Don't worry, 10% of north americans and europeans suffer from moneyitis, the deadly disease of insurance companies paying doctors to overlook symptoms. Incurable diseases are much cheaper then curable ones.
On the flip-side, we've got pharmaceutical companies making billions off diseases we don't necessarily have...
Copyright infringement == "he stole my idea!" == theft
You're probably pointing out that it is not a crime to steal music. You're right. It's still theft. If I say those damn pirates are stealing my songs, you know exactly what I'm talking about. That's because everyone agrees upon what the term implies. That is thus what the word means.
And most mainstream albums only cost $75k-200k to produce. It's the promotions afterwards that cost $300+k. And I don't defend that type of music marketing, but it does still work, too well unfortunately, but not for long.
Musician and sound tech chiming in here, I smell a troll mod coming, but here goes anyway.
Copying music without authorization from the copyright holders is theft, no doubt about it. This notion that the copyright holder is in no way deprived of property is simplistic and misguided. Music is marketed in so many different ways and none of them are benefited by illegal file sharing.
If you think managers, agents, and labels do not investigate how much a band's music has been pirated before agreeing to promote them (or continue to promote them) you're dead wrong. If you think a band has never been deprived of market positioning because of illegal file sharing you're dead wrong. There are so many aspects that have to be in good order before anyone spends the $6-digit amount it takes to get a band the necessary attention in the mainstream, and that is exactly the market that is hit hardest by piracy.
I do not defend the RIAA's draconian tactics and failure to adapt to the market, in fact I detest what they're doing to my industry with such counter-productive campaigns. But theft is still theft.
Wanna really fight back at the RIAA? Don't buy their catalog, instead get out and see some live music and buy the albums of bands that deserve to make a living off music. Unsigned bands generally get 70-85% of album sales as profit, where signed bands are lucky to see 15%. Where would you like your money to go?
Who cares whether they dodge tax domestically or abroad? They're still going to do it. It's illegal, and they still do it. It's policed, and they still do it. People get busted for it, and they still do it.
Never stretched the truth on your taxes for a few extra hundred bucks? Let's call it a 1% "margin of error" based on income. When a corporation with tens of billions in revenues stretches the truth by 1%, it's a difference of hundreds of millions. Nothing will ever stop that, ever.
Where money is saved has no bearing on where it is spent, so it is a completely moot point whether it's done in the US or Cayman or Pluto. Kiss the money goodbye either way.
Buy a fish, take a picture of it beside your purchase receipt, then drop it in a lake. A fisherman catches it, you say "wait, that's my fish, here's my proof." Fisherman ignores you, cooks/eats fish. Even if it were a $1000 fish, no court would grant you compensation.
Similarly, if you post your original content online, you effectively surrender it to public domain, including the possibility that it may become "unpublished". You've dropped it in a lake.
What the RIAA refuses to accept is that their fish have been flooded by this ocean called the Internet, and they can't apply their archaic Elvis Presley marketing model anymore. They'd rather sue children than develop a reasonable way to market music in a connected marketplace. Their inability to adapt disqualifies them from the authoritative position they purport to have. It's all over but the crying.
The worst acting skill contrast in history has to be Gary Oldman wiping the floor with Keanu Reeves in Bram Stoker's Dracula. Believe it or not, Keanu was trying to speak with an english accent...
In case anyone is wondering where they got the word "Corinthian" it is an elegant Roman form of architecture. Check out the years of construction, ranging from 150 BC to 300 AD.
Be especially careful of combining caffeine with aspartame, both of which make your blood sugar levels drop. So does alcohol, though it's usually accompanied by an excess of sugar, so drunks get a sugar rush that makes them arrogant and impulsive, then when they stop the alcohol eventually sends the blood sugar below normal, which is when the fights break out. Add caffeine to that mix, and you get cranky hammered hooligans who don't run out of steam. Hence my opposition to drop-shot Red Bull drinks.
Caffeine by the jar... that creeps me out. Even moreso do the Red Bull drinks served at bars. I only drink coffee on tour, where I drive 7000 miles in a month playing shows every night. Even then I only drink coffee if I'm driving over 6 hours at a time. The less you drink, the less you need it. Duh.
I swear caffeine is the new nicotine. It's an addictive drug known to cause serious health problems. Now that nicotine is on its way out, caffeine product marketers are clearly taking advantage of addiction transference, where people kicking an addiction to one substance are especially prone to become addicted to another. Why is it even legal in refined powder form? Do you snort it?
If you are going to be deterred from coming to the US over the requirement that you register online and cough up some fingerprints I suppose you really didn't care that much about coming in the first place anyway, did you?
Well with Canada right there, far less restrictions, no risk of a cavity search, damn near the same thing, why should they care? Over 80% of Canadians live within three hours drive of the US border. Europeans would probably learn more about the US visiting Canada, especially about where the actual good US tourist spots are. We've seen them all!
For example, I'm sorry, but the Grand Canyon is a joke. Yay, a huge water-made ditch. Check out the Alberta Badlands. A prehistoric ocean bed full of dinosaur bones that you can drive *through* instead of just drive *to*. I hold in my hand a dinosaur bone fragment that I found walking through them. It sat buried for millions of years, then the soil eroded, and I walked by. That was about a mile away from the Last Chance Saloon in Wayne AB, a setting used in the Jackie Chan movie Shanghai Knights, where they treat visitors like neighbors.
So what do you think Europeans would prefer, big wet ditch + perp treatment vs. uniquely inspiring + red carpet? Just an example.
They're making it possible to make DVD players that support H.264 video and AC-3 audio
So perhaps in the near future we'll see DVD players that support DivX 7, which could play full-resolution Blu-Ray rips without necessarily having to pay the Blu-Ray format tax. Kind of a shot the foot though, since Blu-Ray will be the primary source of HD video...
This would then beg the question of how much HD video and MP2 audio will fit on a dual-layer DVD before compression artifacts start to show. My standard for single layer DVD has been 2 hours 45 minutes, but that's standard def. I dump the AC-3 stream since I don't have or want surround sound (that's another story).
Remind me again, how does Matroska + H.264 automagically equals "Blu-ray Rips" and piracy in general? Isn't that a bit like saying that Bittorrent automatically equals pirated software?
You're right, only 99.9% of torrent traffic is software piracy. How presumptuous of the GP.
(No I don't have an exact figure on that, but do you know anyone with binders upon binders of DVD's full of software and/or media they downloaded legitimately?)
1) Apple does negotiate with the RIAA about the terms of the DRM service
The RIAA does not let anyone tell them what to do with their catalog, period. Some labels have decided to go DRM-free, and iTunes has offered music on that basis. Jobs has no doubt encouraged them to go DRM-free, but that is not what I call negotiating. I am a sound tech that works with many signed bands. Trust me on this.
2) By the way, how is it any different than leaving a card or sticker with your name and phone number on an item
If I do so, I am aware that the information is there and it is also in plain sight. My problem is the combination that the iPod info is hidden from the user and only available to someone who knows the user probably doesn't know it's there, so they don't know to secure it. It's a great set-up for a scam. Sure it's plenty unlikely, but there have got to be literally over 10,000 iPods lost or stolen daily.
3) A pedophile isn't going to go track down someone by their bloody email address when they can just watch the school and pick their target in person.
Who said the iPod acquisition comes before selecting a target? Maybe they pick the target's pocket, then send email saying "I found your iPod, meet me at the white van with tinted windows." Again, this is an even more unlikely scenario, but the sheer number of iPods in the hands of kids is also pretty staggering. 0.0001% of 10 million is 10. Would it be acceptable to you that 10 children were assaulted so the RIAA has its underhanded means of tracking file ownership? Ironically the tracking method is also rendered useless due to the number of lost/stolen iPods.
So tell me. What would you do with my email address?
Nothing, of course. I am not a scammer, and chances are you know a fraudulent email when you see one anyway. But if it's ok to spread your email address around, how come your Slashdot account is set to keep yours private? What if your email was embeded in the RSS file of every post you've made without your knowledge?
Agreed. This is a fairly reasonable compromise on Apple's part.
It is neither compromise nor reasonable.
1) Apple's DRM policy is entirely mandated by the RIAA, who do not know the meaning of the word 'compromise'. No RIAA OK, no iTunes licensing.
2) Consider how many iPods get lost or stolen. Is it reasonable to bury personal info into music files unbeknownst to the user when those files are *known* to end up in the wrong hands? According to Dell, over 12,000 laptops are lost in US airports every week. At least there is the opportunity to secure the information on a laptop. I'm guessing there isn't a single utility to encrypt music files on iPods, much less the personal information embedded within.
3) Imagine how many iPods are lost at schools. How many scams can you think of that take advantage of the owner's desire to get their iPod back. Worst of all, show me a pedophile that wouldn't love to pretend to be some kid's classmate wanting to return their beloved iPod in order to lure them somewhere private. Lost iPod + email address of owner = "Meet me by the white van with tinted windows"
My local utilities provider once failed to terminate services after I moved out of an apartment, with automatic withdraws coming out of my bank account for utilities used by the subsequent tenant. The tenant refused to pay, so I had to sue the silly twit. Of course I wasn't receiving the bills, sent to the old address, and they charged me $25 PER BILL to print new copies.
So on top of the $240 in utilities used, I also sued the subsequent tenant for the $70 filing fee, $75 for bill printing, $30 in interest, and punitive damages of $150. Then I immediately filed to garnish from her wages, another $125 in fees, for a grand total of $690, all made possible by the utility co.'s refusal to join the 21st century.
Dude, Shadows vs Species 8472 would whip AVP's ass, am I right? Is someone going to finally clue in that the comic book rage of rehashing dead characters could rekindle every great sci-fi that's on indefinite hiatus?
Slashdot Mirror
Don't worry, 10% of north americans and europeans suffer from moneyitis, the deadly disease of insurance companies paying doctors to overlook symptoms. Incurable diseases are much cheaper then curable ones.
On the flip-side, we've got pharmaceutical companies making billions off diseases we don't necessarily have...
5 - The only view I ever want to use in Explorer is Details.
LIES!! You've got at least one folder that uses thumbnails view. We all do...
Copyright infringement == "he stole my idea!" == theft
You're probably pointing out that it is not a crime to steal music. You're right. It's still theft. If I say those damn pirates are stealing my songs, you know exactly what I'm talking about. That's because everyone agrees upon what the term implies. That is thus what the word means.
And most mainstream albums only cost $75k-200k to produce. It's the promotions afterwards that cost $300+k. And I don't defend that type of music marketing, but it does still work, too well unfortunately, but not for long.
Musician and sound tech chiming in here, I smell a troll mod coming, but here goes anyway.
Copying music without authorization from the copyright holders is theft, no doubt about it. This notion that the copyright holder is in no way deprived of property is simplistic and misguided. Music is marketed in so many different ways and none of them are benefited by illegal file sharing.
If you think managers, agents, and labels do not investigate how much a band's music has been pirated before agreeing to promote them (or continue to promote them) you're dead wrong. If you think a band has never been deprived of market positioning because of illegal file sharing you're dead wrong. There are so many aspects that have to be in good order before anyone spends the $6-digit amount it takes to get a band the necessary attention in the mainstream, and that is exactly the market that is hit hardest by piracy.
I do not defend the RIAA's draconian tactics and failure to adapt to the market, in fact I detest what they're doing to my industry with such counter-productive campaigns. But theft is still theft.
Wanna really fight back at the RIAA? Don't buy their catalog, instead get out and see some live music and buy the albums of bands that deserve to make a living off music. Unsigned bands generally get 70-85% of album sales as profit, where signed bands are lucky to see 15%. Where would you like your money to go?
Who cares whether they dodge tax domestically or abroad? They're still going to do it. It's illegal, and they still do it. It's policed, and they still do it. People get busted for it, and they still do it.
Never stretched the truth on your taxes for a few extra hundred bucks? Let's call it a 1% "margin of error" based on income. When a corporation with tens of billions in revenues stretches the truth by 1%, it's a difference of hundreds of millions. Nothing will ever stop that, ever.
Where money is saved has no bearing on where it is spent, so it is a completely moot point whether it's done in the US or Cayman or Pluto. Kiss the money goodbye either way.
Buy a fish, take a picture of it beside your purchase receipt, then drop it in a lake. A fisherman catches it, you say "wait, that's my fish, here's my proof." Fisherman ignores you, cooks/eats fish. Even if it were a $1000 fish, no court would grant you compensation.
Similarly, if you post your original content online, you effectively surrender it to public domain, including the possibility that it may become "unpublished". You've dropped it in a lake.
What the RIAA refuses to accept is that their fish have been flooded by this ocean called the Internet, and they can't apply their archaic Elvis Presley marketing model anymore. They'd rather sue children than develop a reasonable way to market music in a connected marketplace. Their inability to adapt disqualifies them from the authoritative position they purport to have. It's all over but the crying.
I didn't realize he had more than one.
The worst acting skill contrast in history has to be Gary Oldman wiping the floor with Keanu Reeves in Bram Stoker's Dracula. Believe it or not, Keanu was trying to speak with an english accent...
Once it becomes court record, it becomes public record. You can't seal documented evidence any more than you can seal a witness's testimony.
I also imagine the breathalyzer makers don't like 3rd parties snooping under the hood for bugs that could get their products recalled.
Dude, it's Germany...
MÜÜÜÜWHÄHÄHÄHÄHÄHÄHÄÄÄÄ!!!
SCHNELL!! SCHNELLLLLLL!!!!
The Wiki project represents the best and worst that's in us.
I agree. Websites that publish content submitted and moderated by users really suck.
In case anyone is wondering where they got the word "Corinthian" it is an elegant Roman form of architecture. Check out the years of construction, ranging from 150 BC to 300 AD.
Be especially careful of combining caffeine with aspartame, both of which make your blood sugar levels drop. So does alcohol, though it's usually accompanied by an excess of sugar, so drunks get a sugar rush that makes them arrogant and impulsive, then when they stop the alcohol eventually sends the blood sugar below normal, which is when the fights break out. Add caffeine to that mix, and you get cranky hammered hooligans who don't run out of steam. Hence my opposition to drop-shot Red Bull drinks.
So you have to have hallucinations to begin with? Well then I wouldn't need the coffee then, would I? Scam!!
I'd also like to read how he feels about his first repair - downtime, expense, etc. No doubt it'll happen at peak power draw.
Caffeine by the jar... that creeps me out. Even moreso do the Red Bull drinks served at bars. I only drink coffee on tour, where I drive 7000 miles in a month playing shows every night. Even then I only drink coffee if I'm driving over 6 hours at a time. The less you drink, the less you need it. Duh.
I swear caffeine is the new nicotine. It's an addictive drug known to cause serious health problems. Now that nicotine is on its way out, caffeine product marketers are clearly taking advantage of addiction transference, where people kicking an addiction to one substance are especially prone to become addicted to another. Why is it even legal in refined powder form? Do you snort it?
At least no one is talking "Bail-out".
What else would you call the $122M difference between the $172M scammed and the $50M fine? A grant?
Oops, it was Shanghai Noon... w/e
If you are going to be deterred from coming to the US over the requirement that you register online and cough up some fingerprints I suppose you really didn't care that much about coming in the first place anyway, did you?
Well with Canada right there, far less restrictions, no risk of a cavity search, damn near the same thing, why should they care? Over 80% of Canadians live within three hours drive of the US border. Europeans would probably learn more about the US visiting Canada, especially about where the actual good US tourist spots are. We've seen them all!
For example, I'm sorry, but the Grand Canyon is a joke. Yay, a huge water-made ditch. Check out the Alberta Badlands. A prehistoric ocean bed full of dinosaur bones that you can drive *through* instead of just drive *to*. I hold in my hand a dinosaur bone fragment that I found walking through them. It sat buried for millions of years, then the soil eroded, and I walked by. That was about a mile away from the Last Chance Saloon in Wayne AB, a setting used in the Jackie Chan movie Shanghai Knights, where they treat visitors like neighbors.
So what do you think Europeans would prefer, big wet ditch + perp treatment vs. uniquely inspiring + red carpet? Just an example.
They're making it possible to make DVD players that support H.264 video and AC-3 audio
So perhaps in the near future we'll see DVD players that support DivX 7, which could play full-resolution Blu-Ray rips without necessarily having to pay the Blu-Ray format tax. Kind of a shot the foot though, since Blu-Ray will be the primary source of HD video...
This would then beg the question of how much HD video and MP2 audio will fit on a dual-layer DVD before compression artifacts start to show. My standard for single layer DVD has been 2 hours 45 minutes, but that's standard def. I dump the AC-3 stream since I don't have or want surround sound (that's another story).
Remind me again, how does Matroska + H.264 automagically equals "Blu-ray Rips" and piracy in general? Isn't that a bit like saying that Bittorrent automatically equals pirated software?
You're right, only 99.9% of torrent traffic is software piracy. How presumptuous of the GP.
(No I don't have an exact figure on that, but do you know anyone with binders upon binders of DVD's full of software and/or media they downloaded legitimately?)
1) Apple does negotiate with the RIAA about the terms of the DRM service
The RIAA does not let anyone tell them what to do with their catalog, period. Some labels have decided to go DRM-free, and iTunes has offered music on that basis. Jobs has no doubt encouraged them to go DRM-free, but that is not what I call negotiating. I am a sound tech that works with many signed bands. Trust me on this.
2) By the way, how is it any different than leaving a card or sticker with your name and phone number on an item
If I do so, I am aware that the information is there and it is also in plain sight. My problem is the combination that the iPod info is hidden from the user and only available to someone who knows the user probably doesn't know it's there, so they don't know to secure it. It's a great set-up for a scam. Sure it's plenty unlikely, but there have got to be literally over 10,000 iPods lost or stolen daily.
3) A pedophile isn't going to go track down someone by their bloody email address when they can just watch the school and pick their target in person.
Who said the iPod acquisition comes before selecting a target? Maybe they pick the target's pocket, then send email saying "I found your iPod, meet me at the white van with tinted windows." Again, this is an even more unlikely scenario, but the sheer number of iPods in the hands of kids is also pretty staggering. 0.0001% of 10 million is 10. Would it be acceptable to you that 10 children were assaulted so the RIAA has its underhanded means of tracking file ownership? Ironically the tracking method is also rendered useless due to the number of lost/stolen iPods.
So tell me. What would you do with my email address?
Nothing, of course. I am not a scammer, and chances are you know a fraudulent email when you see one anyway. But if it's ok to spread your email address around, how come your Slashdot account is set to keep yours private? What if your email was embeded in the RSS file of every post you've made without your knowledge?
4) The RIAA spends way too much on legal to not have forseen this. Forgot to mention that.
Agreed. This is a fairly reasonable compromise on Apple's part.
It is neither compromise nor reasonable.
1) Apple's DRM policy is entirely mandated by the RIAA, who do not know the meaning of the word 'compromise'. No RIAA OK, no iTunes licensing.
2) Consider how many iPods get lost or stolen. Is it reasonable to bury personal info into music files unbeknownst to the user when those files are *known* to end up in the wrong hands? According to Dell, over 12,000 laptops are lost in US airports every week. At least there is the opportunity to secure the information on a laptop. I'm guessing there isn't a single utility to encrypt music files on iPods, much less the personal information embedded within.
3) Imagine how many iPods are lost at schools. How many scams can you think of that take advantage of the owner's desire to get their iPod back. Worst of all, show me a pedophile that wouldn't love to pretend to be some kid's classmate wanting to return their beloved iPod in order to lure them somewhere private. Lost iPod + email address of owner = "Meet me by the white van with tinted windows"
My local utilities provider once failed to terminate services after I moved out of an apartment, with automatic withdraws coming out of my bank account for utilities used by the subsequent tenant. The tenant refused to pay, so I had to sue the silly twit. Of course I wasn't receiving the bills, sent to the old address, and they charged me $25 PER BILL to print new copies.
So on top of the $240 in utilities used, I also sued the subsequent tenant for the $70 filing fee, $75 for bill printing, $30 in interest, and punitive damages of $150. Then I immediately filed to garnish from her wages, another $125 in fees, for a grand total of $690, all made possible by the utility co.'s refusal to join the 21st century.
Dude, Shadows vs Species 8472 would whip AVP's ass, am I right? Is someone going to finally clue in that the comic book rage of rehashing dead characters could rekindle every great sci-fi that's on indefinite hiatus?
Sorry for the OT...