really give an advantage to the other card makers? If so I want to know how and why.
Molog
While I am all in favor of freedom of speech in most cases, freedom of speech should not be freedom to insult religions. This is an area where the constitution of the US could use a lot of work.
Just for the record I am a Christian so you will know where I am coming from. I don't really like it when people insult all Christian or use images or words which defame my religion but as much as I don't like it, they do have the right to "blasphemous" speech. You can not take that away or you take away free speech all together. They have every right to insult religions. They do not have the right to force people to listen to them though. If someone has a web page that says that all Christians should be burned at the stake, I wouldn't like it but because I don't have to go to that web page they have every right to put it up. This is a real slippery slope that can allow any religion, mine included, to suppress free thinkers and that is a bad thing. Unfortunately in the name of removing "blasphemous" speech in my religion many crimes against humanity have been committed. What you suggest must be avoided at all costs. Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Re:Show nVidia who's the Man...
on
ATI Radeon 256
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· Score: 2
Yes, but the nvidia drivers for 3D suck. From what I understand playing Quake III, even on a fast processor, will give you a whopping 10 fps. nVidia certainly has not supported Linux drivers that well. Molog
Ok I admit it was a jab but the fact of the matter is the artists don't see very much money, if they see any at all, from the record sales. I am not saying that to justify getting MP3's that you haven't paid for, as in buying the CD or if it ever becomes avaliable, paying for the download. Downloading MP3's illegally if it hurts anyone, it is the RIAA. Metallica has a pretty loyal fan base. If they sold MP3's over a websight, they could easily pull in millions. If they sold 3 or 4 never before heard tunes on MP3 on a website for fans to pay for, selling them for $.25 each, assuming that 4 million fans pay(which is very doable considering their sales) they would get $3 million just from that alone. For just 3 songs! For 4 million sales of their album how much do they see after the RIAA takes their cut? Molog
Wrong. I can put together by going to pricewatch an Athlon system with all the RAM, case and everything, including monitor for LESS then $1000. $1000 $1700 with no monitor if buying a G4. If you want me to I can post the links directly to the parts I can get and I'm not talking about crappy parts either. This price I am quoting includes 128 MB RAM, a Voodoo 3 AGP, and other standard components. I'm not ripping PowerPC. My father designed the L2 and L3 cache, so I am partial to it. Just was stating an economic fact. Molog
Several manufacturers had PowerPC based systems and bare boards on the market a few years ago -- the platform just plain failed to make any money for them.
Well I remember them. They were pretty much the Mac clones. I bought one because I was into the BeOS and I didn't want to deal with the Apple BIOS. What happened to them? I can tell you. Power Computing in Round Rock Texas was making the Mac clones and they were doing well. People were buying. They had record profits. The same for some of the other ones. When Power Computing was getting bigger Apple saw that the clone makers were taking a piece of their market. Rather then competing and letting the platform mature, Apple then stopped licensing the MacOS to the clone makers. This resulted in them losing almost all sales because machines preloaded with the MacOS was 99% of their business. This is the reason why I hate Apple. I know that I am biased but they destroyed a platform and thousands of jobs because they didn't want to compete on a level playing field. Molog
No, this is also not true. What happens is that given enough data about past events and the positions of heavenly bodies you can then formulate a theory based on this data.
Then you have already lost the argument. For a hypothesis to become a theory it has to have rigorous peer review and be tested. If results are not conclusive then it is rejected. I checked my horoscope and it was wrong. I have friends who have bad horoscopes as well. To me that is enough evidence to show that there is a fundamental problem with the hypothesis. It is therefore not a theory and is flawed Molog
I'm not going to argue if the movement of the Universe affects my life because obviously it does. I will argue that the current form of Astrology where people claim to be able to predict one's future from the position of stars is totally without merit. They have nothing to prove their assertions that their process is an indicator of things to come. There is much evidence to disprove the predictions from the enormous number of people who have received bad readings that had nothing to do with them. Molog
Yeah, I went a little overboard with that comment but my point was that MS takes absolutely no responsiblity for anything that goes wrong with their programs. There is no warenty and you don't own the software. In this regard a company going with MS just so that they can have someone to blame is very foolish. Even if something does go wrong MS isn't at fault so tough. I must remember not to exagerate so much. My apologies. Molog
Ok, I'll bite. A troll is someone who lurks around and makes inflammatory posts to generate a reaction, or cause the moderators to waist points on them. ROTFLMAO means rolling on the floor laughing my ass off. I regards to your original post, you can get support for Linux, and as far as blaming MS goes, read the EULA. They can make your computer blow up, destroying a city in the process taking out millions of lives and not be responsible for a thing. Molog
I can't stand morons like this. Quake might be unorigonal but where do you get off saying that John sold out kids? Forget it. I should never respond to trolls. Molog
I think Verant are justified in searching player's hard disks for hacking tools. People who do not have the hacking tools have nothing to hide
No, they are not justified. I play EQ as well. I don't use the cheats and I hadn't really heard of them till this debacle. I don't know what Verant is looking for and I don't give them permission to go through my system. Would a company try to abuse my rights with this? Of course. They should make a client that makes it pretty damn hard to create a hack for. Scanning people's hard drives for cracks that are going to change all the time will do nothing.
There's a time and a place for hysteria over invasions of privacy, but this isn't it folks. Verant were simply trying to prevent idiots and script kiddies from spoiling the game for legitimate players.
The ends do not justify the means. I don't see the game getting ruined by cheaters. I see the game getting ruined by the fact that you are only as good as your equipment, and that there are not enough things to fight for a large number of players resulting in people waiting for hours on end for something to fight, or just logging off out of frustration. Molog
Slashdot Mirror
CSS is the Content Scrambeling System. It is an encryption that is used on the raw video/audio on the DVD to prevent reading the data. You can still copy the encrypted video/audio data byte for byte from the DVD. It has nothing to do with VHS copying.
2. From the article: "The First Amendment also protects a process called reverse-engineering, which was used to create DeCSS. Reverse engineers take things apart in order to learn how to put them back together in a better form. In other words, to build a better mousetrap. The right to take things apart--whether breakfast cereals or pharmaceutical compounds--is a time-honored tenet in American law, held to encourage innovation."
Is that true? Is reverse engineering part of the First Amendment?? Isn't it covered under patent law? Aren't we talking about copyright law? And isn't reverse engineering only protected for purposes of interoperability?
Well it is protected. You can take stuff apart to see how it works. It wasn't a movie that was taken apart. It was the software, specifically the player, that is used to decrypt the data on the DVD to get the keys. There would not be different brands of cars if reverse engineering was illegal. There would not be generic drugs in the pharmacy if it were illegal. Mac users would not be able to play PlayStation games if it were illegal.
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Ok, give me an example. I have access to a machine with Motif. Give me a link with the source of a program that looks nice and I will see for myself
netscape has a pleasant appearance;
What? You are shitting me right? Netscape is ugly. I hate it with a passion. One of the reasons why I use Mozilla so much is becuase I can stand looking at it. You are right, netscape doesn't crash that much but it is one horrifically ugly program and this Motif's fault. I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I find Motif's widgets uglier then road kill on a hot day.
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Actually no. The Audio Home Recording Act was amended by a district court judge some time in early 99 I believe. It was found that home users making archived digital copies were legal as fair use and an amendment was added to the law. The RIAA web site has not come to terms with that yet. Remember there was a lot of bru-ha-ha about this a little bit over a year ago when the record industry was trying to ban the MP3 format and this was the result.
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
I took this from the article linked to. DeCSS does not increase the threat of movie piracy and here is why. DeCSS is being argued that you can copy a movie onto your hard drive and thus can post it on the internet. You can get an MPEG-2 of a DVD movie from some of the players that are on Windows. If all you wanted to do was post an MPEG-2 you could either set up a huge buffer for the movie in the player or use on of the utilities out there taking advantage of the player. In fact most would see it as more of a pain in the ass to compile DeCSS then to just use the tools already out there. That nulls the comment above because if DeCSS is a tool for piracy it is nothing more then a redundancy.
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Linux is more then just the x86 chips. As far as I know the Nvidia cards won't work on PPC flavor or on the Alpha flavor of Linux. I don't want to leave out our *BSD friends either. It can easily be argued though, that the games that are available for Linux right now are pretty much all x86 closed source. The fact remains though that if any of the other platforms that Linux runs on or the *BSD people want to do anything with these cards they are SOL. Would it really give competitors and advantage to release the register programming interface for their cards?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
How will giving out register programming information give their competitors an advantage? From the reviews I have read their competitors have been kicken their ass in the Linux realm(mostly because their drivers suck. If you don't think so play Quake III with a Gforece and then try the Voodoo III) and now it looks like their competitors have equally good, if not better performance in their own home of Windows.
If you don't release designs for your board but release the registers the need to be set for what ever the heck they do, will that really give an advantage to the other card makers? If so I want to know how and why.
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Look at the source maybe?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Just for the record I am a Christian so you will know where I am coming from. I don't really like it when people insult all Christian or use images or words which defame my religion but as much as I don't like it, they do have the right to "blasphemous" speech. You can not take that away or you take away free speech all together. They have every right to insult religions. They do not have the right to force people to listen to them though. If someone has a web page that says that all Christians should be burned at the stake, I wouldn't like it but because I don't have to go to that web page they have every right to put it up. This is a real slippery slope that can allow any religion, mine included, to suppress free thinkers and that is a bad thing. Unfortunately in the name of removing "blasphemous" speech in my religion many crimes against humanity have been committed. What you suggest must be avoided at all costs.
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Why?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Let me rephrase.
The RIAA have rights too...
Ok I admit it was a jab but the fact of the matter is the artists don't see very much money, if they see any at all, from the record sales. I am not saying that to justify getting MP3's that you haven't paid for, as in buying the CD or if it ever becomes avaliable, paying for the download. Downloading MP3's illegally if it hurts anyone, it is the RIAA. Metallica has a pretty loyal fan base. If they sold MP3's over a websight, they could easily pull in millions. If they sold 3 or 4 never before heard tunes on MP3 on a website for fans to pay for, selling them for $.25 each, assuming that 4 million fans pay(which is very doable considering their sales) they would get $3 million just from that alone. For just 3 songs! For 4 million sales of their album how much do they see after the RIAA takes their cut?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Well I remember them. They were pretty much the Mac clones. I bought one because I was into the BeOS and I didn't want to deal with the Apple BIOS. What happened to them? I can tell you. Power Computing in Round Rock Texas was making the Mac clones and they were doing well. People were buying. They had record profits. The same for some of the other ones. When Power Computing was getting bigger Apple saw that the clone makers were taking a piece of their market. Rather then competing and letting the platform mature, Apple then stopped licensing the MacOS to the clone makers. This resulted in them losing almost all sales because machines preloaded with the MacOS was 99% of their business. This is the reason why I hate Apple. I know that I am biased but they destroyed a platform and thousands of jobs because they didn't want to compete on a level playing field.
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Then you have already lost the argument. For a hypothesis to become a theory it has to have rigorous peer review and be tested. If results are not conclusive then it is rejected. I checked my horoscope and it was wrong. I have friends who have bad horoscopes as well. To me that is enough evidence to show that there is a fundamental problem with the hypothesis. It is therefore not a theory and is flawed
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
No, they are not justified. I play EQ as well. I don't use the cheats and I hadn't really heard of them till this debacle. I don't know what Verant is looking for and I don't give them permission to go through my system. Would a company try to abuse my rights with this? Of course. They should make a client that makes it pretty damn hard to create a hack for. Scanning people's hard drives for cracks that are going to change all the time will do nothing.
There's a time and a place for hysteria over invasions of privacy, but this isn't it folks. Verant were simply trying to prevent idiots and script kiddies from spoiling the game for legitimate players.
The ends do not justify the means. I don't see the game getting ruined by cheaters. I see the game getting ruined by the fact that you are only as good as your equipment, and that there are not enough things to fight for a large number of players resulting in people waiting for hours on end for something to fight, or just logging off out of frustration.
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?