German Copyright laws grant to the copyright holder of any protected work the right to control its distribution.
Wow, and I thought Americans were screwed under their copyright laws. How can one country (Germany) be so fucked up in terms of copyright law, and yet so enlightened at the same time in terms of right-to-privacy laws?
and have figured out some other ways of killing my spare time (like Diablo 2:)
You mean you aren't boycotting Diablo II (or at least Battle.Net) due to the spyware Blizzard installs and refuses to remove? Tisk tisk.:) (Well, if you already own it, there's no sense in boycotting the standalone product.. but the expansion set is coming out soon).
I swear, the entire previous Congress and President should be charged with collusion and racketeering for handing a few technology cartels a near-chokehold on several industries related to software and entertainment through a horribly anti-consumer, anti-hacker, anti-individual law that gives as many advantages as possible to the cartels that wrote said law.
Kindof defeats that whole leftist myth that only Republicans are in the pockets of big business, doesn't it? Just don't trust big government.
What I'm sad to see is the acceptance of this fact. If a case isn't likely to be won, it should just make groups like EFF work harder to insure that it all works out.
Yes, but the reality is that EFF has very limited funds, so they need to pick and choose their battles. The bottom line is: support EFF.
I thought about boycotting, but our culture in the USA and in NY where I live is ripe with movie refrances and song quotes. I'm afraid I would fall out of touch and become even more stange to the unaware.
I used to think the same. You may have a point with movies, but I haven't missed out much on not listening to popular music. And I haven't watched anything other than some sports on TV in the last year, and I haven't missed out at ALL in that area.
Cohn's statement may have some merit to it, but that's really not the point. The point is that the EFF and 2600 are supposed to be allies, and in a world with so many negative forces, it's never good to see people forget who their friends are.
I don't see how the comments Cohn make were unfreiendly towards 2600. She could have lied and said "2600 and us have the same chance of winning because we're both in the right," but that's not reality, and I don't think it would have been fair to 2600 to say such things.
2. Make encryption illegal. You don't think they can? It just takes about three levels of judiciary to do it. Napster had non-infringing uses, but that didn't stop only two levels of the judiciary shutting it down.
No, they won't. There's far to much at stake in the secure encryption world, the government would not want to shut down all e-commerce. What would be far more likely is a Clipper-like situation. Any legal encryption will have methods allowing law enforcement/etc to listen in.
The *only* way for the record industry to get rid of Gnutella is to somehow make it illegal, as the MPAA has tried to do with DeCSS with very little success.
What do you mean, very little success? They've had excellent success! So what if a few geeks know how to get it and use it? The average user doesn't, and that's all the MPAA really cares about.
Download your favorite artist's CD off napster/opennap/gnutella/whatever. Burn it to a CD. Then put $16 in an envelope, and send it directly to the artist. This way you spend $16.50 for the CD and the RIAA doesnt get a cent.
So the mixers, people who work at the recording studios, agents, etc deserve to get screwed too?
Make no mistake, the artists do get screwed, and that sucks for them. But screwing other people who worked hard making the music (and they are important too) is hardly fair either.
There is never stealing involved with Napster, as new copies are made (and old copies are not swiped).
It's stealing money. No, you're not stealing the actual music, but if you have possession of the music without having bought it, then you owe the recording industry the money that they charge for it. If you don't pay your debt, that is stealing.
Welcome to the wonderful world of intellectual property. Intellectual property can -belong- to someone, as silly as you or I might find that.
If I decided not to pay my power bill, that's stealing as well. I could argue that the power plants would generate the same amount of power whether I used the power or not, that the company is in roughly the same shape before and after I plug in my water heater. But those arguements don't fly.
Cost of production is just as important as cost of distribution. Just because you've lowered the cost of distribution to near-zero doesn't mean you can ignore the cost of production.
Name a video game that successfully translated to the screen.
I would say that Final Fantasy's situation is different. Usually when a video game is adapted to the big screen, it's due to the characters and situations that people have grown used to in the game. When Super Mario Brothers was adapted for a movie form, it was because of the characters of the plumbers fighting Koopa, characters people were used to. There have been a number of Final Fantasy games, but they've generally followed a different path, that each game is seperate from the other, that each is in its own world. Sure, there are a few common elements, like chocobos (and Cid), but each game, from a plot and character standpoint, is crafted with the idea that none of the other games existed -- they are fully standalone.
From what I've seen of the movie, it will do the same -- it exists completely independant from the video game franchise. In this respect, it is not a "video game translated to the screen," it is standalone, sharing only the name. People aren't going to go to this with the idea of the movie being like the game, they would go to go because it looks interesting, and the CGI is excellent.
The transparent society that is coming will mark the ascendance of our species. In the beginning we were innocent and naked and had no privacy, like Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, naked but for a fig leave each. Later, with the rise of agriculture, information became power and the notion of privacy as an absolute right was eventually invented (about as absurd as stating that gun ownership is a 'right').
This doesn't really make enough sense to respond to.
Not to mention the poster contradicted himself/herself. If Adam and Eve had no need for privacy, why did they need "fig leaves?"
Re:so you never get exposed to new music
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Launchcast Sued
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Interesting arguement, but my time is far too valuable to waste listening to an hour of crap in the hope of one good 5 minute song (and that's optimistic). That's why I don't listen to the radio -- too much crap. Instead I value the opinions of friends.
It really sucks when you have to restart your character because of shitty skill choices early on,
That's why I started hex editing my character files to redistribute skill points. I might consider it cheating to give myself more skill points, but I don't consider it cheating to remove a point from one skill and add it to another instead.
I consider it interesting that the Porno industry has been one of the few industries that seem to be pretty good at Self-Regulation. Most sites already require some sort of age verification and you almost never see a porno site advertised on sites targeted at teenagers.
Now if they could finally get a tiny bit of self-discretion when it comes to unsolited porno emails, we might finally have a good system. Billy had better not post with his real address to Usenet or a high-volume mailing list, or else he'll start getting "XXX sluts want to get you off!!" mails pretty quickly. There's no call for that.
The legal driving age hasn't been raised, but you now have to log scores of hours before you can take the test (including something like 10 hours of night driving). Then, once you get your license, you can't drive at night for 6 months! You also can't drive anyone in the car for 6 months. Then, for the six months following that, you can drive at night, and you can drive other people, but you can't drive other people at night.
Umm.. when did this happen? I got my license late last year, and none of the above was required.
Re:Here'a a Weird Juxtaposition
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Linux and Shrek
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Do you really think that just because the rendering engines ran Linux, the videogames should be available on Linux even if this makes no financial sense ? There is no hue and cry about how the Final Fantasy games aren't available on Windows (are they ?;))
Yes, they are.:) Or at least a few of them are. Final Fantasy 7 and 8 were ported.
If you want interesting hair effects, rent Disney's Dinosaur. The hair effects on the lemurs in the movie (and the facial expressions on the dinosaurs!) are pretty impressive.
Re:Don't compare Shrek and Toy Story 2
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Linux and Shrek
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· Score: 1
Also keep in mind that many characters in Toy Story 2 look intentionally fake -- they're plastic toys, and they're supposed to look like they are. It's a style thing.
It's possible to set up a server, but you are not paying for that priviledge. Using your logic, you could set up 100s of web addresses off a DSL account and re-sell and host them which isn't fair to the ISP.
Please, how is it not fair to the ISP? The ISP caps the bandwidth fairly low, so it's not as if they're suffering at all for my running a webserver off a home DSL line. Of course, I wouldn't think of running a server that gets a fair amount of use off of such a line just due to the bandwidth cap alone.
You're trying to get something for FREE off the backs of someone else that's paying for it.
Except I'm the one paying for it, last time I read my bill.
Well, I decide that as complete as my listing of CDs is, it doesn't include every CD out there (Borders could have been out of a certain album, or might not carry foreign CDs).
This is extremely likely, I'd say. Border's music selection is terrible. I don't go to Borders to find good music any more than I go to Disneyland to find porn.
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Wow, and I thought Americans were screwed under their copyright laws. How can one country (Germany) be so fucked up in terms of copyright law, and yet so enlightened at the same time in terms of right-to-privacy laws?
You mean you aren't boycotting Diablo II (or at least Battle.Net) due to the spyware Blizzard installs and refuses to remove? Tisk tisk. :) (Well, if you already own it, there's no sense in boycotting the standalone product.. but the expansion set is coming out soon).
Kindof defeats that whole leftist myth that only Republicans are in the pockets of big business, doesn't it? Just don't trust big government.
Yes, but the reality is that EFF has very limited funds, so they need to pick and choose their battles. The bottom line is: support EFF.
I used to think the same. You may have a point with movies, but I haven't missed out much on not listening to popular music. And I haven't watched anything other than some sports on TV in the last year, and I haven't missed out at ALL in that area.
I don't see how the comments Cohn make were unfreiendly towards 2600. She could have lied and said "2600 and us have the same chance of winning because we're both in the right," but that's not reality, and I don't think it would have been fair to 2600 to say such things.
Some don't mind, others are actively protesting sodas like Medicine Man. Quite ironic, actually.
Public domain.
No, they won't. There's far to much at stake in the secure encryption world, the government would not want to shut down all e-commerce. What would be far more likely is a Clipper-like situation. Any legal encryption will have methods allowing law enforcement/etc to listen in.
What do you mean, very little success? They've had excellent success! So what if a few geeks know how to get it and use it? The average user doesn't, and that's all the MPAA really cares about.
So the mixers, people who work at the recording studios, agents, etc deserve to get screwed too?
Make no mistake, the artists do get screwed, and that sucks for them. But screwing other people who worked hard making the music (and they are important too) is hardly fair either.
There is never stealing involved with Napster, as new copies are made (and old copies are not swiped).
It's stealing money. No, you're not stealing the actual music, but if you have possession of the music without having bought it, then you owe the recording industry the money that they charge for it. If you don't pay your debt, that is stealing. Welcome to the wonderful world of intellectual property. Intellectual property can -belong- to someone, as silly as you or I might find that.
If I decided not to pay my power bill, that's stealing as well. I could argue that the power plants would generate the same amount of power whether I used the power or not, that the company is in roughly the same shape before and after I plug in my water heater. But those arguements don't fly.
Cost of production is just as important as cost of distribution. Just because you've lowered the cost of distribution to near-zero doesn't mean you can ignore the cost of production.
I would say that Final Fantasy's situation is different. Usually when a video game is adapted to the big screen, it's due to the characters and situations that people have grown used to in the game. When Super Mario Brothers was adapted for a movie form, it was because of the characters of the plumbers fighting Koopa, characters people were used to. There have been a number of Final Fantasy games, but they've generally followed a different path, that each game is seperate from the other, that each is in its own world. Sure, there are a few common elements, like chocobos (and Cid), but each game, from a plot and character standpoint, is crafted with the idea that none of the other games existed -- they are fully standalone.
From what I've seen of the movie, it will do the same -- it exists completely independant from the video game franchise. In this respect, it is not a "video game translated to the screen," it is standalone, sharing only the name. People aren't going to go to this with the idea of the movie being like the game, they would go to go because it looks interesting, and the CGI is excellent.
This doesn't really make enough sense to respond to.
Not to mention the poster contradicted himself/herself. If Adam and Eve had no need for privacy, why did they need "fig leaves?"
That's why I started hex editing my character files to redistribute skill points. I might consider it cheating to give myself more skill points, but I don't consider it cheating to remove a point from one skill and add it to another instead.
Now if they could finally get a tiny bit of self-discretion when it comes to unsolited porno emails, we might finally have a good system. Billy had better not post with his real address to Usenet or a high-volume mailing list, or else he'll start getting "XXX sluts want to get you off!!" mails pretty quickly. There's no call for that.
Umm.. when did this happen? I got my license late last year, and none of the above was required.
Yes, they are. :) Or at least a few of them are. Final Fantasy 7 and 8 were ported.
Please, how is it not fair to the ISP? The ISP caps the bandwidth fairly low, so it's not as if they're suffering at all for my running a webserver off a home DSL line. Of course, I wouldn't think of running a server that gets a fair amount of use off of such a line just due to the bandwidth cap alone.
You're trying to get something for FREE off the backs of someone else that's paying for it.
Except I'm the one paying for it, last time I read my bill.
This is extremely likely, I'd say. Border's music selection is terrible. I don't go to Borders to find good music any more than I go to Disneyland to find porn.