>>>As a legal user of P2P, and as a PC gamer (linux only, though), I really hate all the copyright infringements going on. I'd bet that the reason we don't see another monkey island or similar is due to piracy. >>>
I don't agree with your opinion, but I respect it.
Similarly as a legal purchaser of CDs (I prefer uncompressed music) and also TV shows on DVD, it disturbs me that I can buy unmitigated crap like Season 6 of 24, or Star Drek Voyuer, and I have no legal recourse to recover my money (not even store credit). Any other business stands behind their product and guarantees satisfaction - you buy a TV, the picture is bad, you can return it. You buy a PSP and it dies a month later, you can return it. You buy a piece of shit DVD like Galactica 1980, and you might as well bend-over and take it up the ____ because you just lost $50.
As a result I feel it's necessary to "test drive" media before purchase. With CDs I can get legal samples online, but with TV shows on DVD there is no method except to download it and see if it's any good. It's illegal, but I do it because I don't want to get stuck wasting thousands of dollars on trash.
When media companies start treating me with respect, and letting me return junk like Voyuer or Earth Final Drek, then I will treat them with respect too.
Google handed out phones and asked employees to test them & find flaws. This is not unusual; Microsoft does the same thing in its offices (using and testing its own products).
>>>Yes he fucking did it - presumption of innocence is for juries, not Slashdot denizens.
We presume innocence because many of us have been screwed by the government "knowing you fucking did it" even though we were completely innocent of the crime. There are lots of holes in the case. Here's one:
- Was the mosquito flying around & sucking blood from pedestrians BEFORE it entered the car?
If so the mosquito contains blood from completely innocent people. Another hole is whether the police are honest or not. It's been known that police will lie in order to convict a subject. I worked with one who often went to jury trials and claimed, "I saw him shoplift the clothing," even though my police friend admitted he saw nothing.
Question everything, especially governments, which have a multi-thousand year history of suppressing individual liberty.
When places like Walmart or Google decide to turn-off their authorization servers, and the music you purchased no longer works, THAT'S when the average citizen will wake up to the scam. They'll realize that they were sold a RENTAL not ownership. They won't be happy having to spend another $1000 to buy their music collection a second time.
>>>and their friend might well tell them just to burn their music tracks to CD and rip them back in to strip the DRM.
That only works so long as you have the ability to burn CDs. The corporations are slowly but surely stripping-away the old methods of defeating DRM and closing the "analog hole":
- VCRs are now discontinued. No more taping TV and building a library. - Audio cassettes can be used to defeat DRM, but they are near-dead too. - Vista lets you burn CDs now, but who knows what the future holds? Just as VCRs and audio cassettes were phased-out, burning music CDs might become impossible unless the DRM says "it's okay" to the CPU.
Without the CD option, you can't bust the DRM (not the average Joe anyway).
That's called "tyranny". If I want to spend my election day sitting in my recliner, drinking beer, and watching the Buffy marathon, that's my choice. Who the hell if the government to dictate I MUST be at a certain place at a certain time?!?!? Fuck 'em.
Normally I vote but if such a ridiculous law passed in my state, I would stay home. It would be my way of protesting that it's my body, my mind, and my liberty. Nobody owns me. I'm not a slave.
"From time to time the Tree of Liberty must be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants." - "The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." - "The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it." - "The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits."
- Founder of the U.S. Democratic Party, Thomas Jefferson
I like these too: "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." - "When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty."
You are probably right, but that still doesn't excuse the politicians' stupidity.
What they are doing is equivalent to banning VCRs or DVD burners. Yes both can be (and widely are) used to illegally copy television shows or movies, but we still keep VCRs and DVD burners available because they have useful purpose to distribute Hollywood's creations. The same applies to Bittorrent or other Peer-to-Peer devices, which can be used to distribute software.
When my laptop was infected by a nasty spybot, I tried to download AdAware to remove it. But the spybot was blocking my browser from downloading!
So then I used Utorrent - slower but it eventually put Adaware on my laptop, thanks to other people willing to share the program, and the spybot was killed off. If Australian politicians had their way, I'd still have an infected laptop since the torrent version of Adaware would be blocked by their stupidity.
>>>Marx proposed... workers united in neighborhood committees will decide their own neighborhood policies, their city, their state, their country
So just like today's city, state, and country governments, with a binding contract (aka constitution) between the Workers and the Government that ascribes what can or can not be done by said government.
Fortunately we have a Republic where the law rules, not the demos, and the Supreme Law states: "The accused shall enjoy the right...to be confronted with the witnesses against him". A photograph can not be a witness, and therefore the case could be dismissed as lacking proof of guilt. There is evidence that a car with a license plate was speeding; there are no witnesses that verify it was the accused or the accused's car.
The Maryland Surpreme Law also states: "That all Government of right originates from the People, is founded in compact only, and instituted solely for the good of the whole; and they have, at all times, the inalienable right to alter, reform or abolish their Form of Government in such manner as they may deem expedient."
And: "That in all criminal prosecutions, every man hath a right to be informed of the accusation against him;... to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have process for his witnesses; to examine the witnesses for and against him on oath..."
A lot of what she claims is not true. For example: "paying radio to play records". Not only is that illegal, but the opposite is true - radio pays about 1/2 penny per song.
>>>I buy all my music off of iTunes. I don't *want* more physical crap, I don't *want* the disc
You'll regret that decision when your hard drive crashes & you lose all you purchased music. I like to buy the CDs as they work as a great backup that is near-indestructible. I feel "secure" knowing my investment will last, whereas downloads rest on the fine line of eraseability ("oops I pressed delete").
You always put the most important item last, so that it sticks in the minds of the readers. So yeah "publishers" is clearly WB's most important concern.
>>>very few people (probably less than 1%) are going to do that.
Too bad. It does not justify taking away my right to say whatever I want to say with MY printing press, my blog, or my radio station. That's what you do when you try to force "cover both sides" laws.
And let's face it - those stations/papers claiming non-bias are actually very biased. Claims of non-bias by these reporters are essentially lies. I prefer honestly: "Yes I'm biased and here's why..."
Taking your bill to the neighbors and making THEM pay for your new car, home, or heart is theft of your neighbors' money & labor. It makes you little better than the old plantation masters who lived off the work of the slaves.
>>>On page 9 you'll see that public health spending (as a %age of total) is lowest in the US,
Bravo! I consider that a great factoid, because government spending should be minimized. If you want a Lexus, use your own money. If you want a house, use your own money. If you want a new lung to replace your smoker's lung, then use your own money.
Stop making other people pay for your new car, house, or lung. That's theft of your neighbor's hard-earned money.
Precisely. +1 Insightful. We don't need objective papers; we need biased papers with citizens reading both, and reaching their own conclusions. (In most cases the truth is probably in the middle.)
>>>I love how yankee boys always rant on about freedom.
Actually it's about theft. You have a right to go to a doctor and get a new heart, lung, or whatever else you need, but you do NOT have a right to take the doctor's bill & demand the neighbors pay for it. Nor do you have a right to make them pay for your new Lexus. Or your new 100" television. Or new home.
Your neighbors' earned that money through the labor of their bodies, and it belongs to THEM. Forced removal of that money from their wallets is a violation of your neighbors' individual rights.
It's one thing to tax for the benefit of everyone (example: roads), but it's quite another to tax everyone just so ONE man can get a new heart, car, or television. That's just old-fashioned stealing.
>>>maybe you shouldn't assume where I live. also, please don't assume words inbetween my words. I never talked of free, and never implied I lived in the UK.
I never said you live in the UK. Learn to read. You said "come to europe" implying you live somewhere in europe, and I responded to that. Government healthcare works about as well as the USA's Amtrak (i.e. slow, poor quality, and very expensive).
Slashdot Mirror
>>>As a legal user of P2P, and as a PC gamer (linux only, though), I really hate all the copyright infringements going on. I'd bet that the reason we don't see another monkey island or similar is due to piracy.
>>>
I don't agree with your opinion, but I respect it.
Similarly as a legal purchaser of CDs (I prefer uncompressed music) and also TV shows on DVD, it disturbs me that I can buy unmitigated crap like Season 6 of 24, or Star Drek Voyuer, and I have no legal recourse to recover my money (not even store credit). Any other business stands behind their product and guarantees satisfaction - you buy a TV, the picture is bad, you can return it. You buy a PSP and it dies a month later, you can return it. You buy a piece of shit DVD like Galactica 1980, and you might as well bend-over and take it up the ____ because you just lost $50.
As a result I feel it's necessary to "test drive" media before purchase. With CDs I can get legal samples online, but with TV shows on DVD there is no method except to download it and see if it's any good. It's illegal, but I do it because I don't want to get stuck wasting thousands of dollars on trash.
When media companies start treating me with respect, and letting me return junk like Voyuer or Earth Final Drek, then I will treat them with respect too.
Dogfood indeed.
Not.
Google handed out phones and asked employees to test them & find flaws. This is not unusual; Microsoft does the same thing in its offices (using and testing its own products).
>>>Yes he fucking did it - presumption of innocence is for juries, not Slashdot denizens.
We presume innocence because many of us have been screwed by the government "knowing you fucking did it" even though we were completely innocent of the crime. There are lots of holes in the case. Here's one:
- Was the mosquito flying around & sucking blood from pedestrians BEFORE it entered the car?
If so the mosquito contains blood from completely innocent people. Another hole is whether the police are honest or not. It's been known that police will lie in order to convict a subject. I worked with one who often went to jury trials and claimed, "I saw him shoplift the clothing," even though my police friend admitted he saw nothing.
Question everything, especially governments, which have a multi-thousand year history of suppressing individual liberty.
Wasted vote since the third party candidate has NEVER won.
When places like Walmart or Google decide to turn-off their authorization servers, and the music you purchased no longer works, THAT'S when the average citizen will wake up to the scam. They'll realize that they were sold a RENTAL not ownership. They won't be happy having to spend another $1000 to buy their music collection a second time.
>>>and their friend might well tell them just to burn their music tracks to CD and rip them back in to strip the DRM.
That only works so long as you have the ability to burn CDs. The corporations are slowly but surely stripping-away the old methods of defeating DRM and closing the "analog hole":
- VCRs are now discontinued. No more taping TV and building a library.
- Audio cassettes can be used to defeat DRM, but they are near-dead too.
- Vista lets you burn CDs now, but who knows what the future holds? Just as VCRs and audio cassettes were phased-out, burning music CDs might become impossible unless the DRM says "it's okay" to the CPU.
Without the CD option, you can't bust the DRM (not the average Joe anyway).
That's called "tyranny". If I want to spend my election day sitting in my recliner, drinking beer, and watching the Buffy marathon, that's my choice. Who the hell if the government to dictate I MUST be at a certain place at a certain time?!?!? Fuck 'em.
Normally I vote but if such a ridiculous law passed in my state, I would stay home. It would be my way of protesting that it's my body, my mind, and my liberty. Nobody owns me. I'm not a slave.
"From time to time the Tree of Liberty must be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants." - "The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." - "The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it." - "The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits."
- Founder of the U.S. Democratic Party, Thomas Jefferson
I like these too: "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." - "When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty."
You are probably right, but that still doesn't excuse the politicians' stupidity.
What they are doing is equivalent to banning VCRs or DVD burners. Yes both can be (and widely are) used to illegally copy television shows or movies, but we still keep VCRs and DVD burners available because they have useful purpose to distribute Hollywood's creations. The same applies to Bittorrent or other Peer-to-Peer devices, which can be used to distribute software.
When my laptop was infected by a nasty spybot, I tried to download AdAware to remove it. But the spybot was blocking my browser from downloading!
So then I used Utorrent - slower but it eventually put Adaware on my laptop, thanks to other people willing to share the program, and the spybot was killed off. If Australian politicians had their way, I'd still have an infected laptop since the torrent version of Adaware would be blocked by their stupidity.
>>>Marx proposed... workers united in neighborhood committees will decide their own neighborhood policies, their city, their state, their country
So just like today's city, state, and country governments, with a binding contract (aka constitution) between the Workers and the Government that ascribes what can or can not be done by said government.
Fortunately we have a Republic where the law rules, not the demos, and the Supreme Law states: "The accused shall enjoy the right...to be confronted with the witnesses against him". A photograph can not be a witness, and therefore the case could be dismissed as lacking proof of guilt. There is evidence that a car with a license plate was speeding; there are no witnesses that verify it was the accused or the accused's car.
The Maryland Surpreme Law also states: "That all Government of right originates from the People, is founded in compact only, and instituted solely for the good of the whole; and they have, at all times, the inalienable right to alter, reform or abolish their Form of Government in such manner as they may deem expedient."
And: "That in all criminal prosecutions, every man hath a right to be informed of the accusation against him; ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have process for his witnesses; to examine the witnesses for and against him on oath..."
Germany?
You can't say the word "Nazi" there or sell swastikas (an ancient Hindu symbol) without getting arrested or fined. That's not free speech.
A lot of what she claims is not true. For example: "paying radio to play records". Not only is that illegal, but the opposite is true - radio pays about 1/2 penny per song.
While studios are definitely greedy, they do provide one valuable service - radio airplay.
Without that, you're a nobody selling next-to-nothing.
What do you mean? You worked without pay?
>>>I buy all my music off of iTunes. I don't *want* more physical crap, I don't *want* the disc
You'll regret that decision when your hard drive crashes & you lose all you purchased music. I like to buy the CDs as they work as a great backup that is near-indestructible. I feel "secure" knowing my investment will last, whereas downloads rest on the fine line of eraseability ("oops I pressed delete").
I would. I went to the Baltimore Lilith Fair back in 98, and I often wished I had a recording of that day so I could relive the experience. Oh well.
You always put the most important item last, so that it sticks in the minds of the readers. So yeah "publishers" is clearly WB's most important concern.
I think tose images are disgusting. You take a beautiful woman and make her ugly - no thanks.
>>>very few people (probably less than 1%) are going to do that.
Too bad. It does not justify taking away my right to say whatever I want to say with MY printing press, my blog, or my radio station. That's what you do when you try to force "cover both sides" laws.
And let's face it - those stations/papers claiming non-bias are actually very biased. Claims of non-bias by these reporters are essentially lies. I prefer honestly: "Yes I'm biased and here's why..."
I meant what I said.
Taking your bill to the neighbors and making THEM pay for your new car, home, or heart is theft of your neighbors' money & labor. It makes you little better than the old plantation masters who lived off the work of the slaves.
>>>On page 9 you'll see that public health spending (as a %age of total) is lowest in the US,
Bravo! I consider that a great factoid, because government spending should be minimized. If you want a Lexus, use your own money. If you want a house, use your own money. If you want a new lung to replace your smoker's lung, then use your own money.
Stop making other people pay for your new car, house, or lung. That's theft of your neighbor's hard-earned money.
>>>"insightful," which means actual info was provided,
Bzzz. That's not what insightful means. "Informative" is the label for actual info provided, and my post was not labeled as such so no harm; no foul.
Precisely. +1 Insightful. We don't need objective papers; we need biased papers with citizens reading both, and reaching their own conclusions. (In most cases the truth is probably in the middle.)
>>>I love how yankee boys always rant on about freedom.
Actually it's about theft. You have a right to go to a doctor and get a new heart, lung, or whatever else you need, but you do NOT have a right to take the doctor's bill & demand the neighbors pay for it. Nor do you have a right to make them pay for your new Lexus. Or your new 100" television. Or new home.
Your neighbors' earned that money through the labor of their bodies, and it belongs to THEM. Forced removal of that money from their wallets is a violation of your neighbors' individual rights.
It's one thing to tax for the benefit of everyone (example: roads), but it's quite another to tax everyone just so ONE man can get a new heart, car, or television. That's just old-fashioned stealing.
>>>maybe you shouldn't assume where I live. also, please don't assume words inbetween my words. I never talked of free, and never implied I lived in the UK.
I never said you live in the UK.
Learn to read.
You said "come to europe" implying you live somewhere in europe, and I responded to that. Government healthcare works about as well as the USA's Amtrak (i.e. slow, poor quality, and very expensive).