Copyright is a government backed monopoly meant to stimulate creativity, right?
So the RIAA is a big player, and now it's painting itself into a corner, creating a playing field where it's own chokehold on entertainment can drive the price of that entertainment high enough that, sooner or later, some other entity can enter and thrive by charging less (or nothing at all) for creative work that the RIAA has no rights to.
It looks to me that the logical conclusion of this particular idiocy is certainly in line with the original purpose behind granting copyright in the first place. The market will shake down and the RIAA will have realized that it's shot itself in the foot and will either have to backpedal furiously to regain lost market share or it will find itself out of a job.
My last job was at one of the "other" search engines. We had a disk farm somewhat smaller than Google (about 140 Tb), mostly configured in RAID arrays, and we were swapping out dead bricks every few days.
Individually, the mean time betweeen failure for a brick isn't that bad, but when you get enough of them, it's a constant drain on the pocket and on person-hours.
The agreement the court approved Monday bars the city from enforcing the portion of the law related to violent video games. The industry did not challenge the sexual-content provision.
Didn't I hear someone once say that "the function of parents is to isolate the children from the realities of the world until they're too old to learn to cope with them?"
It bothers me that the very laws of the land underscore the public's acceptance of violent behavior and rejection of sexual behavior.
that's more people that they can try to sell p0rn to.
Actually, they don't make their money selling porn. They make it selling porn banner ads. All those pop-ups just increase the number of ad impressions and directly generate revenue.
If the "magic HTML" is a static widget that you stuff into the codestream, then this would work. The last rating system that I tried using needed "magic HTML" that contained an identifier, which the accessing filter software would use thus:
"Hello, filter server, I'm at URL=foo and he has passed me identifer=X. Is this the right identifier for this URL?"
A central server would verify whether or not the identifier was for that URL. (I have no idea what they were trying to prevent with this scheme.) A "yes" then went to the content threshold logic, a "no" produced an immediate denial of access.
The upstart is that I had to go thru a hoop with their server to get a unique identifier for each URL. Needless to say, I abandoned it all.
I produce content for a couple of dozen low volume pages that, in aggregate, form an on-line magazine for historical handicrafts. Each new article is a new URL.
I've tried to use these rating systems in the past, but each one comes "tied" to a specific URL, and the process needed to create the magic HTML that the filter uses is slow and cumbersome.
I've spent a lot of effort streamlining my content production process... and I'm not happy with the prospect of having to jump through hoops every time I create a new URL with new content just so that my content doesn't get filtered out by paranoid parents.
RIAA wants to be able to enforce the law. They want to be able to take the law into their own hands. They want to be able to strike against targets of their own choosing.
Terrorists have their own agenda, too, and want to strike against targets of their own choosing, taking the law into their own hands.
RIAA wants to be able to act like a terrorist, yet be protected from the anti-terrorist laws.
Assuming that the version of PGP that was in use was one of the "source available" versions, why didn't the FBI simply alter the passphrase dialog code to store a plaintext version of the passphrase someplace on disk? All they'd need to do is re-install that portion of the application, and hope that the "bad guy" didn't do regular PGP sig/checksum comparisons against his installed programs (and how many of us do that?)
Those moves have provoked bitter criticism from consumers fearful of losing their ability to make digital record collections on their computers, a right they believe should accompany their purchase of the music. (bold mine)
The solution is obvious, also from the article:
Federal law allows people to make personal copies of songs but does not require record companies to stand aside so consumers can do so.
If this is the case, perhaps a bill needs to be introduced so that, "no private or corporate person shall take steps that interfere with the fair use provision of the copyright law."
IANAL, but it seems that a law that protects the individual from prosecution (in this case, for fair use) doesn't go far enough in protecting his right to have access to that fair use.
I can imagine it, now: Mr Terrorist uses the encryption product for which his local government (for example, the Taliban) holds the back door key. The U.S. court sez that it wants to read the mail. The U.S. then sends a nice, polite letter to the Taliban asking for that key...
The U.S. started the war of 1812 with unprovoked attacks on British soil. The first half dozen actions of the war (excepting the massacre at Prophet's Town) were all on British soil. The publicly stated purpose was to conquer British North America.
The excuse was that British sailing vessels were enforcing a trade blockade against France, and the American ships wanted to be able to run that blockade with impunity. The reality is that the U.S. government learned that the indians had made treaties with the North American British, and the only way to get the land away from the indians was to wage war with the Brits. One result was that Northern New England nearly left the union, since they were so opposed to the war.
As for the burning of Washington, it was provoked when a british officer, advancing under a flag of truce, was gunned down by a sniper.
Isn't there enough source for outrage in the world without having to make up stories about the war of 1812?
There's a problem with the concept of using an innocent message as the chaff... releasing the authentication key for the innocent message (to cooperate with law enforcement) tags the chaff of the "real" message. The remaining packets would contain the "real" message.
Given the LEGO I had to work with 30 years ago, is it any wonder that I envision all futuristic spacecraft as being all corners?
"Canadian style tax" be damned
on
RIAA To Target CD-R
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
As a Canadian content producer, I can attest to one of the faults of the Canadian media tax:
The money collected from it is supposed to be distributed to content producers to offset the business lost to copying, but the bar to entry as a producer is very high. As a small producer, not only do I have to pay the damned tax on the blank media I buy (and then pass that cost along to my customers), but I can't get my share of the gravy, either.
If the US creates such a tax and sets the bar high enough, then only the "big guys" will be able to pass over it and everyone else has to pass along an extra cost to the consumer, to the great benefit of the big guys. Talk about predatory practices!
Not long ago, advertisers would put a URL on thier product. Now, everywhere I see a URL, I also see an AOL keyword.
The AOL advertising to the computer tyros urges them to "join" (appealing to the herding behavor inborn in a large percentage of humanity), gushing over things on AOL that you cannot get "anywhere else"... bundled inside their (closed source) product.
The AOL-T-W conglom has a strong hold on the media... it's usually advertising bought by and shown on their media outlets that has the AOL keyword added to the URL (I wonder about that, all by itself... are they requiring the AOL keyword of their advertisers?...does this add to their exposure at their advertisers' expense?). I can envision how AOL usage numbers will soar... and they are already providing a corporate-controlled product in a "f(r)ee" market. They are setting themselves up as a viable alternative and serious competitor to the real internet.
The nasty lawyer letter seemed like the usual stuff, but the last thing it asked for sent chills down my spine. It demanded the removal of the parody material as well as:
"...any links to the official Barney website."
Does this imply that linking to a site dilutes the trademark? Does this mean that the lawyers feel it right and proper to try and enforce who may and may not link to their client's site?
Dammitall, folks... Sure Linux is cool, but Northern Light (http://www.northernlight.com) does the meat of all its searches with just eight (8) alpha boxes running VMS!
Its search technology is different (its classification system is more like that of libraries) and its target audience is mostly the high-end business folks, but the actual box-to-box comparison makes me oogle: one alpha = 1000 linux boxen.
Once detached from the booster rocket, the aircraft will be able to fly between seven and 10 times the speed of sound, or about 4,725 mph to 6,750 mph depending on altitude and atmospheric conditions.
Back in the old days, when all we had was wood-burning computers, one form of memory was the delay tube. Bits were pumped into one end and they took a finite time to transit the tube. They'd be fetched out the other end, amplified and cleaned up and fed back into the front end, again. Data would be read/modified as it went by.
Perhaps we can still use the same technique to solve the data archiving problem: Just broadcast all our data into space. To read it, all we need to do is invent FTL drive, pop out to the right point in time and read the data as it goes by.
I'm sure we could find other uses for the FTL to help recover the R&D investment.
Slashdot Mirror
Copyright is a government backed monopoly meant to stimulate creativity, right?
So the RIAA is a big player, and now it's painting itself into a corner, creating a playing field where it's own chokehold on entertainment can drive the price of that entertainment high enough that, sooner or later, some other entity can enter and thrive by charging less (or nothing at all) for creative work that the RIAA has no rights to.
It looks to me that the logical conclusion of this particular idiocy is certainly in line with the original purpose behind granting copyright in the first place. The market will shake down and the RIAA will have realized that it's shot itself in the foot and will either have to backpedal furiously to regain lost market share or it will find itself out of a job.
Individually, the mean time betweeen failure for a brick isn't that bad, but when you get enough of them, it's a constant drain on the pocket and on person-hours.
Didn't I hear someone once say that "the function of parents is to isolate the children from the realities of the world until they're too old to learn to cope with them?"
It bothers me that the very laws of the land underscore the public's acceptance of violent behavior and rejection of sexual behavior.
Actually, they don't make their money selling porn. They make it selling porn banner ads. All those pop-ups just increase the number of ad impressions and directly generate revenue.
"Hello, filter server, I'm at URL=foo and he has passed me identifer=X. Is this the right identifier for this URL?"
A central server would verify whether or not the identifier was for that URL. (I have no idea what they were trying to prevent with this scheme.) A "yes" then went to the content threshold logic, a "no" produced an immediate denial of access.
The upstart is that I had to go thru a hoop with their server to get a unique identifier for each URL. Needless to say, I abandoned it all.
I produce content for a couple of dozen low volume pages that, in aggregate, form an on-line magazine for historical handicrafts. Each new article is a new URL.
I've tried to use these rating systems in the past, but each one comes "tied" to a specific URL, and the process needed to create the magic HTML that the filter uses is slow and cumbersome.
I've spent a lot of effort streamlining my content production process... and I'm not happy with the prospect of having to jump through hoops every time I create a new URL with new content just so that my content doesn't get filtered out by paranoid parents.
Cute acronym
(Or should that be: Oxymoron)
Terrorists have their own agenda, too, and want to strike against targets of their own choosing, taking the law into their own hands.
RIAA wants to be able to act like a terrorist, yet be protected from the anti-terrorist laws.
Egad!
Assuming that the version of PGP that was in use was one of the "source available" versions, why didn't the FBI simply alter the passphrase dialog code to store a plaintext version of the passphrase someplace on disk? All they'd need to do is re-install that portion of the application, and hope that the "bad guy" didn't do regular PGP sig/checksum comparisons against his installed programs (and how many of us do that?)
The solution is obvious, also from the article:
If this is the case, perhaps a bill needs to be introduced so that, "no private or corporate person shall take steps that interfere with the fair use provision of the copyright law."
IANAL, but it seems that a law that protects the individual from prosecution (in this case, for fair use) doesn't go far enough in protecting his right to have access to that fair use.
Let's get pro-active, here!
I can imagine it, now: Mr Terrorist uses the encryption product for which his local government (for example, the Taliban) holds the back door key. The U.S. court sez that it wants to read the mail. The U.S. then sends a nice, polite letter to the Taliban asking for that key...
When where freezes over?
The excuse was that British sailing vessels were enforcing a trade blockade against France, and the American ships wanted to be able to run that blockade with impunity. The reality is that the U.S. government learned that the indians had made treaties with the North American British, and the only way to get the land away from the indians was to wage war with the Brits. One result was that Northern New England nearly left the union, since they were so opposed to the war.
As for the burning of Washington, it was provoked when a british officer, advancing under a flag of truce, was gunned down by a sniper.
Isn't there enough source for outrage in the world without having to make up stories about the war of 1812?
You'd still need random chaff to keep it secure.
Given the LEGO I had to work with 30 years ago, is it any wonder that I envision all futuristic spacecraft as being all corners?
The money collected from it is supposed to be distributed to content producers to offset the business lost to copying, but the bar to entry as a producer is very high. As a small producer, not only do I have to pay the damned tax on the blank media I buy (and then pass that cost along to my customers), but I can't get my share of the gravy, either.
If the US creates such a tax and sets the bar high enough, then only the "big guys" will be able to pass over it and everyone else has to pass along an extra cost to the consumer, to the great benefit of the big guys. Talk about predatory practices!
The AOL advertising to the computer tyros urges them to "join" (appealing to the herding behavor inborn in a large percentage of humanity), gushing over things on AOL that you cannot get "anywhere else"... bundled inside their (closed source) product.
The AOL-T-W conglom has a strong hold on the media ... it's usually advertising bought by and shown on their media outlets that has the AOL keyword added to the URL (I wonder about that, all by itself... are they requiring the AOL keyword of their advertisers? ...does this add to their exposure at their advertisers' expense?). I can envision how AOL usage numbers will soar... and they are already providing a corporate-controlled product in a "f(r)ee" market. They are setting themselves up as a viable alternative and serious competitor to the real internet.
Has anyone else noticed this end-run in action?
http://www.physics.umn.edu/~duvernoi/barney.txt
Does this imply that linking to a site dilutes the trademark? Does this mean that the lawyers feel it right and proper to try and enforce who may and may not link to their client's site?
Ten days later I had another, wonderful position... entirely because I was a FORTRAN programmer for 15 years and their systems used FORTRAN.
Don't kid yourself: FORTRAN is alive and well in the 21st Century!
Its search technology is different (its classification system is more like that of libraries) and its target audience is mostly the high-end business folks, but the actual box-to-box comparison makes me oogle: one alpha = 1000 linux boxen.
Perhaps we can still use the same technique to solve the data archiving problem: Just broadcast all our data into space. To read it, all we need to do is invent FTL drive, pop out to the right point in time and read the data as it goes by.
I'm sure we could find other uses for the FTL to help recover the R&D investment.