They WILL exchange an open title (audio, video or CD-ROM) for a sealed version of the SAME title.
Several years, I asked a Toys "R" Us employee about the store's return policy. She replied that whenever a customer returns a copyrighted item (e.g. a VHS video or a PC or console video game), the store exchanges it and opens the package before giving it to the customer.
Now instead of relying on the garbage collector you have to step way back to the dark ages and tediously manage UI memory. Ugh!
Most of the time, when you free native resources owned by a Java object, you do so in the "finalizer" that the GC calls when it's about to free your object. A finalizer is analogous to a C++ destructor and is called ClassName.finalize().
This is why one doesn't usually connect their DVD player to the VCR, thence to the TV, but instead connects directly to the TV.
Most of the time I've seen things connected through the VCR, the VCR was being used as an RF modulator for a video game console or camcorder with no RF output connected to a television set with no A/V input. How does the owner of a television set without A/V inputs connect a DVD player to his television set? Do DVD players have coax out on RF channel 3/4?
Ask Slashdot is a tool for gathering the impressions of others who have been in the same situation. The secondhand legal advice it provides (which is not "legal advice" under the law) is useful so that the original poster can walk into the lawyer's office with at least a sense of what might happen and prepared to receive real legal advice.
I've seen you post [the "My Sweet Lord" story] over and over in just about every story that mentions music.
I just wonder how to verify that when writing my own songs, I don't make the same mistake that Harrison made. I wonder how to guarantee to music publishers and to independent record labels such as mp3.com that my music is, in fact, original. I post until I happen to find somebody who has been in the same position and can give a useful answer.
What would be a better place than Slashdot to ask about general issues of musical work copyright?
Surely such restrictions apply to the bloke in the article too?
Yes. Such ringtones are provided pursuant to a license from the music publishers, who may or may not be owned by the record labels. From the article: "Fees are divided among the ring tone providers, cell phone companies and the music labels that control the copyrights to the songs."
what is the difference between me playing a tune on my piano at home (presuming that I've legally bought the music sheet) or me playing it on my phone?
Subject to the fair use doctrine and some other exceptions, the owner of copyright in a musical work has the exclusive right to perform the work publicly (17 USC 106). Playing a ringtone is potentially a public performance; playing a song on a musical instrument when nobody outside your family unit is present is not (17 USC 101 definition of "publicly").
It occurs to me that there are a finite set of possible ring tone combinations
Yes. However, even if you limit it to 16 notes of 12 pitches (do through sol in the next octave, or do chromatically through ti in the same octave) and short, medium, or long duration, you get 36^16 possible notes, on the order of 10^25 or 2^83. That's possibly several zillion times more information than exists in all the libraries of all the congresses of all the countries of all the planets in our galaxy.
However, copyright law does consider some partial melody matches to constitute infringing misappropriation. Look at an essay I wrote about the "Yes! We have no bananas!" case and musical combinatorics that argues that there exist fewer than fifty thousand melodies that a judge (who is not a musician) would consider distinct.
Therefore, someone could create a comprehensive database of all possible ringtone combinations
but they must not have any ownership if I listen to the radio and transcribe it myself.
No matter how you hear a copyrighted musical work, it's still copyrighted. Unlike with computer program copyright, there's no way to "clean-room reverse engineer" around music copyright. Even if you only unconsciously plagiarize a copyrighted musical work, you're still liable under USA copyright law.
What do the National Music Publishers Association/Harry Fox Agency and its foreign equivalents have to say about the unauthorized "composing" and subsequent public performance of popular copyrighted tunes on a cellphone? Few phone subscribers have the musical ability to compose completely original ring tones, and fewer still have the ability to warrant that such ring tones are actually original and not unconsciously plagiarized.
Finish all the quests and eventually you have to -- guess what -- finish the main story. Just like every other game.
Now we're getting into semantics. Your problems seem to arise from the fact that the game's documentation designates one of the game's many quests as "main".
Downloadable demos? For console games?
on
Games of the Year
·
· Score: 3, Informative
These lists would be a lot more useful if the editors made some effort to link to the games' official pages and especially to playable demos.
"Downloadable playable demos" applies only to PC platforms such as Windows (vast majority), Mac (very few), and Linux (fewer still). It does not apply to console platforms such as GBA, GCN, PS2, and Hbox. It may apply to the GP32 handheld system from Gamepark because Gamepark encourages homebrewing (and thus redistributable games) on the GP32 system.
I did find the Syberia demo, but I think its being slashdotted.
Cyberia (which may not be Syberia) was published by Interplay several years ago. Check the bargain bin or an online auction venue if you want to play Cyberia (which may not be Syberia).
Everyone in my precal class was hooked on ZTetris.
But ZTetris is ILLEGAL! Were it named something more generic that didn't resemble "TETRIS" (a trademark licensed exclusively to The Tetris Company LLC), it would be OK.
On the other hand, notice that "Konami Arcade Advanced", a collection of ports (NOT emulations) of classic arcade games did make it into one of the top GBA game lists of the article.
I'm sorry but Valenti's attempts to prevent you from downloading movies because you don't feel like paying for them is not in the same universe as Nazi bookburning
But I did pay for this genuine copy of a DVD Video title. Why can't I live in the United States write and distribute a program to play it on the GNU/Linux system? Why is the DMCA worded the way it is?
If you want to have a consistent, elegant and completely mouse driven GUI they are not worth shit.
You don't want a completely mouse-driven UI on a PC unless you have something like a tablet PC, where no keyboard is available even to enter text unless you flip the screen around into its "laptop" configuration.
However, I'm not talking about requiring the user to know command lines. I'm talking about allowing the user to type the first few letters of an object's name as a shortcut to select it, providing a way to access all commands from the keyboard (good for users who have physical problems with using a mouse?), providing consistent keyboard commands for common actions across all applications, and making a command line available to those users who want to automate things.
Why the hell are these people cloning the Windows UI?!
Because it's a "local maximum". It takes effort to go from one local maximum to another. This XPde is designed to teleport the user directly from a local maximum on Windows to a corresponding local maximum on *n?x, so that you can separate adapting to the OS and adapting to the UI into separate tasks.
I wonder if this project will get the beatdown from MS like the various Aqua skins did from Apple.
I understand that Microsoft doesn't own the textual elements of its user interface (Apple v. Microsoft; Lotus v. Borland), but doesn't Microsoft Corporation own copyrights on the pictorial and graphic works embodied in the exact pixel configurations of the Windows XP operating system's icons, and possibly a trade dress on the look and feel of the "Luna" theme?
Other than prepress, what does Photoshop Elements lack vs. Photoshop?
Have you even used Photoshop Elements?
No, but I'm considering recommending it to a friend who is considering pirating something. Would you please tell me why an artist who does not do prepress should stay away from Photoshop Elements?
and we spent several thousand dollars to placate them, instead of a few hundred for Paint Shop Pro.
Really? Jasc Paint Shop Pro starts at $82 for one seat. Adobe Photoshop Elements (Photoshop minus prepress) starts at $100 for one seat. Thus, unless you have a bunch of people working in prepress, Photoshop isn't much more expensive than PSP.
Slashdot Mirror
They WILL exchange an open title (audio, video or CD-ROM) for a sealed version of the SAME title.
Several years, I asked a Toys "R" Us employee about the store's return policy. She replied that whenever a customer returns a copyrighted item (e.g. a VHS video or a PC or console video game), the store exchanges it and opens the package before giving it to the customer.
Now instead of relying on the garbage collector you have to step way back to the dark ages and tediously manage UI memory. Ugh!
Most of the time, when you free native resources owned by a Java object, you do so in the "finalizer" that the GC calls when it's about to free your object. A finalizer is analogous to a C++ destructor and is called ClassName.finalize().
This is why one doesn't usually connect their DVD player to the VCR, thence to the TV, but instead connects directly to the TV.
Most of the time I've seen things connected through the VCR, the VCR was being used as an RF modulator for a video game console or camcorder with no RF output connected to a television set with no A/V input. How does the owner of a television set without A/V inputs connect a DVD player to his television set? Do DVD players have coax out on RF channel 3/4?
According to this press release, the dual-screen computer uses Phoenix FirstBIOS, which includes a web browser that competes against a web browser based on the Mozilla code.
Go ask a lawyer, not Slashdot.
Ask Slashdot is a tool for gathering the impressions of others who have been in the same situation. The secondhand legal advice it provides (which is not "legal advice" under the law) is useful so that the original poster can walk into the lawyer's office with at least a sense of what might happen and prepared to receive real legal advice.
I've seen you post [the "My Sweet Lord" story] over and over in just about every story that mentions music.
I just wonder how to verify that when writing my own songs, I don't make the same mistake that Harrison made. I wonder how to guarantee to music publishers and to independent record labels such as mp3.com that my music is, in fact, original. I post until I happen to find somebody who has been in the same position and can give a useful answer.
What would be a better place than Slashdot to ask about general issues of musical work copyright?
Surely such restrictions apply to the bloke in the article too?
Yes. Such ringtones are provided pursuant to a license from the music publishers, who may or may not be owned by the record labels. From the article: "Fees are divided among the ring tone providers, cell phone companies and the music labels that control the copyrights to the songs."
what is the difference between me playing a tune on my piano at home (presuming that I've legally bought the music sheet) or me playing it on my phone?
Subject to the fair use doctrine and some other exceptions, the owner of copyright in a musical work has the exclusive right to perform the work publicly (17 USC 106). Playing a ringtone is potentially a public performance; playing a song on a musical instrument when nobody outside your family unit is present is not (17 USC 101 definition of "publicly").
It occurs to me that there are a finite set of possible ring tone combinations
Yes. However, even if you limit it to 16 notes of 12 pitches (do through sol in the next octave, or do chromatically through ti in the same octave) and short, medium, or long duration, you get 36^16 possible notes, on the order of 10^25 or 2^83. That's possibly several zillion times more information than exists in all the libraries of all the congresses of all the countries of all the planets in our galaxy.
However, copyright law does consider some partial melody matches to constitute infringing misappropriation. Look at an essay I wrote about the "Yes! We have no bananas!" case and musical combinatorics that argues that there exist fewer than fifty thousand melodies that a judge (who is not a musician) would consider distinct.
Therefore, someone could create a comprehensive database of all possible ringtone combinations
That's been tried with telephone numbers.
The record companies have the rights to the sheet music I would guess
That's true if the record company and the music publisher are owned by the same conglomerate, such as Warner Bros. Records and Warner Chappell Music (owner of "happy birthday to you") both owned by Warner Communications, a unit of AOL Time Warner Inc.
but they must not have any ownership if I listen to the radio and transcribe it myself.
No matter how you hear a copyrighted musical work, it's still copyrighted. Unlike with computer program copyright, there's no way to "clean-room reverse engineer" around music copyright. Even if you only unconsciously plagiarize a copyrighted musical work, you're still liable under USA copyright law.
where they can compose their own tunes
What do the National Music Publishers Association/Harry Fox Agency and its foreign equivalents have to say about the unauthorized "composing" and subsequent public performance of popular copyrighted tunes on a cellphone? Few phone subscribers have the musical ability to compose completely original ring tones, and fewer still have the ability to warrant that such ring tones are actually original and not unconsciously plagiarized.
Finish all the quests and eventually you have to -- guess what -- finish the main story. Just like every other game.
Now we're getting into semantics. Your problems seem to arise from the fact that the game's documentation designates one of the game's many quests as "main".
These lists would be a lot more useful if the editors made some effort to link to the games' official pages and especially to playable demos.
"Downloadable playable demos" applies only to PC platforms such as Windows (vast majority), Mac (very few), and Linux (fewer still). It does not apply to console platforms such as GBA, GCN, PS2, and Hbox. It may apply to the GP32 handheld system from Gamepark because Gamepark encourages homebrewing (and thus redistributable games) on the GP32 system.
I did find the Syberia demo, but I think its being slashdotted.
Cyberia (which may not be Syberia) was published by Interplay several years ago. Check the bargain bin or an online auction venue if you want to play Cyberia (which may not be Syberia).
Was Frogger made/released in 2002?
Yes. Konami converted Frogger to the GBA and published it as part of Konami Arcade Advanced (IGN review) in 2002.
Everyone in my precal class was hooked on ZTetris.
But ZTetris is ILLEGAL! Were it named something more generic that didn't resemble "TETRIS" (a trademark licensed exclusively to The Tetris Company LLC), it would be OK.
On the other hand, notice that "Konami Arcade Advanced", a collection of ports (NOT emulations) of classic arcade games did make it into one of the top GBA game lists of the article.
I'm sorry but Valenti's attempts to prevent you from downloading movies because you don't feel like paying for them is not in the same universe as Nazi bookburning
But I did pay for this genuine copy of a DVD Video title. Why can't I live in the United States write and distribute a program to play it on the GNU/Linux system? Why is the DMCA worded the way it is?
If you want to have a consistent, elegant and completely mouse driven GUI they are not worth shit.
You don't want a completely mouse-driven UI on a PC unless you have something like a tablet PC, where no keyboard is available even to enter text unless you flip the screen around into its "laptop" configuration.
However, I'm not talking about requiring the user to know command lines. I'm talking about allowing the user to type the first few letters of an object's name as a shortcut to select it, providing a way to access all commands from the keyboard (good for users who have physical problems with using a mouse?), providing consistent keyboard commands for common actions across all applications, and making a command line available to those users who want to automate things.
unless the potential surface you are traversing is non-conservative.
And in this case, the surface of graphical user interfaces is highly non-conservative of learning time.
Why the hell are these people cloning the Windows UI?!
Because it's a "local maximum". It takes effort to go from one local maximum to another. This XPde is designed to teleport the user directly from a local maximum on Windows to a corresponding local maximum on *n?x, so that you can separate adapting to the OS and adapting to the UI into separate tasks.
I wonder if this project will get the beatdown from MS like the various Aqua skins did from Apple.
I understand that Microsoft doesn't own the textual elements of its user interface (Apple v. Microsoft; Lotus v. Borland), but doesn't Microsoft Corporation own copyrights on the pictorial and graphic works embodied in the exact pixel configurations of the Windows XP operating system's icons, and possibly a trade dress on the look and feel of the "Luna" theme?
I too fear that Microsoft will follow in Apple's footsteps.
In short, Linux has none of the desktop software people want to use.
And Xbox doesn't have Super Mario Sunshine.
And stop blabbering about GIMP or ABI word. No one's gonna use that crap. They just don't cut it.
Why not, specifically?
Fingers are also called digits Hmm. What significance would a different base have had on us?
A different base... Doesn't TV's The Simpsons make occasional octal jokes ("gimme four") about its characters, which lack pinky fingers?
Photoshop Elements? What a joke!!
Other than prepress, what does Photoshop Elements lack vs. Photoshop?
Have you even used Photoshop Elements?
No, but I'm considering recommending it to a friend who is considering pirating something. Would you please tell me why an artist who does not do prepress should stay away from Photoshop Elements?
and we spent several thousand dollars to placate them, instead of a few hundred for Paint Shop Pro.
Really? Jasc Paint Shop Pro starts at $82 for one seat. Adobe Photoshop Elements (Photoshop minus prepress) starts at $100 for one seat. Thus, unless you have a bunch of people working in prepress, Photoshop isn't much more expensive than PSP.
BSD, that's what OSX is. Linux is a Unix-type OS, it's a copy, an imitation.
Yes, I know GNU's not UNIX®, but neither is BSD. Neither is Mac OS X because the royalties for putting the UNIX mark on the product are quite expensive for an operating system marketed to home users.