Does the DCMA prevent me from entering into fair competition by creating my own DVD movies.
CSS serves one of three purposes. Let's examine them.
a)It prevents copying of DVDs. This is known to be incorrect. DVD movies are being copied and have been copied since before DeCSS. The pirates in question have never been called into a court of law.
b) It's to prevent the viewing of the medium. Although this appears to be the reason the MPAA is against DeCSS, the actual argument itself makes no sense. Why would they want to limit their customer base? Why would they want to discourage people from purchasing movies. There is no logic in this argument. There must be another reason.
c) It's to prevent the creation of DVD movies by independent studios. Let's look into this a little closer. DVD players not only have the capability of viewing movies that use CSS, they require that the movie uses CSS. The only way a movie could be made that is viewable by a DVD player is if someone had the ability to incorporate CSS and use all the proper keys. It's not good enough to just know a single key, such a Xing's, but you need to know all of them. DeCSS provides this capability.
The DCMA prevents software like DeCSS from being created or even researched. When the medium requires a copy protection scheme to be used, those without access to that scheme cannot create items in that medium.
That is what the DCMA means. It's an effective monopoly. Independent musicians, artists, actors, and eventually writers will be prevented from being able to distribute their works independently. They will be forced to sell their works through a larger production company, often giving up their rights in the process.
Note for those of you with Windows: Wordpad saves in Word 6.0, an acceptable format. February 17, 2000
David O. Carson, Esq. General Counsel Copyright GC/I&R Southwest Station Washington, DC 20024
Re: Section 1201(a)(1) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (Docket #7M99-7
Dear Mr. Carson:
I am grateful for the opportunity of submitting comments on behalf of myself, a citizen of this country in response to the Notice of Inquiry announce in the Federal Register Volume 64, No. 102. As a normal citizen I rarely have the ability and resources that a large company has to react on an equal basis to federal decisions.
As I am sure you know, a number of major corporations are vitally interested in effective protection of copyrights. As a person who can now compete with these corporations on equal footing thanks to technology, I strongly support this attitude and agree that such measures are vitally important. Under the claim of that connection, many of these corporations support the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which, among other things, makes it unlawful to defeat technological protections used by copyright owners to prevent fair use, backups, and access in a manner unintended by the producer.
For your consideration we have the current legal battle of DeCSS. On the one side are corporations who wish to prevent unauthorized copying. However, the unauthorized copying of their products has been going on long before DeCSS was invented. The defendants are individuals who wished to view legally obtained DVD movies on legally obtained DVD drives installed in their legally obtained computers. They are not pirates but only wish to use the DVD in a manner currently considered fair use.
Today, I can create a movie, reproduce it on videotape and distribute it. However, as a small independent, I cannot legally create and distribute that movie on DVD under the DMCA, because the tools required to do so are become illegal to create or own. In short, the larger production studios are granted a legal monopoly.
Today I can create music, reproduce it on CD or MP3 and distribute it. However, the tools used to record audio on MP3 and CDs will no longer be legal under the DMCA because any tool capable of copying audio files could be considered a technological measure used to circumvent copy protection.
I am also prevented from making backup and archival copies of the media I have purchased. The members of our military may be prevented from purchasing DVD movies and viewing them while they are stationed oversees. This may already be happening today because of region codes imprinted in DVD movies.
You will receive many favorable reviews of the DMCA. I suspect that most of them will come from large corporations that realize the DMCA allows them to control and prevent fair use of their products and also allows them to prevent fair competition from small independents and individuals. If America is still a country by the people, and for the people, I urge you to listen to the people, the small independent artist and businessman who can already recognize what the DMCA means to them.
Thank You.
Kenneth David Boucher
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I'll say it again. and again... and again...
on
Perens on Patents
·
· Score: 3
The problem with the patent system has nothing to do with laws, clueless judges, lawyers, or anything else of that ilk.
If you want to fix the system you need the following:
An internet based database of prior art. This database will allow anyone to enter in data and the data within the database will be open to all. Data in the database will be dated according to the date it is entered into the database or the date the same data was entered into another accepted prior art database, such as the current U.S. patent database.
By creating and maintaining this database we have an effective tool to fight patents in court and to keep our inventions as our own without using the patent system.
In short, we create "open patents".
Please don't bother moderating this article as it's just after the magical #50th reply where moderation no longer seems to happen.
Situation: I have a home PC attached to acable modem that's always on (in my case, Seti - those who would prefer that I do distributed.net, sorry, but I've made my choice for my reasons.) This PC happens to run windows (Yes. I know. I'm inherently evil and feeding the great satan. Just flame me and moderate me down for admitting it and get on with your lives.) I installed a firewall (Zonelabs), mostly because it was free, and also because I decided that if I wasn't part of the problem yet, it was only a matter of time.
Results: I was getting probed at an average of once every 20 minutes from a variety of locations. Urk! (Please note, my ip starts with a 24, which tends to indicate an @home or roadrunner cable modem service)
Side note: If you want to test your machine, go to Steve Gibson's SheildsUP!. It's a bit slow at the moment (and posting this ain't gonna make it faster). Personally I wish I had known about this site before this insanity started.
I wish I had answers. Instead, all I have are questions.
MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry) in Japan is supposed to prevent insanity like this. (Mostly as a result of Betamax vs VHS). Since their member corporations are on both sides of the line, has anyone heard of them taking a stand on this issue?
Does DVD +RW stand a chance at this point to compete with the DVD Forum's Products? Unless they can come out with a cheaper product that works with all existing products I have my doubts.
With C3D planning on having 1st generation products available by Q1 2001, will either group be able to move in time to make a difference. After all, it's not like most of us will have DVD-R loyalty in the next two years. (yes, some will, but will enough?) A lot of us went from floppy to zip to CD-R. With competing DVDs I'm willing to wait for C3Ds.
Does this mean the end of ISA? If you have a CD, CD-RW, DVD, and Hard Drive then you're full up. With DVD-R, DVD-RW (635ns & 650ns versions), DVD+RW, and DVD-RAM, I'm not sure I'll still be able to lug this thing to lan parties.
I got lost along the way. Are DVD+RW and DVD+RAM are both able to do partial writes and deletes?
""The principle occupation [of the MPAA] is to make sure that American movies move freely and unhobbled around the world." Why then, do you charge different prices in different countries? Ummm...
"And in the last several years, we have been intentionally, seriously and energetically concerned with combating theft of our intellectual property." And the total number of arrests in Hong Kong would be? Ummm...
What about the arrest of Jon Johansen, the Norwegian teenager partly responsible for DeCSS: did the MPAA have anything to do with it? That was done by Norwegian prosecutors. We were not involved in that. And your reply to the prosecutor who said they did it at your request would be? Ummm...
So what constitutes fair use of a DVD in your eyes -- besides simply buying a DVD and using one of the MPAA's authorized players? Any use by which you buy it at a price. So you do agree that once you've bought the DVD drive and the DVD disk, you have the right to use whatever tools you want to view it on a Linux computer? Ummm...
Final Question: You can even ask the audience or call a friend. Has anyone ever sucessfully used DeCSS to copy a DVD movie to another PC and then play it back? Ummm...
well, that was a fun show, any comments from the audience?
"Is it true that when President Kennedy was gunned down, Valenti was six cars behind him." Yes. Now that's an alibi. Oh well, so much for that theory...
Due to the recent news leak, our stock has dropped over 5% in one day. Recent studies have determined that properly repairing the core structure of our software will be close to impossible. However, this does not mean that we will be giving up.
Windows 2004, to be released in Q3 2005, will have a new and improved core. This core has been heavily tested. Our acquisitions department has been looking at the proper target and we feel the time is right to change our market focus.
In related news, Microsoft is looking for a new graphic artist who can properly draw a pentagram.
(offtopic rant, no score +1 bonus, go directly to hell, do not collect $200) Please note. This is not intended to flame any specific individual. This is a statement on a general trend in Slashdot. It's the opinion of a person who also happens to use an "Operating System Other Than Linux"(tm).
Somedays I just don't know why I bother to gnaw through the leather straps and get up in the morning.
Attn Slashdot: There Are Reasons That Some Of Us Also Have Windows Machines.
We beta test software. We beta test hardware and drivers. We write software and hardware reviews. We own applications designed for Windows. We have spouses and children who are more comfortable with Windows (well, my wife wants a Mac but...). We work for companies that require us to use Windows as part of our jobs. We sometimes even write code for the dang thing becuase we can make more money that way. We know it's a pile of bloated junk. We know it has bugs, issues, problems, and is, in fact, one of the greater evils of the world. But, please, please, please, understand. We have Windows installed for a reason. It's not because we're idiots. It's not because we can't or haven't installed Linux (or BeOS, GNU, etc...). It's not because we're clueless newbies with a PC mommy bought us for Christmas.
You know, my original post stated that the one possible fix was for Windows (ok, widows...) and the second question was open to all operating systems. There's a reason for that. It's because many of us don't use Linux. (gasp). Take a look at that logo again. "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters." It doesn't read "News for Linux Users. Nothing else Matters."
Now I don't care what OS you use (unless you've installed VMS on your home PC, in which case, e-mail me). I'm not an OSist. I help with Lanapalooza for heaven's sake. We've been running lan parties with Macs, Windows, and Linux machines for awhile now. I realize each OS has it's advantages and disadvantages. I realize no one ever seems to talk about Mac security. (Now there's a case of security through obscurity if I've ever heard of one.) I realize that if everyone was forced to become an expert in how their PCs worked, the only PCs in existance would be secure. (I also realize that if the same applied to cars, I'd own a horse.)
So please, please, please hear me out. I come here for the news and the discussion. I don't want to feel like a heathen justifing my beliefs to the Spanish Inquisition. I don't want to have to pretend to be a sheep following the latest guru as he leads us to the holy land where the grass is green and free. I don't want to feel that I can never ask a question because the answer will always be "Use Linux".
Maybe Linux is what Slashdot is about. Maybe I missed that somewhere. But personally, I really thought we could be better than this.
Ken Boucher. Windows User. Please lower my Karma accordingly.
"Almost all of you have something to contribute about these discussions, but many of you choose not to. You'd rather flame and attack. It's your choice, but it does have consequences, for the site, and for the issues you claim to care about."
I will try to remember that in the future.
P.S. Oddly enough, My nick is also my real name. As an occasional artist, writer, actor, and haunted house does-a-lot-of-stuff-including-the-airbrushed-makeu p-guy, I've gotten paid under my nick on a regular basis.
Yes, Ash from the Evil Dead series is the only Actor I'd trust to play the Tick. He has the poise, the humor, the straight lines, and most importantly, the Chin.
I was hunting for some decent protection (yeah, I know, too late) for my dedicated machines and I came across ZoneAlarm 2.0.
Has anyone used this? (It's a Widows Only deal) Does anyone know of a better freeware solution? (Question open to ALL operating systems) Thank You.
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Re:welcome to the new slashdot!
on
Furry Cow Cases
·
· Score: 1
(rant on)(offtopic reply to an offtopic subject)
Ok. I can understand someone either not realizing that the posts were not from VA Linux, or even pretending to not realize that fact for whatever purposes.
All that aside, can anyone, under any means, justify why that reply was moderated up?
It's not on-topic (having nothing to do with a cow case 90% of the readers of this article haven't been able to see). It's not insightful in any way I care to think about (perhaps that anyone can get duped is an insight?).
Now could someone please find a working link, post it, and transfer all the points wasted moderating up that message to the new working link reply?
What decent sites are there that offer security information for a variety of operating systems geared to either the average user or the power user?
With the influx of dedicated connections, it becomes more necessary for the end user to put security in place, however the end user does not want to pay for these tools. Is there an easy to use freeware package that can deal with this?
Given the following:
ISP companies, campus security, and companies that have connected all their machines to the internet tend not to have a good understanding of security.
Those that don't have a good understanding take a dim view of their customers that do.
It seems like the average security expert is a former "criminal hacker type" (mediaspace: a perception of reality defined by the media)
What is our best hope for getting out of the dark ages of computer security anytime soon?
What would give for odds on this being an attack by the following classifications:an individual, an organized group, or the federal government?
It strikes me as insanely easy to propogate this type of flood attack using a virus with this little dealie as part of the payload. If the virus kept track of the IP addresses of the machines it tried to infect it could be quite deadly. (send command to ping target IP to all possibly infected IP addresses using forged information then Ping target IP) The worst part is that the system could get recursive. (Machine X knows that it tried to infect machine Y. Machine Y knows that it tried to infect machine X. Commands bounce back and forth between them. Ouch. And tracing that one back would be close to impossible...
You will notice I included, with Slashdot, the following news sites: Time, MSNBC, and Webmonkey. All of which have actually, and recently, stated things in their webspace when their corporate masters, would have probably prefered that they remain silent.
None of these organizations has, to my knowledge, become biased. The point I was trying to make was that we believe, as a people, that it is expected, if not acceptable, for them to become biased. There are organizations I could have put Slashdot with if they had, in fact, become puppets of "Da Man".
By the way, for those who missed it, there was a similar reason for choosing Columbus. He wasn't the first one here, so the current claim is that he opened the way for everyone else. That, of course, is the reason why the continent is named after him. Oops. It isn't, is it...
rant one Yes, the smithsonian is not a bastion of truth. Personally I find it humorous that a teacher is complaining about that, especially after years of being told Columbus discovered America (and the numerous detentions I got for questioning and later arguing inane comments like that).
rant two Lessons learned by the third graders so far:
Adults lie
Adults spend money to get other adults to lie
Your Congressman doesn't care
Your textbooks are filled with lies
People will give you money if you ask for it
Businessmen are more famous than inventors
None of the above are likely to change
rant three Having read the article, he complains that we have the right to demand the smithsonian to do what we want because we pay our taxes and their money comes from our taxes. He then complains that Orkin is unfair in donating a half million dollars (which might have come our of our taxes otherwise) in order to get their man in. Hmmmm... should have spent more money. Perhaps if he had given the donations to the smithsonian and asked them to correct the problem...
rant four How does any of this surprise us? After all, we've been hearing people wonder about the integrity of Slashdot since the Andover and VA Linux acquisitions. If a news group is owned by a larger company (as is the case with Time, MSNBC, Webmonkey and Slashdot) we no longer truth that news group as much as we used to, as we believe they must, at times, answer to their corporate masters. Likewise, if an charity can receive donations, we believe that charity has an obligation to give something in return for those donations. That's how the game is played.
All that being said, Tesla was, and will forever be one of my heros. He will always be remembered, even if he is never mentioned. Much like Bucky Fuller after him, his legacy lives on.
At least your company is willing to sell an unused domain name. For that I must applaud them. They are showing a lot more ethics than the vast majority of internet companies out there today.
Currently I own virtualsurreality.com after a long and intensive search to find a decent domain name. What's sad is the number of shorter ones that are squatted on by major companies simply because it's cheap to do so. As much as I hate the people who squat for money, at least they have a goal in mind. I may not find their methods ethical, but they are understandable.
moc.com is held by Marathon Oil, who currently have a much better and cooler domain name. The best I can hope for is that they are holding onto moc.com in order to keep Mobil from getting it. The problem is that moc.com is a really cool, perfectly usable, domain name that will NEVER be used. Marathon might be willing to sell it, but as they seem to have no intention of replying to inquiries (I tried), it's not likely to happen.
And Marathon isn't the only person in that boat. Take a look at think.com. Oracle acquired the name and has no intention of using it.
The main question is, has the domain name been used or unused recently and has anyone approached you in the past year with an offer to buy the domain name? If so, you have an ethical responsibility to contact them and inform them that you are selling it through whatever means you choose to. (Ethics aside, informing potential bidders can't be a bad financial idea.)
Transcribed: Is your internet identity subject to theft by malicious individuals at Network Solutions? Your domain could be taken away from you, without any warning, hijacked. This could be because your competitor, a derogatory site with attrocious content, wants to try and make people believe you are affiliated with...anything they choose. How badly can one malicious company hurt you through one simple act?
The answer would be eToys requesting Network Solutions to take etoy.com away. Network Solution then claims they had a court order to do so, despite the fact that both etoy AND etoys claim otherwise and no such court order has been shown. The lawsuit is dropped by eToys, and Network Solutions still refuses to return the domain name. ICANN refuses to look into the matter, and a group of artists are still denied their site.
It doesn't take hackers to destroy your site where Network Solutions is involved. They'll do it themselves, just to make their larger clients happy.
This is agent JohnnyAngel at Toywar reminding you that you can no longer buy a vowel.
Current problem: People have access to material that is not appropriate for the community in a community facility (such as a library). Proposed Solution: Add a filter, such as Surfwatch New Problem: Software that does this suffers from the fact that the source is not publicly available. Related problems: Such software does not filter data from more henious sites, such as doubleclick. Odd discovery: Slashdot is now owned by VA Linux.
Proposal: Programmers could work on creating an open source configurable blocker that actually is worth something. It could use a public database that people can submit updates to (similar to dmoz). These updates simply contain information about they type of content. The people doing the installing choose which forms of content are not accessable. In addition they can add or remove sites and IP addresses as desired.
-naked
-paysite
-portman
+slashdot.org
+classic art
The above would remove sites marked as pay and naked as well as anything to do with stoned women. However,slashdot would be allowed (regardless of any settings above it) as would sites detailing classic art.
Advantages: It's not like/. is short of volunteers.
Chameleons are also not covered in fur and stuffed with beans or plastic pellets. They are also not stylized two dimenional images designed to sell cool operating systems.
Besides, art gecko sounds much better then Blendo, the chameleon in a blender.
Ah, my son. I am proud of you. You have learned to use alt="" with spacers. You have found out that HR loads faster and looks better than graphic ruler bars. Your graphics all contain proper alt= attributes and your tables contain summary attributes. You have properly used the Meta Tag But you are not yet a webmaster.
For, although your page is truly viewable in any browser, and is completely accessable to people of all disabilities, quit frankly my son, your page looks like festering backside of a unwashed gibbon.
-- But Master, I followed all of w3.org's reccomendations. I used tidy and bobby, and checked all the links. I didn't use CSS because every browser interprets them differently. I rejected tables as they work differently on different browsers (especially table background images). I did my best to make sure that it looked just as good on Lynx as it does in Gecko!
--- And that is the problem my son. All pages look like junk in Lynx. However, AOL users are spoiled little pigs. In the process to make your page appeal to the 10% of people who don't support the current IE and Netscape browsers, you have offended the other 90%. Go back and try again.
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The author is currently the webmaster of virtualsurreality.com. He has learned that even w3.org is still in confusion about the <p> tag and that table backgrounds are questionable (as can be seen by comparing his main page under Netscape and I.E.). He is however in love with Tidy.
The net was originally designed to share information, not to make money. The protocols were based off of a good neighbor standard. Everyone agreed to carry everyone elses's traffic. News,.plan files, and gopher routed through whatever machine was convenient. Spam was not yet invented.
That has changed now. The current court decisions revolving around eToys and DeCSS are all based off of commercial gains and losses. The DMCA is designed around pofitability, not around technology or the good of the country or it's citizens. There are people who question if Linux will remain "the people's software" or if it will eventually fall into the hands of those who see to profit from it, rather than improve it.
The Internet used to be based on the Bucky Fuller theory of economics, where we all got richer by giving things away for free. But so many people now view the internet as a way for them to get richer by selling what is freely available to them. (This was pioneered by AOL who convinced it's customers that many free internet services were actually part of the service they were paying for.)
The worst case of all has to be Network Solutions and it's parent organization ICANN. Their stanglehold on DNS is secure. There is no longer a difference between a.com, a.org, and a.net. They can follow their own domain name resolution policy, or, as in the case of eToys, completely ignore it. Meanwhile, their actions have done nothing to discourage cybersquatting. The actions by the Trademark Office on the other hand have made a dent, especially since the U.S. courts seem to have a belief that a trademark entitles you to a dotcom, dotorg, and dotnet of that name. (What RFC was that in?)
A system that was largely built upon the kindness of stangers has been turned over to corporate powers. Regardless of what protocols we create, we will have a hard time ever gaining back the freedom we once had.
I look at Microsoft and the Empire that they built. The end result of that empire was a lot of people who saw that they needed to find a way of making sure that their creations could not turn into this. The result was GPLs and Open Source. I'm sure these will be put to the test by LinuxNone eventually, but the foundation is there.
Perhaps the same will occurr with the MPAA. In seeking such a congressional stranglehold on their product, it can only help the small film, independant, and tiny label businesses. They can begin to release their items under "fair use" provisions that allow people the rights they can not get from the MPAA.
This could be a real boon for them. Music and movies could be delivered free for small producers trying to make a name for themselves by a dotcom similar to NoNags. Another dotcom, similar to Broadband Download Center could give away free snippets (the first minute of a song, like Voltaire does) and sell full versions.
The MPAA in creating these regulations encourages the small creator to avoid the MPAA in order to increase their share of the marketplace. In addition the MPAA has distanced itself from it's clients and encouraged it's clients to find a new source of entertainment. I say we do just that.
bons writes: Some paid reported has this interesting article about the status of Slashdot. It talks about the decreasing number of intelligent articles and at the same time, the increasing amount of Natilie Portman traffic. Overall, an interesting quick overview of the current state of Slashdot." I'll note for the record that usenet doesn't have a "Slashdot" topic - it has it's own source of Spam. My personal experience is that almost no one coming online these days even knows Slashdot exists.
--------------------
If you would use Usenet, then you would notice new users to Usenet (they do what new users to Usenet have done for years...). If you don't use usenet, it's easy to reason that no one else does either. What a lot of people don't think about are the other usenet news groups, for example, the entire bugfix discussion for Opera (and all the other opera discussion areas are all usenet based. (The name of the news server is news://news.opera.no.)
Moderator. Please moderate this article down.... Oh wait you can't do that...;)
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks but no thanks. I have no desire to debug that monster unless someone pays me well for the effort.
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CSS serves one of three purposes. Let's examine them.
a)It prevents copying of DVDs. This is known to be incorrect. DVD movies are being copied and have been copied since before DeCSS. The pirates in question have never been called into a court of law.
b) It's to prevent the viewing of the medium. Although this appears to be the reason the MPAA is against DeCSS, the actual argument itself makes no sense. Why would they want to limit their customer base? Why would they want to discourage people from purchasing movies. There is no logic in this argument. There must be another reason.
c) It's to prevent the creation of DVD movies by independent studios. Let's look into this a little closer. DVD players not only have the capability of viewing movies that use CSS, they require that the movie uses CSS. The only way a movie could be made that is viewable by a DVD player is if someone had the ability to incorporate CSS and use all the proper keys. It's not good enough to just know a single key, such a Xing's, but you need to know all of them. DeCSS provides this capability.
The DCMA prevents software like DeCSS from being created or even researched. When the medium requires a copy protection scheme to be used, those without access to that scheme cannot create items in that medium.
That is what the DCMA means. It's an effective monopoly. Independent musicians, artists, actors, and eventually writers will be prevented from being able to distribute their works independently. They will be forced to sell their works through a larger production company, often giving up their rights in the process.
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Wordpad saves in Word 6.0, an acceptable format. February 17, 2000
David O. Carson, Esq.
General Counsel
Copyright GC/I&R
Southwest Station
Washington, DC 20024
Re: Section 1201(a)(1) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (Docket #7M99-7
Dear Mr. Carson:
I am grateful for the opportunity of submitting comments on behalf of myself, a citizen of this country in response to the Notice of Inquiry announce in the Federal Register Volume 64, No. 102. As a normal citizen I rarely have the ability and resources that a large company has to react on an equal basis to federal decisions.
As I am sure you know, a number of major corporations are vitally interested in effective protection of copyrights. As a person who can now compete with these corporations on equal footing thanks to technology, I strongly support this attitude and agree that such measures are vitally important. Under the claim of that connection, many of these corporations support the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which, among other things, makes it unlawful to defeat technological protections used by copyright owners to prevent fair use, backups, and access in a manner unintended by the producer.
For your consideration we have the current legal battle of DeCSS. On the one side are corporations who wish to prevent unauthorized copying. However, the unauthorized copying of their products has been going on long before DeCSS was invented. The defendants are individuals who wished to view legally obtained DVD movies on legally obtained DVD drives installed in their legally obtained computers. They are not pirates but only wish to use the DVD in a manner currently considered fair use.
Today, I can create a movie, reproduce it on videotape and distribute it. However, as a small independent, I cannot legally create and distribute that movie on DVD under the DMCA, because the tools required to do so are become illegal to create or own. In short, the larger production studios are granted a legal monopoly.
Today I can create music, reproduce it on CD or MP3 and distribute it. However, the tools used to record audio on MP3 and CDs will no longer be legal under the DMCA because any tool capable of copying audio files could be considered a technological measure used to circumvent copy protection.
I am also prevented from making backup and archival copies of the media I have purchased. The members of our military may be prevented from purchasing DVD movies and viewing them while they are stationed oversees. This may already be happening today because of region codes imprinted in DVD movies.
You will receive many favorable reviews of the DMCA. I suspect that most of them will come from large corporations that realize the DMCA allows them to control and prevent fair use of their products and also allows them to prevent fair competition from small independents and individuals. If America is still a country by the people, and for the people, I urge you to listen to the people, the small independent artist and businessman who can already recognize what the DMCA means to them.
Thank You.
Kenneth David Boucher
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If you want to fix the system you need the following:
An internet based database of prior art. This database will allow anyone to enter in data and the data within the database will be open to all. Data in the database will be dated according to the date it is entered into the database or the date the same data was entered into another accepted prior art database, such as the current U.S. patent database.
By creating and maintaining this database we have an effective tool to fight patents in court and to keep our inventions as our own without using the patent system.
In short, we create "open patents".
Please don't bother moderating this article as it's just after the magical #50th reply where moderation no longer seems to happen.
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This PC happens to run windows (Yes. I know. I'm inherently evil and feeding the great satan. Just flame me and moderate me down for admitting it and get on with your lives.)
I installed a firewall (Zonelabs), mostly because it was free, and also because I decided that if I wasn't part of the problem yet, it was only a matter of time.
Results: I was getting probed at an average of once every 20 minutes from a variety of locations. Urk! (Please note, my ip starts with a 24, which tends to indicate an @home or roadrunner cable modem service)
Side note: If you want to test your machine, go to Steve Gibson's SheildsUP!. It's a bit slow at the moment (and posting this ain't gonna make it faster). Personally I wish I had known about this site before this insanity started.
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Why then, do you charge different prices in different countries?
Ummm...
"And in the last several years, we have been intentionally, seriously and energetically concerned with combating theft of our intellectual property."
And the total number of arrests in Hong Kong would be?
Ummm...
What about the arrest of Jon Johansen, the Norwegian teenager partly responsible for DeCSS: did the MPAA have anything to do with it?
That was done by Norwegian prosecutors. We were not involved in that.
And your reply to the prosecutor who said they did it at your request would be?
Ummm...
So what constitutes fair use of a DVD in your eyes -- besides simply buying a DVD and using one of the MPAA's authorized players?
Any use by which you buy it at a price.
So you do agree that once you've bought the DVD drive and the DVD disk, you have the right to use whatever tools you want to view it on a Linux computer?
Ummm...
Final Question: You can even ask the audience or call a friend. Has anyone ever sucessfully used DeCSS to copy a DVD movie to another PC and then play it back?
Ummm...
well, that was a fun show, any comments from the audience?
"Is it true that when President Kennedy was gunned down, Valenti was six cars behind him."
Yes.
Now that's an alibi. Oh well, so much for that theory...
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Of course, you could always read this article :)
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Windows 2004, to be released in Q3 2005, will have a new and improved core. This core has been heavily tested. Our acquisitions department has been looking at the proper target and we feel the time is right to change our market focus.
In related news, Microsoft is looking for a new graphic artist who can properly draw a pentagram.
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Please note. This is not intended to flame any specific individual. This is a statement on a general trend in Slashdot. It's the opinion of a person who also happens to use an "Operating System Other Than Linux"(tm).
Somedays I just don't know why I bother to gnaw through the leather straps and get up in the morning.
Attn Slashdot: There Are Reasons That Some Of Us Also Have Windows Machines.
We beta test software. We beta test hardware and drivers. We write software and hardware reviews. We own applications designed for Windows. We have spouses and children who are more comfortable with Windows (well, my wife wants a Mac but...). We work for companies that require us to use Windows as part of our jobs. We sometimes even write code for the dang thing becuase we can make more money that way.
We know it's a pile of bloated junk. We know it has bugs, issues, problems, and is, in fact, one of the greater evils of the world.
But, please, please, please, understand. We have Windows installed for a reason. It's not because we're idiots. It's not because we can't or haven't installed Linux (or BeOS, GNU, etc...). It's not because we're clueless newbies with a PC mommy bought us for Christmas.
You know, my original post stated that the one possible fix was for Windows (ok, widows...) and the second question was open to all operating systems. There's a reason for that. It's because many of us don't use Linux. (gasp). Take a look at that logo again. "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters." It doesn't read "News for Linux Users. Nothing else Matters."
Now I don't care what OS you use (unless you've installed VMS on your home PC, in which case, e-mail me). I'm not an OSist. I help with Lanapalooza for heaven's sake. We've been running lan parties with Macs, Windows, and Linux machines for awhile now. I realize each OS has it's advantages and disadvantages. I realize no one ever seems to talk about Mac security. (Now there's a case of security through obscurity if I've ever heard of one.) I realize that if everyone was forced to become an expert in how their PCs worked, the only PCs in existance would be secure. (I also realize that if the same applied to cars, I'd own a horse.)
So please, please, please hear me out. I come here for the news and the discussion. I don't want to feel like a heathen justifing my beliefs to the Spanish Inquisition. I don't want to have to pretend to be a sheep following the latest guru as he leads us to the holy land where the grass is green and free. I don't want to feel that I can never ask a question because the answer will always be "Use Linux".
Maybe Linux is what Slashdot is about. Maybe I missed that somewhere. But personally, I really thought we could be better than this.
Ken Boucher. Windows User. Please lower my Karma accordingly.
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I will try to remember that in the future.
P.S. Oddly enough, My nick is also my real name. As an occasional artist, writer, actor, and haunted house does-a-lot-of-stuff-including-the-airbrushed-makeu p-guy, I've gotten paid under my nick on a regular basis.
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Ok. Let's compare these mugs: Patrick Warburton vs. Bruce Campbell. (sorry, Bruce-Campbell.com was down as I wrote this.)
I call for a re-cast! All in Favor? SPOON! All opposed? not in the face! not in the face!. The Spoons have it!
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Has anyone used this? (It's a Widows Only deal)
Does anyone know of a better freeware solution? (Question open to ALL operating systems)
Thank You.
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Ok. I can understand someone either not realizing that the posts were not from VA Linux, or even pretending to not realize that fact for whatever purposes.
All that aside, can anyone, under any means, justify why that reply was moderated up?
It's not on-topic (having nothing to do with a cow case 90% of the readers of this article haven't been able to see). It's not insightful in any way I care to think about (perhaps that anyone can get duped is an insight?).
Now could someone please find a working link, post it, and transfer all the points wasted moderating up that message to the new working link reply?
Thank you.
(rant off)
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- ISP companies, campus security, and companies that have connected all their machines to the internet tend not to have a good understanding of security.
- Those that don't have a good understanding take a dim view of their customers that do.
- It seems like the average security expert is a former "criminal hacker type" (mediaspace: a perception of reality defined by the media)
What is our best hope for getting out of the dark ages of computer security anytime soon?It strikes me as insanely easy to propogate this type of flood attack using a virus with this little dealie as part of the payload. If the virus kept track of the IP addresses of the machines it tried to infect it could be quite deadly. (send command to ping target IP to all possibly infected IP addresses using forged information then Ping target IP) The worst part is that the system could get recursive. (Machine X knows that it tried to infect machine Y. Machine Y knows that it tried to infect machine X. Commands bounce back and forth between them. Ouch. And tracing that one back would be close to impossible...
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None of these organizations has, to my knowledge, become biased. The point I was trying to make was that we believe, as a people, that it is expected, if not acceptable, for them to become biased. There are organizations I could have put Slashdot with if they had, in fact, become puppets of "Da Man".
By the way, for those who missed it, there was a similar reason for choosing Columbus. He wasn't the first one here, so the current claim is that he opened the way for everyone else. That, of course, is the reason why the continent is named after him. Oops. It isn't, is it...
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Yes, the smithsonian is not a bastion of truth. Personally I find it humorous that a teacher is complaining about that, especially after years of being told Columbus discovered America (and the numerous detentions I got for questioning and later arguing inane comments like that).
rant two
Lessons learned by the third graders so far:
rant three Having read the article, he complains that we have the right to demand the smithsonian to do what we want because we pay our taxes and their money comes from our taxes. He then complains that Orkin is unfair in donating a half million dollars (which might have come our of our taxes otherwise) in order to get their man in. Hmmmm... should have spent more money. Perhaps if he had given the donations to the smithsonian and asked them to correct the problem...
rant four
How does any of this surprise us? After all, we've been hearing people wonder about the integrity of Slashdot since the Andover and VA Linux acquisitions. If a news group is owned by a larger company (as is the case with Time, MSNBC, Webmonkey and Slashdot) we no longer truth that news group as much as we used to, as we believe they must, at times, answer to their corporate masters. Likewise, if an charity can receive donations, we believe that charity has an obligation to give something in return for those donations. That's how the game is played.
All that being said, Tesla was, and will forever be one of my heros. He will always be remembered, even if he is never mentioned. Much like Bucky Fuller after him, his legacy lives on.
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Currently I own virtualsurreality.com after a long and intensive search to find a decent domain name. What's sad is the number of shorter ones that are squatted on by major companies simply because it's cheap to do so. As much as I hate the people who squat for money, at least they have a goal in mind. I may not find their methods ethical, but they are understandable.
moc.com is held by Marathon Oil, who currently have a much better and cooler domain name. The best I can hope for is that they are holding onto moc.com in order to keep Mobil from getting it. The problem is that moc.com is a really cool, perfectly usable, domain name that will NEVER be used. Marathon might be willing to sell it, but as they seem to have no intention of replying to inquiries (I tried), it's not likely to happen.
And Marathon isn't the only person in that boat. Take a look at think.com. Oracle acquired the name and has no intention of using it.
The main question is, has the domain name been used or unused recently and has anyone approached you in the past year with an offer to buy the domain name? If so, you have an ethical responsibility to contact them and inform them that you are selling it through whatever means you choose to. (Ethics aside, informing potential bidders can't be a bad financial idea.)
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Is your internet identity subject to theft by malicious individuals at Network Solutions? Your domain could be taken away from you, without any warning, hijacked. This could be because your competitor, a derogatory site with attrocious content, wants to try and make people believe you are affiliated with...anything they choose. How badly can one malicious company hurt you through one simple act?
The answer would be eToys requesting Network Solutions to take etoy.com away. Network Solution then claims they had a court order to do so, despite the fact that both etoy AND etoys claim otherwise and no such court order has been shown. The lawsuit is dropped by eToys, and Network Solutions still refuses to return the domain name. ICANN refuses to look into the matter, and a group of artists are still denied their site.
It doesn't take hackers to destroy your site where Network Solutions is involved. They'll do it themselves, just to make their larger clients happy.
This is agent JohnnyAngel at Toywar reminding you that you can no longer buy a vowel.
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Proposed Solution: Add a filter, such as Surfwatch
New Problem: Software that does this suffers from the fact that the source is not publicly available.
Related problems: Such software does not filter data from more henious sites, such as doubleclick.
Odd discovery: Slashdot is now owned by VA Linux.
Proposal: Programmers could work on creating an open source configurable blocker that actually is worth something. It could use a public database that people can submit updates to (similar to dmoz). These updates simply contain information about they type of content. The people doing the installing choose which forms of content are not accessable. In addition they can add or remove sites and IP addresses as desired.
- -naked
- -paysite
- -portman
- +slashdot.org
- +classic art
The above would remove sites marked as pay and naked as well as anything to do with stoned women. However,slashdot would be allowed (regardless of any settings above it) as would sites detailing classic art.Advantages: It's not like /. is short of volunteers.
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They are also not stylized two dimenional images designed to sell cool operating systems.
Besides, art gecko sounds much better then Blendo, the chameleon in a blender.
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You have learned to use alt="" with spacers.
You have found out that HR loads faster and looks better than graphic ruler bars.
Your graphics all contain proper alt= attributes and your tables contain summary attributes.
You have properly used the Meta Tag
But you are not yet a webmaster.
For, although your page is truly viewable in any browser, and is completely accessable to people of all disabilities, quit frankly my son, your page looks like festering backside of a unwashed gibbon.
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But Master, I followed all of w3.org's reccomendations. I used tidy and bobby, and checked all the links. I didn't use CSS because every browser interprets them differently. I rejected tables as they work differently on different browsers (especially table background images). I did my best to make sure that it looked just as good on Lynx as it does in Gecko!
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And that is the problem my son. All pages look like junk in Lynx. However, AOL users are spoiled little pigs. In the process to make your page appeal to the 10% of people who don't support the current IE and Netscape browsers, you have offended the other 90%. Go back and try again.
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The author is currently the webmaster of virtualsurreality.com. He has learned that even w3.org is still in confusion about the <p> tag and that table backgrounds are questionable (as can be seen by comparing his main page under Netscape and I.E.). He is however in love with Tidy.
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That has changed now. The current court decisions revolving around eToys and DeCSS are all based off of commercial gains and losses. The DMCA is designed around pofitability, not around technology or the good of the country or it's citizens. There are people who question if Linux will remain "the people's software" or if it will eventually fall into the hands of those who see to profit from it, rather than improve it.
The Internet used to be based on the Bucky Fuller theory of economics, where we all got richer by giving things away for free. But so many people now view the internet as a way for them to get richer by selling what is freely available to them. (This was pioneered by AOL who convinced it's customers that many free internet services were actually part of the service they were paying for.)
The worst case of all has to be Network Solutions and it's parent organization ICANN. Their stanglehold on DNS is secure. There is no longer a difference between a .com, a .org, and a .net. They can follow their own domain name resolution policy, or, as in the case of eToys, completely ignore it. Meanwhile, their actions have done nothing to discourage cybersquatting. The actions by the Trademark Office on the other hand have made a dent, especially since the U.S. courts seem to have a belief that a trademark entitles you to a dotcom, dotorg, and dotnet of that name. (What RFC was that in?)
A system that was largely built upon the kindness of stangers has been turned over to corporate powers. Regardless of what protocols we create, we will have a hard time ever gaining back the freedom we once had.
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Perhaps the same will occurr with the MPAA. In seeking such a congressional stranglehold on their product, it can only help the small film, independant, and tiny label businesses. They can begin to release their items under "fair use" provisions that allow people the rights they can not get from the MPAA.
This could be a real boon for them. Music and movies could be delivered free for small producers trying to make a name for themselves by a dotcom similar to NoNags. Another dotcom, similar to Broadband Download Center could give away free snippets (the first minute of a song, like Voltaire does) and sell full versions.
The MPAA in creating these regulations encourages the small creator to avoid the MPAA in order to increase their share of the marketplace. In addition the MPAA has distanced itself from it's clients and encouraged it's clients to find a new source of entertainment. I say we do just that.
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If you would use Usenet, then you would notice new users to Usenet (they do what new users to Usenet have done for years...). If you don't use usenet, it's easy to reason that no one else does either. What a lot of people don't think about are the other usenet news groups, for example, the entire bugfix discussion for Opera (and all the other opera discussion areas are all usenet based. (The name of the news server is news://news.opera.no.)
Moderator. Please moderate this article down.... Oh wait you can't do that... ;)
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