Very good point. Almost every cracker lawsuit involves a company grossly overestimating the damage done... See Kevin Mitnick's trial for a prime example of this; Sun calculated its damages by the amount of money it took Sun's programmers to develop their product... That's clearly not the right way to calculate damages.
But is there a right way to calculate damages resulting from data theft? I mean, sure, there are certain things that are (relatively) easily calculated business lost during the time it took to fix a system, being the best example, but if someone hacked Adobe and "stole" an alpha version of the latest PhotoShop, what's the damage? Adobe still owns the version, so they haven't LOST anything... Bandwith loss is extremely negligable. However, in that case it merely isn't right to charge something like $25 in damages.
Of course you can say that. That IS the logical thing to think... But this does acoomplish something... It takes away AOL's liability for a crime. This measure was taken so AOL doesn't have to sufficiently police their own systems, and since there is no law requiring a more stringent age verification system, this action is legally enough to remove AOL's liability.
Slashback is not a bunch of shorter stories, it's a bunch of updates to stories previously posted on/. . Quickies tend to be whimsical and/or irrelevant, but Slashback stories merely aren't given full story status because the topic hs been covered recently already.
Yeah right... I know someone already said this, but there's a reason that the only two image formats which were being used when I first started using the internet (as you all know, I'm referring to Jpeg and GIF) are not only the de facto standards of today, but they are still the only two image formats used by 99% of webmasters (and that's a conservative estimate).
The fact is, it made sense to use Jpeg at the time (there were few if any decent, widespread alternatives that had similar "compressability") and CompuServe (which, for all of you net.neophytes was a huge ISP back in the day) threw its weight behind GIF. Sure, better formats have popped up since, but who uses 'em? I don't,/. certainly doesn't, neither does Yahoo!.
The fact is, if you want to know when an image format is finally on the verge of gaining acceptance, check out the porn world... Porn sites can also tell you when efficient movie formats are mainstream "enough." Virtually the intire PC industry is goverened by either games or porn... It's no surprise that it's dominated by men.;)
I downloaded it and ran the installer. My screen started to look odd, but the program said that this was normal. Fine.
I move on to the next step, and it tells me that it's "lost contact" with my Palm, and I should hit "retry." I do so about 9 times, finally choosing to reset the installation. Wrong answer, I guess. My Palm's OS is completely screwed. It's (my Palm, not the OS) sitting here in the cradle, with that weird screen, not responding to ANYTHING. That's right, no soft resets, hard resets, backlights, NOTHING. Thank god I just did a full backup or else I would have been pretty upset. I got the good people at Palm's customer support to send me one Next Day, and waive the replacement fee (thanks Robert!).
Let this serve as a warning. Do a FULL backup before this installation.
Most labels won't sign new acts to short-term contracts.
Witness the R&B/Pop group TLC, they signed a massive seven-album contract with LeFace Records, for so little money, because they were the only label willing to take a "chance" on them. Nevermind the fact that they would profit even if TLC's CDs made it only halfway to gold.
TLC's second album, "Crazy, Sexy, Cool," sold 10 million copies, but TLC went bankrupt. They had basically signed the contract from hell, rigid guidelines, and 6% of album sales to split between the three of them. The 2% each wasn't nearly enough to pay back the label for all charges incurred during recording, but the label, which had probably made millions off of that album alone, still hounded their top act for a relatively small amound of money.
It's amazing how backwards a company like Sony is thinking. Record labels will soon lose their grasp on being "the only way for an artist to get distribution," especially with major artists like Bowie and the Beastie Boys embracing the net.
Record companies, in addition to taking the vast majority of profits (getting $0.70 per CD sold is very difficult to do for a major artist), nevermind the fact that the label handles distribution and virtually nothing else.
If trucking companies charged 85% of the value of the goods to ship, there'd be no way that one would use them, yet labels do the same thing, acting as a cartel, stifling artistic talents, while looking to cash in on the next big thing.
But I digress, the last thing labels need to do is place more restrictions on artists, in any form. With advancing technology, soon it won't be so difficult for artists to handle their own distribution, and the labels need all of the leverage they can get.
In summary, I forsee the death of labels within the next 15 years, and that's pretty damn conservative.
To echo something I just read, I think self-moderation for those of us (ok, fine, not me, I lurk, but people who actually post) who by default get 2-5.. something like: You rate this post a: 1 2 3 4 -KuRL Newnet IRC: KuRL
Rejoice about the tax-free eCommerce, at least someone in the government (, unless he was thrown out, I don't really keep track,) knows where the country's (and the world's) commercial future lies. But I really hope he doesn't take that "T1 line in every house" too seriously, the last thing we need is the government regulating high-speed internet access. As forward-thinking and well-intentioned as Gingrich is, let's just hope he knows what (and when) to leave the government out of.
Slashdot Mirror
"Remember: Robots ARE out to get you," etc.
Is this policy REALLY necessary, or is this the insurance equivalent of yellow journalism?But is there a right way to calculate damages resulting from data theft? I mean, sure, there are certain things that are (relatively) easily calculated business lost during the time it took to fix a system, being the best example, but if someone hacked Adobe and "stole" an alpha version of the latest PhotoShop, what's the damage? Adobe still owns the version, so they haven't LOST anything... Bandwith loss is extremely negligable. However, in that case it merely isn't right to charge something like $25 in damages.
Or is it?Of course you can say that. That IS the logical thing to think... But this does acoomplish something... It takes away AOL's liability for a crime. This measure was taken so AOL doesn't have to sufficiently police their own systems, and since there is no law requiring a more stringent age verification system, this action is legally enough to remove AOL's liability.
Slashback is not a bunch of shorter stories, it's a bunch of updates to stories previously posted on /. . Quickies tend to be whimsical and/or irrelevant, but Slashback stories merely aren't given full story status because the topic hs been covered recently already.
The fact is, it made sense to use Jpeg at the time (there were few if any decent, widespread alternatives that had similar "compressability") and CompuServe (which, for all of you net.neophytes was a huge ISP back in the day) threw its weight behind GIF. Sure, better formats have popped up since, but who uses 'em? I don't, /. certainly doesn't, neither does Yahoo!.
The fact is, if you want to know when an image format is finally on the verge of gaining acceptance, check out the porn world... Porn sites can also tell you when efficient movie formats are mainstream "enough." Virtually the intire PC industry is goverened by either games or porn... It's no surprise that it's dominated by men.It basically gives a rundown of the new features, nothing special.
I downloaded it and ran the installer. My screen started to look odd, but the program said that this was normal. Fine.
I move on to the next step, and it tells me that it's "lost contact" with my Palm, and I should hit "retry." I do so about 9 times, finally choosing to reset the installation. Wrong answer, I guess. My Palm's OS is completely screwed. It's (my Palm, not the OS) sitting here in the cradle, with that weird screen, not responding to ANYTHING. That's right, no soft resets, hard resets, backlights, NOTHING. Thank god I just did a full backup or else I would have been pretty upset. I got the good people at Palm's customer support to send me one Next Day, and waive the replacement fee (thanks Robert!).Let this serve as a warning. Do a FULL backup before this installation.
Witness the R&B/Pop group TLC, they signed a massive seven-album contract with LeFace Records, for so little money, because they were the only label willing to take a "chance" on them. Nevermind the fact that they would profit even if TLC's CDs made it only halfway to gold.
TLC's second album, "Crazy, Sexy, Cool," sold 10 million copies, but TLC went bankrupt. They had basically signed the contract from hell, rigid guidelines, and 6% of album sales to split between the three of them. The 2% each wasn't nearly enough to pay back the label for all charges incurred during recording, but the label, which had probably made millions off of that album alone, still hounded their top act for a relatively small amound of money.Record companies, in addition to taking the vast majority of profits (getting $0.70 per CD sold is very difficult to do for a major artist), nevermind the fact that the label handles distribution and virtually nothing else.
If trucking companies charged 85% of the value of the goods to ship, there'd be no way that one would use them, yet labels do the same thing, acting as a cartel, stifling artistic talents, while looking to cash in on the next big thing.But I digress, the last thing labels need to do is place more restrictions on artists, in any form. With advancing technology, soon it won't be so difficult for artists to handle their own distribution, and the labels need all of the leverage they can get.
In summary, I forsee the death of labels within the next 15 years, and that's pretty damn conservative.Whoops! Yankee.com is the site for Yankee Electric. I think you meant Yankees.com.
Come on, he leaves mysteriously, making little noise.
His stuff is covered in goo.They keep following his screams.
And they definately hear him in the basement. When they get to the origination of his screams, who's there? One "person," the witch.As far as the horse-hair stuff, it could have been an exaggeration (that's the whole point of interviewing townspeople, they exagerate things).
Oh well. I bet you can't guess what to remove from my e-mail address!Or if you're in the New York City area, you could try Strands, a store on (I think) 17th and West end.
To echo something I just read, I think self-moderation for those of us (ok, fine, not me, I lurk, but people who actually post) who by default get 2-5.. something like: You rate this post a: 1 2 3 4 -KuRL Newnet IRC: KuRL
Rejoice about the tax-free eCommerce, at least someone in the government (, unless he was thrown out, I don't really keep track,) knows where the country's (and the world's) commercial future lies. But I really hope he doesn't take that "T1 line in every house" too seriously, the last thing we need is the government regulating high-speed internet access. As forward-thinking and well-intentioned as Gingrich is, let's just hope he knows what (and when) to leave the government out of.