Lets not forget to mention that the laws (such as they're applied) are sufficiently ambiguous that "donations to campaigns" and "outright bribery" is so pathetically blurry that any attempt to bring an actual bribery case against a standing congress-critter would be a non-starter at best.
I say non-starter at best because I don't believe that there's enough political capital in the world to even start criminal proceedings against these slime balls. They're in charge of policing themselves, and well, that method of enforcement has rather predictable results. "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" anybody? Bueller? Bueller?
You''ve got to be kidding! If you think SOPA and PIPA are going to "wake up" the populace, you need to adjust your medication. The Patriot Act was *welcomed* by many Americans. If the Patriot Act wasn't enough to wake people up, they're out for the night, bud. Yes, it's sad.
While I agree with you for the most part, the reason that something like SOPA could possibly "wake up" the populace is that this is going to hit them in their "bread and circuses".
The Patriot Act only applies to "bad people" and "terrorists". The consequences of this unjust law will be directly visible to the general public, and will in fact directly impact them. Even if that impact is only that they can't download free copies of shit they weren't going to pay for in the first place.
Not that I believe that the American people are going to suddenly "wake up" over this, it's one more ingredient in the "revolution stew" so to speak. This stupid, unconstitutional law isn't actually going to materially impact piracy or copyright infringement. It's just going to make the war against the people much, much more obvious.
Then again, maybe we'll get lucky. Maybe "we" will wake up. And maybe it'll rain pancakes tomorrow.
Isn't "selling the entire nation to the Chinese" a rather hysterical instance of sinophobic alarmism?
Yes. But pointing it out doesn't seem to help. At this point it's reached meme status and will be endlessly repeated ad nauseum. Plus it makes good rabble-rousing material for muck-rakers and politicians.
So yeah, expect to keep hearing "ZOMG! CHINA OWNZ US!!" pretty much forever.
Why are his school and college records hidden from the public? Why has nobody come forward to say they were proud to know him during high school, college, etc.?
Well, to be fair he IS important, at least as far as the role he plays in contributing to the averages in the "web surfer person" dataset... While it's possible that Google has some nefarious database detailing our AC's entire search and browsing history, the primary utility of that data is feeding the averages.
As much as the advertising industry wants to believe that targeted ads are the "wave of the future", ads are ads and trying to target them with laser guided accuracy isn't likely to provide much more than a bump in the usual click through statistics.
Oh ho! Google knows I bought an iPod. Now they're trying to sell me accessories, but I don't want any. So... fail?
I dunno, at my last job I had to do a number of "rebuilds" as they called it on machines from XP to Win7 and IE 8/9 would always pester me to do the initial preference setup, but whenever I tried (just for grins) the link took me to an incomprehensible mess of an "app store" and it was up to me to dredge Google from the morass.
I could never quite tell if it was Microsoft being underhanded and hiding the other options, or just plain old fashioned incompetence, by which I mean plain old fashioned Microsoft-ness.
The only reason I even started IE in the first place was to replace it, so I usually just said "Remind me later" or whatever the relevant option is.
Because they're useless for what this shitty message board uses HTML markup to accomplish. Oh noes, we can't use semantic markup to strike through or underline some text.
The subset of allowed HTML tags is pretty small. Keeps fuckwads^Wfolks from doing weird, dodgy things.
Yeah, it's not legal, but what a fantastic way to alienate your fan base. They'd have to be retarded to start doing that. I fully realize that (like everything else) 90% of the Lets Play's out there are crap, but I'm willing to bet there is a potentially significant portion of sales deriving from those videos.
Oh, I really enjoyed "Freemans Mind" lets go buy Halflife!
Well I guess the high and mighty, freedom loving Europeans still haven't quite gotten past that little historical fact of state established religion after all. How sad. At least in the States (and lets not get into the other bits, I'm strictly talking financing here), it's illegal for, at least the Federal government to directly subsidize religious institutions. Sure, they may be tax exempt but that's at least arguably different than actually giving them money.
I actually feel sorry for the Europeans, you guys had a long way to go after being fucked by the Catholics for so many years. In all seriousness, my condolences. The bloody Catholics ruined EVERYTHING they ever touched, especially that wacky little religion we call Christianity. As much as the Protestants don't want to admit it, even their precious little belief structures are based on the decisions of the Catholics. Sure, you don't bother with the saints and all that shite. But you still accept their canon (albeit with a couple of excisions).
Sorry, I'm starting to rant. In conclusion, fuck the Catholics. They really, truly suck. My message to the Protestants: Your religion, while completely insane, was developed part and parcel by megalomaniacal Roman Emperor wannabes hell bent on subjugating all religious thought to fall into their own sphere.
Sorry... didn't mean to rant. Goddamned Catholics made me do it.
That's right, if it was good enough for Moses, it's good enough for me. Never mind if it makes sense to have an arm of the military exclusively devoted to projecting air power. Yeah, the navy and marines have aircraft divisions, but those are rather constricted to being on carriers. That may not be a bad thing, but saying categorically that the air force is unconstitutional, if only due to the fact that the founding fathers would faint dead away if they saw an airplane, makes perfect sense.
It's ok, we know you're not the real Michael Kristopeit. You didn't blather on about hiding behind nick names. Better remember to throw that in next time, feeb.
Well let's not forget that since he didn't state explicitly that he set down his "high definition DLSR professional grade camera with boom mikes", chances are the quality of the recorded music was rather poor indeed. Not to mention that the music was completely incidental to what he was intending to record (if that even matters). The idea that just because they are legally allowed to issue take down notices, doesn't mean they are required to do so, nor that they should.
I can just see the boardroom scene now:
"OMG, some guy recorded our song as background noise while taking a video of his vacation. WON'T ANYONE THINK OF THE PROFITS????" "Nuke that video from orbit, it's the only way to be sure"
LOL. If anything, this is just evidence that there are outsourced Indians mindlessly clicking through check boxes, "Is this infringing? Yes/No/Retry"
I mentioned this above, but while it's all well and good that technically a misrepresented DMCA claim holds the claiming party libel for "lots of bad stuff", you've got to prove it first, If you are, as the GGGP presumably is, some guy who just likes to make recordings of public domain works, you all too likely don't have the financial where-with-all to duke it out in the courts to vindicate yourself. Sure, you might get recompense for all the money you spent on the legal proceedings, but unless you find a really nice lawyer, chances are you're gonna have to be able to prove ability to pay in the event your case fails. Not to mention, any recompense is hardly likely to come in any reasonable time frame. If you want to force that, well guess what, more legal fees.
Face it, the system is stacked, and well, it's being stacked on you!
I just know someone's gonna think I'm trolling but... isn't that the Ayn Rand/Libertarian ideal? Private parties own everything, and well if they start screwing things up... um... sue them, I guess.
There's gotta be an antithesis to "tragedy of the commons" as applies to the theories of the "private ownership only" crowd.
Better stop now before this turns into a full fledged rant.
Too true! It's like good ol' Clinton, it depends on what the definition of "limited" is. Infinity - 1, while mathematically impossible could probably be successfully argued in the courts to mean limited. Or failing that, "until the cold death of the universe". Hell, they don't even have to get that creative, "one million years" (cue pinky bite)
Slashdot Mirror
Lets not forget to mention that the laws (such as they're applied) are sufficiently ambiguous that "donations to campaigns" and "outright bribery" is so pathetically blurry that any attempt to bring an actual bribery case against a standing congress-critter would be a non-starter at best.
I say non-starter at best because I don't believe that there's enough political capital in the world to even start criminal proceedings against these slime balls. They're in charge of policing themselves, and well, that method of enforcement has rather predictable results. "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" anybody? Bueller? Bueller?
You''ve got to be kidding! If you think SOPA and PIPA are going to "wake up" the populace, you need to adjust your medication. The Patriot Act was *welcomed* by many Americans. If the Patriot Act wasn't enough to wake people up, they're out for the night, bud. Yes, it's sad.
While I agree with you for the most part, the reason that something like SOPA could possibly "wake up" the populace is that this is going to hit them in their "bread and circuses".
The Patriot Act only applies to "bad people" and "terrorists". The consequences of this unjust law will be directly visible to the general public, and will in fact directly impact them. Even if that impact is only that they can't download free copies of shit they weren't going to pay for in the first place.
Not that I believe that the American people are going to suddenly "wake up" over this, it's one more ingredient in the "revolution stew" so to speak. This stupid, unconstitutional law isn't actually going to materially impact piracy or copyright infringement. It's just going to make the war against the people much, much more obvious.
Then again, maybe we'll get lucky. Maybe "we" will wake up. And maybe it'll rain pancakes tomorrow.
Isn't "selling the entire nation to the Chinese" a rather hysterical instance of sinophobic alarmism?
Yes. But pointing it out doesn't seem to help. At this point it's reached meme status and will be endlessly repeated ad nauseum. Plus it makes good rabble-rousing material for muck-rakers and politicians.
So yeah, expect to keep hearing "ZOMG! CHINA OWNZ US!!" pretty much forever.
Why are his school and college records hidden from the public? Why has nobody come forward to say they were proud to know him during high school, college, etc.?
I'll bite. Why?
LOL, I try to tell myself the very same thing, but it sure doesn't help me sleep at night.
But don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!
Well, to be fair he IS important, at least as far as the role he plays in contributing to the averages in the "web surfer person" dataset... While it's possible that Google has some nefarious database detailing our AC's entire search and browsing history, the primary utility of that data is feeding the averages.
As much as the advertising industry wants to believe that targeted ads are the "wave of the future", ads are ads and trying to target them with laser guided accuracy isn't likely to provide much more than a bump in the usual click through statistics.
Oh ho! Google knows I bought an iPod. Now they're trying to sell me accessories, but I don't want any. So... fail?
I dunno, at my last job I had to do a number of "rebuilds" as they called it on machines from XP to Win7 and IE 8/9 would always pester me to do the initial preference setup, but whenever I tried (just for grins) the link took me to an incomprehensible mess of an "app store" and it was up to me to dredge Google from the morass.
I could never quite tell if it was Microsoft being underhanded and hiding the other options, or just plain old fashioned incompetence, by which I mean plain old fashioned Microsoft-ness.
The only reason I even started IE in the first place was to replace it, so I usually just said "Remind me later" or whatever the relevant option is.
Because they're useless for what this shitty message board uses HTML markup to accomplish. Oh noes, we can't use semantic markup to strike through or underline some text.
The subset of allowed HTML tags is pretty small. Keeps fuckwads^Wfolks from doing weird, dodgy things.
Don't like it? Bawwww, too bad.
I'll bite:
You're completely pathetic.
Wow, that was cathartic. And oh so true!
Of course, I am against abortion because I don't feel that man should be able to determine when someone is human and when someone is not.
(Emphasis mine)
Only one question: Who else is going to do it?
Cheers for the Eddings reference. Love it. If I hadn't already commented on this story you'd have my mod points.
And fat pimply ones no less. Hey, no arguing with taste.
We are the 99.9999999999% of Slashdot. You are the .0000000001% of complete imbeciles.
Occupy MichaelKristopeit! Who's with me?
Yeah, it's not legal, but what a fantastic way to alienate your fan base. They'd have to be retarded to start doing that. I fully realize that (like everything else) 90% of the Lets Play's out there are crap, but I'm willing to bet there is a potentially significant portion of sales deriving from those videos.
Oh, I really enjoyed "Freemans Mind" lets go buy Halflife!
TOTAL WIN!!
So what you're saying is that the so-called "tragedy of the commons" is it's own antithesis? I like it.
Well I guess the high and mighty, freedom loving Europeans still haven't quite gotten past that little historical fact of state established religion after all. How sad. At least in the States (and lets not get into the other bits, I'm strictly talking financing here), it's illegal for, at least the Federal government to directly subsidize religious institutions. Sure, they may be tax exempt but that's at least arguably different than actually giving them money.
I actually feel sorry for the Europeans, you guys had a long way to go after being fucked by the Catholics for so many years. In all seriousness, my condolences. The bloody Catholics ruined EVERYTHING they ever touched, especially that wacky little religion we call Christianity. As much as the Protestants don't want to admit it, even their precious little belief structures are based on the decisions of the Catholics. Sure, you don't bother with the saints and all that shite. But you still accept their canon (albeit with a couple of excisions).
Sorry, I'm starting to rant. In conclusion, fuck the Catholics. They really, truly suck. My message to the Protestants: Your religion, while completely insane, was developed part and parcel by megalomaniacal Roman Emperor wannabes hell bent on subjugating all religious thought to fall into their own sphere.
Sorry... didn't mean to rant. Goddamned Catholics made me do it.
Ok, then why are there so many "Let's Play" videos on YouTube? Or is that one of those magical "exceptions"?
You're absolutely right, now construct a plausible legal argument stating that.
I've got $5 on it
That's right, if it was good enough for Moses, it's good enough for me. Never mind if it makes sense to have an arm of the military exclusively devoted to projecting air power. Yeah, the navy and marines have aircraft divisions, but those are rather constricted to being on carriers. That may not be a bad thing, but saying categorically that the air force is unconstitutional, if only due to the fact that the founding fathers would faint dead away if they saw an airplane, makes perfect sense.
Got anything else?
It's ok, we know you're not the real Michael Kristopeit. You didn't blather on about hiding behind nick names. Better remember to throw that in next time, feeb.
Well let's not forget that since he didn't state explicitly that he set down his "high definition DLSR professional grade camera with boom mikes", chances are the quality of the recorded music was rather poor indeed. Not to mention that the music was completely incidental to what he was intending to record (if that even matters). The idea that just because they are legally allowed to issue take down notices, doesn't mean they are required to do so, nor that they should.
I can just see the boardroom scene now:
"OMG, some guy recorded our song as background noise while taking a video of his vacation. WON'T ANYONE THINK OF THE PROFITS????"
"Nuke that video from orbit, it's the only way to be sure"
LOL. If anything, this is just evidence that there are outsourced Indians mindlessly clicking through check boxes, "Is this infringing? Yes/No/Retry"
Well it isn't as if they have any compelling reason to do so. What are you going to do, sue them? BWAHAHA.
I mentioned this above, but while it's all well and good that technically a misrepresented DMCA claim holds the claiming party libel for "lots of bad stuff", you've got to prove it first, If you are, as the GGGP presumably is, some guy who just likes to make recordings of public domain works, you all too likely don't have the financial where-with-all to duke it out in the courts to vindicate yourself. Sure, you might get recompense for all the money you spent on the legal proceedings, but unless you find a really nice lawyer, chances are you're gonna have to be able to prove ability to pay in the event your case fails. Not to mention, any recompense is hardly likely to come in any reasonable time frame. If you want to force that, well guess what, more legal fees.
Face it, the system is stacked, and well, it's being stacked on you!
I just know someone's gonna think I'm trolling but... isn't that the Ayn Rand/Libertarian ideal? Private parties own everything, and well if they start screwing things up... um... sue them, I guess.
There's gotta be an antithesis to "tragedy of the commons" as applies to the theories of the "private ownership only" crowd.
Better stop now before this turns into a full fledged rant.
Too true! It's like good ol' Clinton, it depends on what the definition of "limited" is. Infinity - 1, while mathematically impossible could probably be successfully argued in the courts to mean limited. Or failing that, "until the cold death of the universe". Hell, they don't even have to get that creative, "one million years" (cue pinky bite)