Does that read to anyone else as locking those agents with "significant marketshare" as the only gatekeepers of said blanket licensing
This sounds a bit like the issues creeping around the edges of my conciousness since i tried to assimilate the text of the bill - it sounds almost as though the bill is requiring copyright holders to accept licensing fees for works. That would essentially require that the artist - the original copyright holder on production of a work - a statutory copyright holder in the case of the independant artist - accept the enforcement of the bill's terms on any of their work, even if they e.g. were not offering the work for public "sale" - e.g. listening - and/or even if the artist did not demand compensation for the performance of the work.
Effectively, it would prohibit things like self-distribution without licensing of work that has not been placed in the public domain, beause some agency is planning to step in, collect licensing fees, issue licenses, and [maybe - i don't think this part is in the bill, actually] pay the copyright holder for the use, whether or not the copyright holder wants it.
From the GP:
A key component is that the new compulsory license governs all nondramatic musical works and does not permit copyright owners to opt-out, which would otherwise jeopardize the efficiency of the entire blanket licensing structure.
I find the idea that I can't "opt out" of this bullshit and just give copies of material away while still retaining ownership of the content without placing the material into the "public domain" a bit disturbing. It sounds as though if I don't accept the authority of the copyright enforcement agencies to to enforce my copyright with or without my consent, then a third party could basically slap their copyright on my work by virtue of paying the copyright enforcement fees to the enforcing agency.
Put another way, if I want to give out a copy of a work to a radio station, but don't want e.g. MTV to play it, the copyright enforcement agency has abrogated my copyright by telling MTV [in effect] "pay us a license fee and you can use the work regardless of the artist."
the people cannot rule a thing that is not their own
The statement does not ring true with me. Is that actually part of the definitions of the terms? That is, is it some how not possible for one to rule that which one does not own? I seem to see that happening quite a lot (some people ruling things not their own), but that problem exists (AFAIK) independent of either the rulership of the people or the ownership of the state by the people. ?
It doesn't "drive" the hardware for ever and ever, it helps the system to communicate with that piece of hardware. Did you never saw a message that stated " you need driver version x.y.z for this to work"? Well put this a bit to the extreme and a driver will only work to a certain extend and than you have to get some "update".
It sounds like you're referring here to an API change in the driver - I would stipulate that what you say above is correct unless you do not install new versions of the application layer software. If you don't change the software or hardware that uses the driver, the driver will in fact work until some hardware or software in the system is changed [is repaced, wears out, etc].
The difference between this software architecture and "what went before" - e.g. MS/DOS - is that DOS programs often did not use a comomon hardware driver layer between different applications. That made the applications hardware dependent. MS Media Player, I believe, has made some forays down the path of by-passing the driver layer in the past few versions, but that is assumed to be "termporary" - that is: "until the driver layer is brought up to date."
Do any of you get the idea that Congress is now the enemy of the USA people?
Well, I've been thinking of it more in terms of: it is "that organization which publicizes itself as a the present [21st Century] United States Federal Government" that is actually the enemy of the citizens of the United States of America. That is, I don't limit the scope of the class "Enemy of the People of the United States" to just the Legislative Branch - I include the Exectutive and Judicial Branches of the Federal Government that have fallen to the neo-con coup, as well.
Is there any way in the USA for the people to legally take back their own government?
Well, the answer to that depends up on the answer to "legal under which system of Law?"
Obviously, after having gone to so much trouble to seize Power, the Regime is not going to allow the removal of that Power from themselves to be a legal act.
I'm encouraging all present Federal officials to commit to a suicide pact, since - by their own lights - anything the cheif executive or his bitch Cheney says to is Legal is - de facto - Legal. That means that in spite of the laws against self murder, they could, in reality, all take their own lives - thereby ridding us of their Oppression completely within the Laws they have created. So far their not showing any signs of goig along with it, but it remains an workable solution.
Individual citizens don't have the luxury of instructing law enforcement not to prosecute them - the citizen is constrained by the burdens of things like Proof under Law.
An honest Attorney General could do it, or the military could take care of it if they chose to fulfill the oaths to defend the Constitution, but that Oath has been widely interpretted of late - under the influuence of the Regime, of course.
It resembles - to me - the problem of deposing any despot: Once the despot is removed, those as did the removing can't really be justly prosecuted under Law, since they were actually abiding by the Law - the actual Law as opposed to the Edicts that have supplanted the Law under the despot.
... a driver that updates firmware on the board such that the firmware shuts the board down after an ellapsed time? Probably trivial, but it woudn't be hard - I don't know of a specific instance.
caching routers and so on... will they have to pay for the music passed through them?
Oh, no. The end user will have to cover the cost of the buffering - it shouldn't be too bad, though - I was just reading somewhere else where they will only have to maintain the cache costs for something like five (5) years, so it will be a temporory thing - that will help limit the probability of abuses, too. The chrages will be calculated in "pounds of flesh per gigabyte" staring sometime this fall.
What if I hear the music pumping out of someone else's stereo? Who do I pay for the privilege?
Oh, don't worry about that! The new codecs and licensing schemes will actually prevent you from hearing the music from the stereo in the other car unless you already have the correct licenses installed. That's what the latest round of meetings between M$ technology experts and RiAA reps has been about. Expecting a press release sometime later this week.
computers with preinstalled Vista, OSX, etc. and has "automatic update" activ, because of all these virii.
Are you saying that RIAA, MPAA, M$, et al are the entities behind the wave of viral malware? All just to softent up the user base for a frontal assult on the security, privacy, and integrity of their home PCs? What, are you paranoid?
"Should the legislators pass this law, how many of them would simultaneously be breaking it?".
What, simultaneously with passing it? I don't know - do legislators listen to music? Do they listen to music while passing legislation? Do they listen to music on digital devices? Perhaps we can get a grant to study the phenomenon of [search for?] non-Philistine legistlators...
It is frankly amazing to me that you seem to be typing these things with a straight face - have you not "gotten it" yet? The Dubya Regime are the terrorists. Why the hell would the citizens need the Regime to continue to operate after the Regime has staged the Bigger, Better Reichstag Fire? You know, the one that will happen between Nov 2006 and Nov 2008 - the one that will necessitate martial law and the suspension of federal elections until after the end of the War on Terror (which Dubya tells use "will not come within our lifetimes")?
Find their freaking holes in the ground and treat the fukkers like fire ants, I say: fill 'em up with hot grits soaked in kerosene - one thing for sure, we don't want those fukkers breeding and coming back out to start it all over again...
I'm not too worried about the breeding part [aside the great humour that can be conjoured around the subject], but if the federal regime survives - not that will be a problem - at least if they didn't we could e.g. have an election and get the country up and running again (assuming survivors above ground, of course, which appreantly the Regime does, since they seem to think there will be somehting left ot govern).
Get it, Kjalla - the current regime in Washington are not a legitimate government. In fact, there is a deal of question whether or not they are even US citizens. The regime is the problem, not the solution to any.
What you're say might apply to a legitimate government that had some interest in preservation of American ideals or a [free] American population, but these guys? Uh-uh. They're just looking to live out their little right-wing fundie fanstasies of The Book of Revelation [Christian Bible - New Testament] - complete with Armaggeddon. I'd bet money they've got it figured right down to the "144,000" who are to be "saved"...
Just because you monopolize a market does not give you the right to start regulating others because you've reached the limit of what you can squeeze from your market.
Which brings to mind an interesting point I haven't made recently enough [thank-you]:
I maintaint that most of the abuses we're seeing from the corporatocracy arise from a simple, yet misguided, concept which widely mis-attributed to Capitalism. I call it "The Myth of the Inifinetely Expanding Market".
It is the idea that so many mega-corporations seem to live by which can be seen in everything from advertising to quarterly reports: the idea that a corporation is dying if it is not "growing its market".
The condition of market saturation is a real-world state. "Sustainable economics" should be a princple of any long term business plan - that is, my corporation should plan to survive without ultimately saturating the markets, passing laws against competing technologies, obsoletely functional products, then re-saturating the market. Such has been the "business plan" practiced by most of the dumbasses who are destroying not only our economies, but the resources that support them. The media conglomerates are just one of the more obvious examples....
Okay, just had to say that. Thanks.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane
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Okay, well, you're making it clear now that you're trolling, but I will respond once more, anyway, since I believe some of your thoughts basically coproratist crap and should be shown as such, lest some poor newb mistake you for a realist and be misled... besides, I have a few minutes during commerical...
the use of non-market strategies (i.e. legislative means) is very common in business. Businesses do it all the time. If you want that to change, time to work on your politicians!
It may be common, but that makes it neither right nor actually legal. Fact is, once you resort to legislating that your victims must purchase your product, you are no longer in the business of business, you are in government, which is precisely the problem here (and in other areas of business and government as practiced in the US, and - I don't doubt - in Switzerland).
Let's get one basic thing established before I go on to show that these corps - thru the DMCA and other measures - are in fact attempting to use the Law to force citizens [corps like the term "consumer" but for obvious reasons I reject that moniker in this case] to purchase their product regardless of the quality of the product or the desire of the [alleged] consumer for that product - that one item is this: No corporation has any inherent Right to the output of my work, nor to my property, nor to anything which is inherently Mine. [note that this applies also to individuals, but I am using "coroporation" here to a point]
If you cannot agree to that, then you may as well just run your "debunk" script on the rest of this a move on, but I suspect that [despite your assertion that you live in that weenie commie Switzerland place] you might agree that you do in fact have a right to own your own property?
Very well then.
Allow me to present to you the reality of the [television] media biz:
The TV biz does not market shit to you, the consumer. they market you the consumer to the companies that buy the advertising.
They, the media companies, draw you into "their" audience by offering you something they suspect (rightly or wrongly) you will watch. Then, once they have established [thru the raitings systems] that you are watching, they sell the fact that you are watching to other corporations. You are their audience, whcih is the actual product they produce. Their product is not content, since they do not get paid directly for any content - they get paid for providing viewers to companies like Coke, Pepsi, McD's, Budwieser, et al. That's it. It's very simple. Thier cash flow is from the advertisers, not from the viewers.
Do you get it yet?
How about "that's their fucking problem not mine"?
Sure is, and they're trying to solve it.
Actually, no. They are in denial. They are asserting that "you are watching" and that if you don't, they will sue you, or charge you criminally. That is a bit different from addressing the problems inherent in their business models. Quite different.
If their goal was to get you to pay for content, they could just charge you directly, as many of the non-mainstream media outfits do. The resort to legistlation is a complete non-sequiter to prevent them [the networks] from bearing liability to their actual customers - to wit: the corps who are paying for the ads.
If the network sells ads, and you do not [that is: they cannot force you to] watch, the media corp could [arguably] be considered in violation of the contract with their advertisers. A real contract. They are attempting to shift their own liability to their hapless victims - the audience. This too, is a red herring, though, as we shall see...
It might make sense to look at the contract between Coke and NBC [randomly selected examples].
Coke pays NBC to broadcast some ad over it's network during some time when NBC is claiming some-
Re:Proof we are not a democracy
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Any better suggestions?
It's called: "a binding 'None of the Above' ballot option" - combine that with a multiparty - not just two party - electoral system. Not something we can expect to see in the US, given the prevailing system and it's accompaniant propaganda.
Re:The only way to fight the DMCA
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say that flaming does help - it informs people about the issues, and that something is NOT normal and ok in the state of whatever.
Bingo. I don't remember who first said it, but it's more true now than ever: "If you're not outraged, you're just not paying attention."
Re:I miss the times Microsoft was the top bad guy
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Maybe it's time for another Boston Tea's party.
Maybe hell. The tea's gettin cold, and the crumpets are stale.
Re:I don't support the DCMA, however...
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If every person who was pissed off about this gave $100 to a lobby to fight it, we'd have it overturned by next week. Imagine the political power that could be brought against the MPAA/RIAA if we took our DVD/CD money and spent it on lobbyists...
A brave thought - let's see - guesstimate that - say 100 million people - anted up the $100 (assuming they didn't buy DVDs or CDs that year, and didn't d/l any so they didn't have to spend it on lawyers fees and court costs and replacing confiscated equipment), that's, what $100 x 100,000,000 is about $100,000,000,000. What's that, a billion? Okay, now lets compare that to the lobbying budget of Time Warner or Arista or [Goddess forbid] the combined lobbying budget of RIAA or MPAA.... shit, man, those fuckkers pay more than a billion in ONE DAY for ads during the superbowl.
Imagine the political power that could be brought against the MPAA/RIAA if we took our DVD/CD money and spent it on lobbyists...
I did. Any other ideas?
what are you doing about it?
Stockpiling ammunition. The soapbox, the ballot box, and the jury box haven't been performing up to expectations.
Re:These are the choices we make
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I'm willing to hand 5k a year to that idea. But who's going to do the same?
You'd do better to ask "who's already doing that" - find out and join them. Places to start looking? eff.org, the Center for Democracy and Technology - there are quite a few people already in this, if you start looking. You just have to get past being distracted by the "bi-partisan", mono-cultural hooey that is thrown up like chaff to confuse your radar... try some phrases in google like "sustainable economies".
None of this stuff is new, people, and none of it is rocket science. Just quit buying the Lies they're selling you.
Re:These are the choices we make
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You need a Consumer's PAC, with at least $10M+/year of budget, to have a serious impact.
Something like, say, the Green Party tried in 2000? Care to play again?
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane
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Well, your post was passionate, I'll give you that.
You say that as though it were a bad thing.... you don't have to "give me" that my remarks are passionate - you better damn well beleieve it, or I will notch it up a bit;)
If the networks can no longer count on people watching at least some ads, how are they to pay for content?
That's a really excellent question, and I'm glad you asked it. Here's the answer:
If I remember my undergrad economics course correctly (any of you youngsters who've had the course recently can jump in here if I get this wrong), the way the US economy - or any economy where the buyer is considered to have a choice in these matters - is supposed to work is that - in the scenario you present (i.e. no one watches the ads) the company is unable to pay for the content and hence either a) changes it's business model [it's approach to the customer - that is YOU] or b) goes out of business (and rightly so, since no one wants to pay for their lame crap).
Questions?
Please fully understand that it IS NOT ILLEGAL for customers NOT TO BUY.
At least, not yet (unless you're talking about insurance - which is a whole nuther debate which goes directly to "rackets", "protection money", "gangsters", "thugs" and other words you may - or may not - have heard me throw around before).
Not even if it means the demise of the corporation. Corporations, like people must evolve or die. This particular group of corporations is inbreedin with govt, and should be exterminated to protect the overall health of the [citizen] economy.
the networks would have to charge the consumers directly. Are you interested in paying even more for cable TV then?
This is horseshit. Firstly, there is a literally infinite pool of business models, both extant and theoretical, which obviate the "networks" from charging the viewer - not that I take execption to your defacto characterization of viewers as consumers - they are not (necesarily) although I'm sure the networks think of them that way.
Sencondly - the promise of cable television in the first place (I was there, I remember) was that we would PAY to have NO COMMERCIALS. Doh. Guess what? They lied. They got greedy. And they swill the spew hasn't improved one iota for it. In fact, it has arguably gone from bad to worse - especially in the realm of news. Look up "Walter Cronkite" some time - maybe throw the word "journalism" into your google search. Even the amatuers in the field now-a-days - posting to the Internet, generally - remain truer to the ideal than anything that's been on television in decades.
Frankly, I'm not even interested in watching anything on cable that I have to pay for - either in cash or by viewing "commercials" - other than maybe Adult Swim or some of Comedy Centrals' programming - and I'd MUCH rather simply pay them a subscription fee than sit thru hours of mindless bullshit ads for a night of entertainment.
Also: remember that there was at one time a government mandate that certain types of content should be expempt from the exigencies of the market - namely: news. News was supposed to be "neutral", "unbiased", and basically "free". Are you old enough to remember that era? I am, and believe you me, it is sorely missed in this era of propaganda, bullshit, and more bullshit. Pay for this shit? You have got to be kidding. If I could eliminate these so called "entertainment" corps with a stroke of the pen, I would do so at once - let those pathetic lamers go out and get real jobs like the rest of us. [aformentioned exceptions excepted].
Bottom line, man: I don't mind paying for the entertainment and news that I want - but I want to pay for it directly, and I want to get what I pay for. As things stand now, not only is what I want not on the market,
Re:This is why DRM will work
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Free trade is dead. Welcome to the world of... well, what exactly?
The tags I've run across that seem to apply are "corporate hegemony" and [easier to grasp intuitively, imo] "corporatocracy" - basically "government by corporation" [thanks to Ralph Nader during the 2000 elections for introducing many of us to that one].
Of course, when we had government by, for, and of the corporations in the 1930s, we called it "fascism" or "The Third Reich".
Of course, to me it's all just a bunch of a ripe shit, and begging for some patriots to don some ninja masks and start chucking boatloads of crappy DVDs and CDs off the pacific rim together with the players that play them...
Re:It was never about piracy
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This is about controlling what you watch and how you watch it.
That bears repitition and understanding, imo. THe sooner most of the people understand that one simple statement, the sooner the gansters and thugs (govt and industry) will go up against the wall, the sooner we will return to a [natural] state of freedom - or at least something that resembles it more than the current [thought] police state. IMO.
Re:The only way to fight the DMCA
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Look, shifty, I understand your point, but there are a couple of items here that you seem to have a slightly distorted view of....
Stop complaining in forums when stuff like this happens; VOTE or WRITE LETTERS or ORGANIZE A PROTEST *before* it happens and help ensure laws like this don't get passed.
First, I am constrained to point out that this shit never hits the news - mainstream or otherwise - until after it's been made law. I don't know i you're new to this debate, or what, but it was on this forum that I first became aware of the DMCA (and UCITA, which no one talks about much anymore, it seems, but is still as henious as it ever was) - and yes, there were many of us VOTERS who were deceieved into thinking that our voices (to our "representatives", or our "votes" mattered. Fool me once?
Well, if you're not aware by now just how futile the so called "voting" process is in the US, you're just not paying attention - we have a president that has served some 6 years now without ever having been constitutionally elected the first time. Duh.
And you think whining about DMCA made a difference? Obviously not, since I probably still have the emails I sent about it sitting on some mothballed server somewhere.... Money talks, freind, and trust me: unless you're e.g. El Senor Gates or of his ilk, then the gangsters and thugs running RIAA/MPAA have more of it that all of us combined. Even if you haven't realised that yet, you can bet your lilly white ass that your "elected" "representives" know it better than they know their own wives' titties...
why can't anyone think beyond "all your stuff should be free!" mentality.
I have one word for you about the above (and I don't mean this antagonisticly, despite what you may think): Fuck you, buddy.
I doubt very seriously you could collect a dozen members of slashdot - let alone the less geeky forums - who would profess anything even remotely resembling "everything should be free" - I personally make my living and support my family off sales and manipulations of intellectual properties and the related services - software, music, and language (writing). I think I am far more representative of a majority of persons involved in this debate than your postulated individual who "thinks everything should be free." Again, I surmise that you are a) new to the debate, and b) have gotten more exposure to the "everyone who doesn't agree that we should be in charge is a crackpot" doctine of the RIAA/MPAA thugs than to any sane rationale on this topic. I don't hold that against you, I just pooint it out because your arguement is pretty fukking lame...
Organize, make contacts in industry,
Dude/tte, I am "the contacts" you make in the industry - know what I mean, huh?
lobby, tell everyone you know, VOTE!
Been there. Done that. Got that T-shirt. Got the video. Got the court decision. Didn't work. Sorry, try again. Evidently you don't know who you're talking to here, or precisely whatyou're talking about - what do you think slashdot is if not a way to "tell every one you know?"....
And remember:
Flaming != helping.
Flaming == counter-productive. Always.
Huh. Well, (Flaming != (!helping)), either; and Flaming == counter-productive is just bullshit. Our coroprate overlords fear public discontent far more than they fear your pathetic "votes" or "calls to your congressperson". If you don't believe that, spend a moment in a board meeting with them. You can do that if you acquire the shares - know what i mean?
I suggest that you consider that critizing and berating persons who are expressing their outrage at the rapine and pillage being visited on their Divinely granted Rights and Liberties is sure as HELL not helping.
It is fascinating to me that I often see comments like this one posted more or less anonymously - the common thread being that all such posting never reference the alleged company that employs the alleged telecommuters. I can't help but contrast these remarks with job requirements postings to job boards where telecommuting is pretty much a dirty word - in 10 years I have yet to find a [legitimate] hiring company that admits to allowing work to be performed offsite. I'm sure this will generate a some virulent disagreement, but I remain a bit annoyed that in specificly seeking work that can be performed "from home" since 1993, I have yet to talk to the first company who would even discuss it seriously in an interview - in fact, it usually signals and end to the interview when the point is raised (usually in answer to the "what is your ideal working environment" question). Perhaps I'm just a sub-par employee, or perhaps I'm talking to the wrong people, but despite all the hype, I can only say that in the US job market of which I am aware, telecommute positions for software developers do not exist. For my part: the problem is not the people, it's the corporations. They cannot function at any level beyond basic micromanagement - regardless of any and all productivity and profitability studies. Just my [jaded] 2 cents worth...
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Damn. Imagine how long and hard that lawyer had to search to manage that!
This sounds a bit like the issues creeping around the edges of my conciousness since i tried to assimilate the text of the bill - it sounds almost as though the bill is requiring copyright holders to accept licensing fees for works. That would essentially require that the artist - the original copyright holder on production of a work - a statutory copyright holder in the case of the independant artist - accept the enforcement of the bill's terms on any of their work, even if they e.g. were not offering the work for public "sale" - e.g. listening - and/or even if the artist did not demand compensation for the performance of the work.
Effectively, it would prohibit things like self-distribution without licensing of work that has not been placed in the public domain, beause some agency is planning to step in, collect licensing fees, issue licenses, and [maybe - i don't think this part is in the bill, actually] pay the copyright holder for the use, whether or not the copyright holder wants it.
From the GP:
I find the idea that I can't "opt out" of this bullshit and just give copies of material away while still retaining ownership of the content without placing the material into the "public domain" a bit disturbing. It sounds as though if I don't accept the authority of the copyright enforcement agencies to to enforce my copyright with or without my consent, then a third party could basically slap their copyright on my work by virtue of paying the copyright enforcement fees to the enforcing agency.
Put another way, if I want to give out a copy of a work to a radio station, but don't want e.g. MTV to play it, the copyright enforcement agency has abrogated my copyright by telling MTV [in effect] "pay us a license fee and you can use the work regardless of the artist."
The statement does not ring true with me. Is that actually part of the definitions of the terms? That is, is it some how not possible for one to rule that which one does not own? I seem to see that happening quite a lot (some people ruling things not their own), but that problem exists (AFAIK) independent of either the rulership of the people or the ownership of the state by the people. ?
It sounds like you're referring here to an API change in the driver - I would stipulate that what you say above is correct unless you do not install new versions of the application layer software. If you don't change the software or hardware that uses the driver, the driver will in fact work until some hardware or software in the system is changed [is repaced, wears out, etc].
The difference between this software architecture and "what went before" - e.g. MS/DOS - is that DOS programs often did not use a comomon hardware driver layer between different applications. That made the applications hardware dependent. MS Media Player, I believe, has made some forays down the path of by-passing the driver layer in the past few versions, but that is assumed to be "termporary" - that is: "until the driver layer is brought up to date."
Well, I've been thinking of it more in terms of: it is "that organization which publicizes itself as a the present [21st Century] United States Federal Government" that is actually the enemy of the citizens of the United States of America. That is, I don't limit the scope of the class "Enemy of the People of the United States" to just the Legislative Branch - I include the Exectutive and Judicial Branches of the Federal Government that have fallen to the neo-con coup, as well.
Well, the answer to that depends up on the answer to "legal under which system of Law?"
Obviously, after having gone to so much trouble to seize Power, the Regime is not going to allow the removal of that Power from themselves to be a legal act.
I'm encouraging all present Federal officials to commit to a suicide pact, since - by their own lights - anything the cheif executive or his bitch Cheney says to is Legal is - de facto - Legal. That means that in spite of the laws against self murder, they could, in reality, all take their own lives - thereby ridding us of their Oppression completely within the Laws they have created. So far their not showing any signs of goig along with it, but it remains an workable solution.
Individual citizens don't have the luxury of instructing law enforcement not to prosecute them - the citizen is constrained by the burdens of things like Proof under Law.
An honest Attorney General could do it, or the military could take care of it if they chose to fulfill the oaths to defend the Constitution, but that Oath has been widely interpretted of late - under the influuence of the Regime, of course.
It resembles - to me - the problem of deposing any despot: Once the despot is removed, those as did the removing can't really be justly prosecuted under Law, since they were actually abiding by the Law - the actual Law as opposed to the Edicts that have supplanted the Law under the despot.
... a driver that updates firmware on the board such that the firmware shuts the board down after an ellapsed time? Probably trivial, but it woudn't be hard - I don't know of a specific instance.
Oh, no. The end user will have to cover the cost of the buffering - it shouldn't be too bad, though - I was just reading somewhere else where they will only have to maintain the cache costs for something like five (5) years, so it will be a temporory thing - that will help limit the probability of abuses, too. The chrages will be calculated in "pounds of flesh per gigabyte" staring sometime this fall.
Oh, don't worry about that! The new codecs and licensing schemes will actually prevent you from hearing the music from the stereo in the other car unless you already have the correct licenses installed. That's what the latest round of meetings between M$ technology experts and RiAA reps has been about. Expecting a press release sometime later this week.
Are you saying that RIAA, MPAA, M$, et al are the entities behind the wave of viral malware? All just to softent up the user base for a frontal assult on the security, privacy, and integrity of their home PCs? What, are you paranoid?
What, simultaneously with passing it? I don't know - do legislators listen to music? Do they listen to music while passing legislation? Do they listen to music on digital devices? Perhaps we can get a grant to study the phenomenon of [search for?] non-Philistine legistlators...
... like i needed another reason beyond "it still works" ... ;)
It is frankly amazing to me that you seem to be typing these things with a straight face - have you not "gotten it" yet? The Dubya Regime are the terrorists. Why the hell would the citizens need the Regime to continue to operate after the Regime has staged the Bigger, Better Reichstag Fire? You know, the one that will happen between Nov 2006 and Nov 2008 - the one that will necessitate martial law and the suspension of federal elections until after the end of the War on Terror (which Dubya tells use "will not come within our lifetimes")?
Find their freaking holes in the ground and treat the fukkers like fire ants, I say: fill 'em up with hot grits soaked in kerosene - one thing for sure, we don't want those fukkers breeding and coming back out to start it all over again...
I'm not too worried about the breeding part [aside the great humour that can be conjoured around the subject], but if the federal regime survives - not that will be a problem - at least if they didn't we could e.g. have an election and get the country up and running again (assuming survivors above ground, of course, which appreantly the Regime does, since they seem to think there will be somehting left ot govern).
Get it, Kjalla - the current regime in Washington are not a legitimate government. In fact, there is a deal of question whether or not they are even US citizens. The regime is the problem, not the solution to any.
What you're say might apply to a legitimate government that had some interest in preservation of American ideals or a [free] American population, but these guys? Uh-uh. They're just looking to live out their little right-wing fundie fanstasies of The Book of Revelation [Christian Bible - New Testament] - complete with Armaggeddon. I'd bet money they've got it figured right down to the "144,000" who are to be "saved"...
Which brings to mind an interesting point I haven't made recently enough [thank-you]:
I maintaint that most of the abuses we're seeing from the corporatocracy arise from a simple, yet misguided, concept which widely mis-attributed to Capitalism. I call it "The Myth of the Inifinetely Expanding Market".
It is the idea that so many mega-corporations seem to live by which can be seen in everything from advertising to quarterly reports: the idea that a corporation is dying if it is not "growing its market".
The condition of market saturation is a real-world state. "Sustainable economics" should be a princple of any long term business plan - that is, my corporation should plan to survive without ultimately saturating the markets, passing laws against competing technologies, obsoletely functional products, then re-saturating the market. Such has been the "business plan" practiced by most of the dumbasses who are destroying not only our economies, but the resources that support them. The media conglomerates are just one of the more obvious examples....
Okay, just had to say that. Thanks.
Okay, well, you're making it clear now that you're trolling, but I will respond once more, anyway, since I believe some of your thoughts basically coproratist crap and should be shown as such, lest some poor newb mistake you for a realist and be misled... besides, I have a few minutes during commerical ...
It may be common, but that makes it neither right nor actually legal. Fact is, once you resort to legislating that your victims must purchase your product, you are no longer in the business of business, you are in government, which is precisely the problem here (and in other areas of business and government as practiced in the US, and - I don't doubt - in Switzerland).
Let's get one basic thing established before I go on to show that these corps - thru the DMCA and other measures - are in fact attempting to use the Law to force citizens [corps like the term "consumer" but for obvious reasons I reject that moniker in this case] to purchase their product regardless of the quality of the product or the desire of the [alleged] consumer for that product - that one item is this: No corporation has any inherent Right to the output of my work, nor to my property, nor to anything which is inherently Mine. [note that this applies also to individuals, but I am using "coroporation" here to a point]
If you cannot agree to that, then you may as well just run your "debunk" script on the rest of this a move on, but I suspect that [despite your assertion that you live in that weenie commie Switzerland place] you might agree that you do in fact have a right to own your own property?
Very well then.
Allow me to present to you the reality of the [television] media biz:
The TV biz does not market shit to you, the consumer. they market you the consumer to the companies that buy the advertising.
They, the media companies, draw you into "their" audience by offering you something they suspect (rightly or wrongly) you will watch. Then, once they have established [thru the raitings systems] that you are watching, they sell the fact that you are watching to other corporations. You are their audience, whcih is the actual product they produce. Their product is not content, since they do not get paid directly for any content - they get paid for providing viewers to companies like Coke, Pepsi, McD's, Budwieser, et al. That's it. It's very simple. Thier cash flow is from the advertisers, not from the viewers.
Do you get it yet?
Actually, no. They are in denial. They are asserting that "you are watching" and that if you don't, they will sue you, or charge you criminally. That is a bit different from addressing the problems inherent in their business models. Quite different.
If their goal was to get you to pay for content, they could just charge you directly, as many of the non-mainstream media outfits do. The resort to legistlation is a complete non-sequiter to prevent them [the networks] from bearing liability to their actual customers - to wit: the corps who are paying for the ads.
If the network sells ads, and you do not [that is: they cannot force you to] watch, the media corp could [arguably] be considered in violation of the contract with their advertisers. A real contract. They are attempting to shift their own liability to their hapless victims - the audience. This too, is a red herring, though, as we shall see...
It might make sense to look at the contract between Coke and NBC [randomly selected examples].
Coke pays NBC to broadcast some ad over it's network during some time when NBC is claiming some-
It's called: "a binding 'None of the Above' ballot option" - combine that with a multiparty - not just two party - electoral system. Not something we can expect to see in the US, given the prevailing system and it's accompaniant propaganda.
Bingo. I don't remember who first said it, but it's more true now than ever: "If you're not outraged, you're just not paying attention."
Maybe hell. The tea's gettin cold, and the crumpets are stale.
A brave thought - let's see - guesstimate that - say 100 million people - anted up the $100 (assuming they didn't buy DVDs or CDs that year, and didn't d/l any so they didn't have to spend it on lawyers fees and court costs and replacing confiscated equipment), that's, what $100 x 100,000,000 is about $100,000,000,000. What's that, a billion? Okay, now lets compare that to the lobbying budget of Time Warner or Arista or [Goddess forbid] the combined lobbying budget of RIAA or MPAA.... shit, man, those fuckkers pay more than a billion in ONE DAY for ads during the superbowl.
I did. Any other ideas?
Stockpiling ammunition. The soapbox, the ballot box, and the jury box haven't been performing up to expectations.
You'd do better to ask "who's already doing that" - find out and join them. Places to start looking? eff.org, the Center for Democracy and Technology - there are quite a few people already in this, if you start looking. You just have to get past being distracted by the "bi-partisan", mono-cultural hooey that is thrown up like chaff to confuse your radar ... try some phrases in google like "sustainable economies".
None of this stuff is new, people, and none of it is rocket science. Just quit buying the Lies they're selling you.
Something like, say, the Green Party tried in 2000? Care to play again?
You say that as though it were a bad thing.... you don't have to "give me" that my remarks are passionate - you better damn well beleieve it, or I will notch it up a bit ;)
That's a really excellent question, and I'm glad you asked it. Here's the answer:
If I remember my undergrad economics course correctly (any of you youngsters who've had the course recently can jump in here if I get this wrong), the way the US economy - or any economy where the buyer is considered to have a choice in these matters - is supposed to work is that - in the scenario you present (i.e. no one watches the ads) the company is unable to pay for the content and hence either a) changes it's business model [it's approach to the customer - that is YOU] or b) goes out of business (and rightly so, since no one wants to pay for their lame crap).
Questions?
Please fully understand that it IS NOT ILLEGAL for customers NOT TO BUY.
At least, not yet (unless you're talking about insurance - which is a whole nuther debate which goes directly to "rackets", "protection money", "gangsters", "thugs" and other words you may - or may not - have heard me throw around before).
Not even if it means the demise of the corporation. Corporations, like people must evolve or die. This particular group of corporations is inbreedin with govt, and should be exterminated to protect the overall health of the [citizen] economy.
This is horseshit. Firstly, there is a literally infinite pool of business models, both extant and theoretical, which obviate the "networks" from charging the viewer - not that I take execption to your defacto characterization of viewers as consumers - they are not (necesarily) although I'm sure the networks think of them that way.
Sencondly - the promise of cable television in the first place (I was there, I remember) was that we would PAY to have NO COMMERCIALS. Doh. Guess what? They lied. They got greedy. And they swill the spew hasn't improved one iota for it. In fact, it has arguably gone from bad to worse - especially in the realm of news. Look up "Walter Cronkite" some time - maybe throw the word "journalism" into your google search. Even the amatuers in the field now-a-days - posting to the Internet, generally - remain truer to the ideal than anything that's been on television in decades.
Frankly, I'm not even interested in watching anything on cable that I have to pay for - either in cash or by viewing "commercials" - other than maybe Adult Swim or some of Comedy Centrals' programming - and I'd MUCH rather simply pay them a subscription fee than sit thru hours of mindless bullshit ads for a night of entertainment.
Also: remember that there was at one time a government mandate that certain types of content should be expempt from the exigencies of the market - namely: news. News was supposed to be "neutral", "unbiased", and basically "free". Are you old enough to remember that era? I am, and believe you me, it is sorely missed in this era of propaganda, bullshit, and more bullshit. Pay for this shit? You have got to be kidding. If I could eliminate these so called "entertainment" corps with a stroke of the pen, I would do so at once - let those pathetic lamers go out and get real jobs like the rest of us. [aformentioned exceptions excepted].
Bottom line, man: I don't mind paying for the entertainment and news that I want - but I want to pay for it directly, and I want to get what I pay for. As things stand now, not only is what I want not on the market,
The tags I've run across that seem to apply are "corporate hegemony" and [easier to grasp intuitively, imo] "corporatocracy" - basically "government by corporation" [thanks to Ralph Nader during the 2000 elections for introducing many of us to that one].
Of course, when we had government by, for, and of the corporations in the 1930s, we called it "fascism" or "The Third Reich".
Of course, to me it's all just a bunch of a ripe shit, and begging for some patriots to don some ninja masks and start chucking boatloads of crappy DVDs and CDs off the pacific rim together with the players that play them...
That bears repitition and understanding, imo. THe sooner most of the people understand that one simple statement, the sooner the gansters and thugs (govt and industry) will go up against the wall, the sooner we will return to a [natural] state of freedom - or at least something that resembles it more than the current [thought] police state. IMO.
Look, shifty, I understand your point, but there are a couple of items here that you seem to have a slightly distorted view of....
First, I am constrained to point out that this shit never hits the news - mainstream or otherwise - until after it's been made law. I don't know i you're new to this debate, or what, but it was on this forum that I first became aware of the DMCA (and UCITA, which no one talks about much anymore, it seems, but is still as henious as it ever was) - and yes, there were many of us VOTERS who were deceieved into thinking that our voices (to our "representatives", or our "votes" mattered. Fool me once?
Well, if you're not aware by now just how futile the so called "voting" process is in the US, you're just not paying attention - we have a president that has served some 6 years now without ever having been constitutionally elected the first time. Duh.
And you think whining about DMCA made a difference? Obviously not, since I probably still have the emails I sent about it sitting on some mothballed server somewhere.... Money talks, freind, and trust me: unless you're e.g. El Senor Gates or of his ilk, then the gangsters and thugs running RIAA/MPAA have more of it that all of us combined. Even if you haven't realised that yet, you can bet your lilly white ass that your "elected" "representives" know it better than they know their own wives' titties...
I have one word for you about the above (and I don't mean this antagonisticly, despite what you may think): Fuck you, buddy.
I doubt very seriously you could collect a dozen members of slashdot - let alone the less geeky forums - who would profess anything even remotely resembling "everything should be free" - I personally make my living and support my family off sales and manipulations of intellectual properties and the related services - software, music, and language (writing). I think I am far more representative of a majority of persons involved in this debate than your postulated individual who "thinks everything should be free." Again, I surmise that you are a) new to the debate, and b) have gotten more exposure to the "everyone who doesn't agree that we should be in charge is a crackpot" doctine of the RIAA/MPAA thugs than to any sane rationale on this topic. I don't hold that against you, I just pooint it out because your arguement is pretty fukking lame...
Dude/tte, I am "the contacts" you make in the industry - know what I mean, huh?
Been there. Done that. Got that T-shirt. Got the video. Got the court decision. Didn't work. Sorry, try again. Evidently you don't know who you're talking to here, or precisely whatyou're talking about - what do you think slashdot is if not a way to "tell every one you know?" ....
Huh. Well, (Flaming != (!helping)), either; and Flaming == counter-productive is just bullshit. Our coroprate overlords fear public discontent far more than they fear your pathetic "votes" or "calls to your congressperson". If you don't believe that, spend a moment in a board meeting with them. You can do that if you acquire the shares - know what i mean?
I suggest that you consider that critizing and berating persons who are expressing their outrage at the rapine and pillage being visited on their Divinely granted Rights and Liberties is sure as HELL not helping.
Again, not trying t
It is fascinating to me that I often see comments like this one posted more or less anonymously - the common thread being that all such posting never reference the alleged company that employs the alleged telecommuters. I can't help but contrast these remarks with job requirements postings to job boards where telecommuting is pretty much a dirty word - in 10 years I have yet to find a [legitimate] hiring company that admits to allowing work to be performed offsite. I'm sure this will generate a some virulent disagreement, but I remain a bit annoyed that in specificly seeking work that can be performed "from home" since 1993, I have yet to talk to the first company who would even discuss it seriously in an interview - in fact, it usually signals and end to the interview when the point is raised (usually in answer to the "what is your ideal working environment" question). Perhaps I'm just a sub-par employee, or perhaps I'm talking to the wrong people, but despite all the hype, I can only say that in the US job market of which I am aware, telecommute positions for software developers do not exist. For my part: the problem is not the people, it's the corporations. They cannot function at any level beyond basic micromanagement - regardless of any and all productivity and profitability studies. Just my [jaded] 2 cents worth...