That's one of the things that creeps me out about the USA, even though I know you don't all think that way. The current attitude to crime and imprisonment and felons being non-citizens closely mirrors that of George III's England that the USA fought to be independant of. It seems to be funny because it's happening to people who are now outlaws and not "real Americans" anymore.
I think many people feel that, given the crimes they committed, many prisoners "got off easy" by getting "just" jail time. Therefore prison rape comes under the heading of a rather grim just reward. Prison rape being funny is very dark humor. There's a very Old Testament view of crime and punishment in the USA.
Sometimes businesses will abandon profitable markets or profitable lines of products if they feel they can put those resources into expanding into other higher margin/profit sectors instead.
The point of many of the recent government subsidies (especially in China) was not to make it economically viable for all, but to drive prices down low enough to destroy competition. Then you can raise prices again now that you have a lock on the market.
It's the very worst of behaviors that anti-trust laws were supposed to combat, but done inter-country.
Zero tolerance is a fig leaf for politically correct harassment. At worst a verbal warning should have been given to the guy. The company went too far in firing him. I wonder if he can fight back with a free speech argument.
Free speech sounds nice and such a lawsuit would attract the right sort of attention, but unless it was a government agency firing him, he'd probably have no legal standing.
However people like to dilute the term to the point where it has no real meaning anymore.
The term is fairly well diluted, but yes, the business and legal worlds could consider that sexual harassment, according to the "sexual harassment training courses" I've had to attend for more than one job. The specific example I was given was that if you view pornography on a work computer and someone happens to see it, that's sexual harassment. I don't have to have called them over to point it out, all I needed was to make it "available," creating an uncomfortable workplace environment.
That's ultimately not a good thing for your little crusade.
I think you have the wrong impression of my feelings on this issue. I'm saying what HR likes to say, not that I agree with it.
entitlement. you, as a content producer, are in no way secured from starvation, just because you "produce content".
People are also in no way entitled to content they haven't paid for.
if i can take your stuff for whatever reason, i will. And just try stopping me. You can not. [...] YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS THAT OTHER PEOPLE WITH TECHNICAL KNOW-HOW CANNOT TAKE FROM YOU
Good lord. You really do the anti-DRM crowd no favors. I've fought and railed against DRM schemes for the past 15 years and even you made me throw up a bit in my mouth. You might wish to remain silent in these discussions.
I'm not a fan of DRM, hate the stuff, but I'm curious why you would call it a "screwy practice?" It makes perfect logical sense from the content providers. Just because some of their past efforts haven't worked doesn't mean it can't work at all, and perfect DRM is the true Holy Grail for the content publishers.
So then, just how many of the protected movies on Netflix don't have torrent or magnet links somewhere?
Irrelevant, most of us out there don't want to feel like we're running a pretty good risk of getting sued because we're trying to get illegal copies of our content online.
You know, Slashdot is full of shitty analogies that don't actually work. They show that the person speaking hasn't thought through the issues as much as he pretends to, and it just end up confusing the issue for the person listening.
Thank you for posting an analogy that actually explains well the difference between user encryption and DRM. I don't think I've ever heard of a better way of explaining it to a lay person.
Worse, what if Valve thinks you've broken some Terms of Service and decides they don't want you on Steam anymore? It'll be an entire library of games that you won't have access to, not just one or two. Will they reimburse you for the cost of the games? This is a new and ugly direction we're going in.
But I really have no idea where the guy said that artists shouldn't be paid.
It seems to be a fundamental theme running through this thread, the notion that creating an additional copy is free, so the works should be free (or at least very very low cost). A lot of people don't want to consider initial costs ("if I could 3D print a Ford car for free, why wouldn't I?") when it comes to items that can be duplicated for low cost and this discontinuity seems quite difficult to reconcile.
Of course when applied to an unauthorized device it's worthless, but that doesn't mean you don't have a backup copy. The question is whether your backup copy is usable on the devices that your original authorized copy was. When I had DRMed iTunes music, I could create backup copies which were usable on any device that the original download was usable on.
Now there is the issue of what happens if the DRM service decides they want to ban you (what happens to your Steam library if Steam wants to ban you?). Or they go out of business. Or they just decide they don't want to host the service anymore, which happened to my partner when he lost all the music he bought from Yahoo when Yahoo shut down their music service. I think these are different issues, backup copies/playback on authorized devices, since there is the risk of losing the ability to use your primary, previously-authorized copy as well.
And compared to the income need of a single artist, or a band, or even a film, they are massively needy middleman without any justification. The whole idea of instant communication makes them completely useless: artist can promote their work for their potential audience so easily, that they could do it even without using external labour.
This seems to be a Slashdot meme that does not hold up in reality. Promotion and advertising always have been, and always will be critical. Viral marketing has taken up a little bit of slack, but not everything can be marketed that way. You may not like advertising, I sure as hell don't like advertising. But it WORKS, and is critical to commercial success. Every dollar spent on advertising brings in more than a dollar of revenue, otherwise they wouldn't do it. Some big-name artists have been able to forego the system and be successful at it, but the key there is there were already well known and already had a fan base. They were already built up by the current system.
We have seen over and over again, before the Internet and since its explosion of popularity, that the middle men get the shit done that the artists don't want to do themselves. They need promotion. They don't want to deal with all the extra stuff that becomes a full time job in itself. They don't have the social contacts to be able to do it themselves, even if they had the time.
Except you have a device to create infinite amounts of candy for free using only a single piece of candy and then being told that you can't, not because of any real limitations, but because someone told you that you can't.
Except that making the original candy is super f#$%ing expensive, and no one else is capable of making that exact same candy, and you really want that -exact- same candy.
anything you buy on a platform requires a client to validate your eligibility every time you try to run a game. You're locked into that ecosystem the vendor has provided
I've run into a problem at least as bad on Android lately: games which require authentication on startup. The problem is that unlike my home Internet connection, which is solid, phone network coverage is still pretty spotty. I can tell immediately when something is up -- games freezing on startup or a few seconds after. I was at a convention center, and the local cell towers were overloaded. At my place of work, the wireless network often drops off. Until very recently, the cell service at my house in the city would alternate between 0 and 1 bars. If I'm ever in the wilderness... forget it (though I got surprisingly good reception descending the Grand Canyon).
Obviously this occurs for network games, but even single-player games have this problem (like the recent Final Fantasy 3 port for Android). I'm surprised by how prevalent this is, and games I would assume would have no need for the network are prey to it as well.
Decisions are made by app developers who seem to believe that there aren't going to be any problems contacting the network -- that all this will happen invisibly to the user in the background, but I've found it not to be the case. It gets in the way, and it's especially annoying to me because it's of absolutely no benefit to me. I get nothing by having an app phone home all the time.
Carlin was a funny man with a good deal of insight, but he's said a lot of shit over the years and I would not say his ultra-cynical view of the world matches reality, nor is it useful to think that way.
Please, remind me how many months in jail did the Santander employees responsible for money laundering for terrorists get... oh, wait, I remembered, they didn't even get prosecuted, because rich people can screw everybody freely.
Could you provide references for that? Not saying it didn't happen, but it's extremely hard to find any reliable news reports for that. The closest I can find is a Guardian report that Santander shut down open accounts with Sepah after Sepah was placed on a terrorist blacklist.
I remember hearing a guest talking about this on the PBS show Moyers and Company, but I've learned not to trust his show or his sources.
Slashdot Mirror
That's one of the things that creeps me out about the USA, even though I know you don't all think that way. The current attitude to crime and imprisonment and felons being non-citizens closely mirrors that of George III's England that the USA fought to be independant of. It seems to be funny because it's happening to people who are now outlaws and not "real Americans" anymore.
I think many people feel that, given the crimes they committed, many prisoners "got off easy" by getting "just" jail time. Therefore prison rape comes under the heading of a rather grim just reward. Prison rape being funny is very dark humor.
There's a very Old Testament view of crime and punishment in the USA.
Don't even try to argue that bitch is not a gendered insult. It may not be inherent sexism but it was sexism in these uses.
Bitch is a non-gendered insult more often outside of the US. Inside the USA, it's pretty rare to hear a man be called a bitch, outside of gay culture.
"Bastard" would be the gendered insult hurled at men in a similar manner.
boot-licking idiot
So.... you got nothing.
Sometimes businesses will abandon profitable markets or profitable lines of products if they feel they can put those resources into expanding into other higher margin/profit sectors instead.
The point of many of the recent government subsidies (especially in China) was not to make it economically viable for all, but to drive prices down low enough to destroy competition. Then you can raise prices again now that you have a lock on the market.
It's the very worst of behaviors that anti-trust laws were supposed to combat, but done inter-country.
That's because AC is the path of least resistance. Get rid of AC posting, and those things won't go away, they'll just move to throwaway accounts.
That's probably one of the big reasons for Facebook's push to require verified real names. No throwaway accounts, no aliases, etc.
She is a modern feminist. Men are bad, rules don't apply to her, and if anyone dares disagree, they are WRONG!!!
I thought that was more 1970's-era feminism. I haven't heard from any radical feminists (or at least ones who get any press) in some time.
Zero tolerance is a fig leaf for politically correct harassment. At worst a verbal warning should have been given to the guy. The company went too far in firing him. I wonder if he can fight back with a free speech argument.
Free speech sounds nice and such a lawsuit would attract the right sort of attention, but unless it was a government agency firing him, he'd probably have no legal standing.
shut up, fascist
So.... you got nothing.
No. It's not inherently sexual harassment.
However people like to dilute the term to the point where it has no real meaning anymore.
The term is fairly well diluted, but yes, the business and legal worlds could consider that sexual harassment, according to the "sexual harassment training courses" I've had to attend for more than one job. The specific example I was given was that if you view pornography on a work computer and someone happens to see it, that's sexual harassment. I don't have to have called them over to point it out, all I needed was to make it "available," creating an uncomfortable workplace environment.
That's ultimately not a good thing for your little crusade.
I think you have the wrong impression of my feelings on this issue. I'm saying what HR likes to say, not that I agree with it.
I loved that ad. I couldn't believe they would print something that racy in a trade mag. It sure made me take notice!
http://translationmusings.com/2008/10/29/lost-the-dongle/
So is talking about sexual body parts inherently sexist or something?
In a business setting, it is inherently sexual harassment. Ain't joking either.
entitlement. you, as a content producer, are in no way secured from starvation, just because you "produce content".
People are also in no way entitled to content they haven't paid for.
if i can take your stuff for whatever reason, i will.
And just try stopping me. You can not.
[...]
YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS THAT OTHER PEOPLE WITH TECHNICAL KNOW-HOW CANNOT TAKE FROM YOU
Good lord. You really do the anti-DRM crowd no favors. I've fought and railed against DRM schemes for the past 15 years and even you made me throw up a bit in my mouth. You might wish to remain silent in these discussions.
I'm not a fan of DRM, hate the stuff, but I'm curious why you would call it a "screwy practice?" It makes perfect logical sense from the content providers. Just because some of their past efforts haven't worked doesn't mean it can't work at all, and perfect DRM is the true Holy Grail for the content publishers.
So then, just how many of the protected movies on Netflix don't have torrent or magnet links somewhere?
Irrelevant, most of us out there don't want to feel like we're running a pretty good risk of getting sued because we're trying to get illegal copies of our content online.
Alternatively, you can use torrent and watch exactly the same content, without any problem. All those films just play fine on VLC, guess what.
Yeah, but I don't like being on the receiving end of a lawsuit or ISP takedown notices either.
You know, Slashdot is full of shitty analogies that don't actually work. They show that the person speaking hasn't thought through the issues as much as he pretends to, and it just end up confusing the issue for the person listening.
Thank you for posting an analogy that actually explains well the difference between user encryption and DRM. I don't think I've ever heard of a better way of explaining it to a lay person.
Valve is not yet Too Big to Fail.
Worse, what if Valve thinks you've broken some Terms of Service and decides they don't want you on Steam anymore? It'll be an entire library of games that you won't have access to, not just one or two. Will they reimburse you for the cost of the games? This is a new and ugly direction we're going in.
But I really have no idea where the guy said that artists shouldn't be paid.
It seems to be a fundamental theme running through this thread, the notion that creating an additional copy is free, so the works should be free (or at least very very low cost). A lot of people don't want to consider initial costs ("if I could 3D print a Ford car for free, why wouldn't I?") when it comes to items that can be duplicated for low cost and this discontinuity seems quite difficult to reconcile.
Of course when applied to an unauthorized device it's worthless, but that doesn't mean you don't have a backup copy. The question is whether your backup copy is usable on the devices that your original authorized copy was. When I had DRMed iTunes music, I could create backup copies which were usable on any device that the original download was usable on.
Now there is the issue of what happens if the DRM service decides they want to ban you (what happens to your Steam library if Steam wants to ban you?). Or they go out of business. Or they just decide they don't want to host the service anymore, which happened to my partner when he lost all the music he bought from Yahoo when Yahoo shut down their music service. I think these are different issues, backup copies/playback on authorized devices, since there is the risk of losing the ability to use your primary, previously-authorized copy as well.
And compared to the income need of a single artist, or a band, or even a film, they are massively needy middleman without any justification. The whole idea of instant communication makes them completely useless: artist can promote their work for their potential audience so easily, that they could do it even without using external labour.
This seems to be a Slashdot meme that does not hold up in reality. Promotion and advertising always have been, and always will be critical. Viral marketing has taken up a little bit of slack, but not everything can be marketed that way. You may not like advertising, I sure as hell don't like advertising. But it WORKS, and is critical to commercial success. Every dollar spent on advertising brings in more than a dollar of revenue, otherwise they wouldn't do it. Some big-name artists have been able to forego the system and be successful at it, but the key there is there were already well known and already had a fan base. They were already built up by the current system.
We have seen over and over again, before the Internet and since its explosion of popularity, that the middle men get the shit done that the artists don't want to do themselves. They need promotion. They don't want to deal with all the extra stuff that becomes a full time job in itself. They don't have the social contacts to be able to do it themselves, even if they had the time.
most movies are shit today
You automatically lose.
If most movies were shit today, people wouldn't want to see them.
Most people pirate because they want to watch content but not pay for it. It's as easy as that.
Except you have a device to create infinite amounts of candy for free using only a single piece of candy and then being told that you can't, not because of any real limitations, but because someone told you that you can't.
Except that making the original candy is super f#$%ing expensive, and no one else is capable of making that exact same candy, and you really want that -exact- same candy.
So it's a little tricky as an analogy goes.
anything you buy on a platform requires a client to validate your eligibility every time you try to run a game. You're locked into that ecosystem the vendor has provided
I've run into a problem at least as bad on Android lately: games which require authentication on startup. The problem is that unlike my home Internet connection, which is solid, phone network coverage is still pretty spotty. I can tell immediately when something is up -- games freezing on startup or a few seconds after. I was at a convention center, and the local cell towers were overloaded. At my place of work, the wireless network often drops off. Until very recently, the cell service at my house in the city would alternate between 0 and 1 bars. If I'm ever in the wilderness... forget it (though I got surprisingly good reception descending the Grand Canyon).
Obviously this occurs for network games, but even single-player games have this problem (like the recent Final Fantasy 3 port for Android). I'm surprised by how prevalent this is, and games I would assume would have no need for the network are prey to it as well.
Decisions are made by app developers who seem to believe that there aren't going to be any problems contacting the network -- that all this will happen invisibly to the user in the background, but I've found it not to be the case. It gets in the way, and it's especially annoying to me because it's of absolutely no benefit to me. I get nothing by having an app phone home all the time.
Carlin was a funny man with a good deal of insight, but he's said a lot of shit over the years and I would not say his ultra-cynical view of the world matches reality, nor is it useful to think that way.
Please, remind me how many months in jail did the Santander employees responsible for money laundering for terrorists get... oh, wait, I remembered, they didn't even get prosecuted, because rich people can screw everybody freely.
Could you provide references for that? Not saying it didn't happen, but it's extremely hard to find any reliable news reports for that. The closest I can find is a Guardian report that Santander shut down open accounts with Sepah after Sepah was placed on a terrorist blacklist.
I remember hearing a guest talking about this on the PBS show Moyers and Company, but I've learned not to trust his show or his sources.