Sony's protection scheme also includes (stupid) region locking like DVDs. For example, Japanese games (real ones, not CDR pirated ones) won't play on a US playstation and vice-versa. The only way around this is to (1) Buy a playstation from each region, or (2) Modify 1 playstation so it can play games from all regions. (2) is simpler, cheaper and still legal, stupid legislators notwithstanding. Lawyers make the engineers come up with all this region stuff. I am not a pirate. I pay for my imports and just want to play cool games now and not wait for a local port, which for lots of games, may never happen at all. Tokimeki Memorial is the US? It'll never happen.
BTW, am I alone in thinking that if the CD audio format were just being released now that it would have some sort of region lock-out scheme?
A camera was installed along a highway to "improve public safety". A couple of weeks later, the camera stopped sending a signal back. County workers were dispatched to investigate. The camera had been shot to pieces with a scatter gun. The camera was replaced. Two days later it had been shot up again. And again it was replaced. After the third time it was blown to bits, the county decided that it was more expense than it was worth and it never appeared again.
First shot fired! The Great Battle has begun!
on
Rumours
·
· Score: 1
This is it. At first they ignored us. Next, they casually dismissed us as a bunch of high-school hacker types. Then they tolerated our existance, but never openly accepted us. But soon, our software found its way into the big companies everywhere via back door channels because our stuffed worked and worked well. Then a few brave but small commercial software houses, such as Applixware and the startup Netscape, announced support for us and ported their products to our platform. And, as the heads turned, the big boys started to realize the fantastic power we have created and they came to our side. Big names like HP and IBM. But then another big player made the decision to stop and stand against us. A monolithic last bastion of stubbornness. The last stand of the great Dinosours. This is history in the making folks. Our grandchildren will read of our great movement and of events unfolding right now before our very eyes. The clock has reached zero. The lines are drawn. The blades unsheathed. And so... the Great Battle... begins.
...because no law can get overturned and stricken from the books until it is challenged in court, and the court rules the law to be invalid.
Cases brought by the gov't are often dropped if they threaten to result is certain laws being taken off of the books. An example are anti-bigomy laws (which define marriage as a union of exactly two people). When people of islamic/mormon/etc. faith get the gov't after them for violating bigomy laws, they *always* eventually back down if they fail to intimidate the involved parties to dissolve their marriage (at least on paper). Why? Because anti-bigomy laws flie in the face of Amendment I: "Freedom of Religion" Now gov't wants to look good by keeping these laws around. And they make sure they stay there by never letting them go to trial.
When a product has evolved into it's final form and there's no new technological evolution for it to undergo, producers start re-releasing them in things like "designer colors" or "ergonomic designs" or "glow in the dark cases" etc. Telephones are another good example. Cars too (how old is the internal combustion engine?). For the first time in a long time PC hardware performance is waaay ahead of software demand such that even cheap PCs can run pretty much everything most users want to run. So here comes the senseless bells and whistles.
Just keep my PC in a regular rectangular box. I don't wants no steenking rounded windswept case designs. Just a full tower with lots of bays for CDroms, tape drives, pull out HD trays, the ol' 5.25in floppy, and room for all their cables. I hate modern cramped PC cases.
BTW, I'm the one who sent this question to Ask Slashdot.
I live in Las Vegas, Nevada, and yes, temperatures in the trunk can reach 100C(212F) in the trunk when the car is parked out in the sun in the summer months when it is 115F outside. The highest temp I recorded in the trunk is 221F, according to my oven thermometer (which I tested for accuracy). Yes, this is above the boiling point of water. Were it not for the antifreeze, the radiator in a parked car with the engine off would boil over (and does for lots of tourists not prepared for the heat!). Welcome to the desert!
Silly side note: The local news ran a story about this woman who bakes cookies in her car during the summer. She puts the cookie dough on a pan and sets the pan on the dash of her parked car while she's at work, a little later in the day, yummy cookies for the office staff! I kid you not!
BTW, I'm the one who sent this question to Ask Slashdot.
I live in Las Vegas, Nevada, and yes, temperatures in the trunk can reach 100C(212F) in the trunk when the car is parked out in the sun in the summer months when it is 115F outside. The highest temp I recorded in the trunk is 221F, according to my gallium thermometer. Yes, this is above the boiling point of water. Were it not for the antifreeze, the radiator in a parked car with the engine off would boil over (and does for lots of tourists not prepared for the heat!). Welcome to the desert!
Silly side note: The local news ran a story about this woman who bakes cookies in her car during the summer. She puts the cookie dough on a pan and sets the pan on the dash of her parked car while she's at work, a little later in the day, yummy cookies for the office staff! I kid you not!
>The only problem here is that Sony is making money from the PlayStation. >Emulators for these game systems *might* technically be illegal
I think not. Atari was still making money off of 2600 systems when Coleco came up with their add-on 2600 emulator. Atari sued and lost. Hence, the precenent was set that emulators are not illegal.
All that can really still be an issue is how Connectix handled the PlayStation BIOS. If it's an unlicensed verbatim copy, Connectix will be in trouble. If it's a compatible substitute written from the ground up then they're OK just like BIOSs in PC clones are not grounds for lawsuits anymore.
Cassette tapes are still widespread for one simple reason:
They can record and re-record, easily.
Even CDRs have not replaced the cassette for this because (1) The recording process is still too complex for Consumer Joe Schmuck to execute and (2) CDRW's don't work in most CD players and (3) The usual CDRW packetized re-recording format isn't understood by any audio CD decks and (4) The tech is still bulky (compare to microcassette recorders for lectures) and (5) the recording process is power hungry (no CDR portable recorders).
Considering that CDs came out almost 20 years ago. I don't see VHS going away for at least another 20 years as well.
When I see handheld DVD camcorders for $500, I'll believe that VHS will die.
if they're within US borders. I'm serious. I requested them to mail me a broadcast schedule once, and they refused to do it unless (1) you reside outside the US, or (2) you plan to travel outside the US. Americans aren't even supposed to listen to VOA at home. So lame.
So that innovation can be freely shared and built upon to improve technology in general after it's inventor has cashed in on his own genius.
Should this not be how it works for copyright law too?
Also, software ages at an incredible rate and its copyright should expire after no more than 20 years. Who benefits today from Atari 2600 Combat beinf officially locked for all practical eternity by current copyright law?
Heaven knows what classified secrets they may have already heard and absorbed. I guess the NSA will have to line up all the "exposed" furbies against a wall and have them shot, or incinerated, or microwaved, etc.
"I'm sorry Billy, but the Furby has to be put to sleep now for reasons of national security..."
Hmm. I wonder if that Furby in the White House can be subpoeneaed to testify before the Senate in the Clinton impeachment trial?!
OK, this was an emulator in hardware, and some of the chips were pretty standard (like the 6502 CPU), but it was an emulator nonetheless. Atari sued Coleco, of course, and lost. Hence, this set the precedent that emulators are legal. You can patent ASICs and board layouts. You can copyright the software (BIOS in the case of the PSX) but you can neither patent nor copyright the functionality. This was all settled a long time ago. Only lawyers stand to gain anything from this action.
This is what also protects WINE, SoftPC, MAME (the emulator, not the ROMs), Linux (a UNIX clone, ne?)
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Sony's protection scheme also includes (stupid) region locking like DVDs. For example, Japanese games (real ones, not CDR pirated ones) won't play on a US playstation and vice-versa. The only way around this is to (1) Buy a playstation from each region, or (2) Modify 1 playstation so it can play games from all regions. (2) is simpler, cheaper and still legal, stupid legislators notwithstanding. Lawyers make the engineers come up with all this region stuff. I am not a pirate. I pay for my imports and just want to play cool games now and not wait for a local port, which for lots of games, may never happen at all. Tokimeki Memorial is the US? It'll never happen.
BTW, am I alone in thinking that if the CD audio format were just being released now that it would have some sort of region lock-out scheme?
A camera was installed along a highway to "improve public safety". A couple of weeks later, the camera stopped sending a signal back. County workers were dispatched to investigate. The camera had been shot to pieces with a scatter gun. The camera was replaced. Two days later it had been shot up again. And again it was replaced. After the third time it was blown to bits, the county decided that it was more expense than it was worth and it never appeared again.
This is it. At first they ignored us. Next, they casually dismissed us as a bunch of high-school hacker types. Then they tolerated our existance, but never openly accepted us. But soon, our software found its way into the big companies everywhere via back door channels because our stuffed worked and worked well. Then a few brave but small commercial software houses, such as Applixware and the startup Netscape, announced support for us and ported their products to our platform. And, as the heads turned, the big boys started to realize the fantastic power we have created and they came to our side. Big names like HP and IBM. But then another big player made the decision to stop and stand against us. A monolithic last bastion of stubbornness. The last stand of the great Dinosours. This is history in the making folks. Our grandchildren will read of our great movement and of events unfolding right now before our very eyes. The clock has reached zero. The lines are drawn. The blades unsheathed. And so... the Great Battle... begins.
...because no law can get overturned and stricken from the books until it is challenged in court, and the court rules the law to be invalid.
Cases brought by the gov't are often dropped if they threaten to result is certain laws being taken off of the books. An example are anti-bigomy laws (which define marriage as a union of exactly two people). When people of islamic/mormon/etc. faith get the gov't after them for violating bigomy laws, they *always* eventually back down if they fail to intimidate the involved parties to dissolve their marriage (at least on paper). Why? Because anti-bigomy laws flie in the face of Amendment I: "Freedom of Religion" Now gov't wants to look good by keeping these laws around. And they make sure they stay there by never letting them go to trial.
When a product has evolved into it's final form and there's no new technological evolution for it to undergo, producers start re-releasing them in things like "designer colors" or "ergonomic designs" or "glow in the dark cases" etc. Telephones are another good example. Cars too (how old is the internal combustion engine?). For the first time in a long time PC hardware performance is waaay ahead of software demand such that even cheap PCs can run pretty much everything most users want to run. So here comes the senseless bells and whistles.
Just keep my PC in a regular rectangular box. I don't wants no steenking rounded windswept case designs. Just a full tower with lots of bays for CDroms, tape drives, pull out HD trays, the ol' 5.25in floppy, and room for all their cables. I hate modern cramped PC cases.
BTW, I'm the one who sent this question to Ask Slashdot.
I live in Las Vegas, Nevada, and yes, temperatures in the trunk can reach 100C(212F) in the trunk when the car is parked out in the sun in the summer months when it is 115F outside. The highest temp I recorded in the trunk is 221F, according to my oven thermometer (which I tested for accuracy). Yes, this is above the boiling point of water. Were it not for the antifreeze, the radiator in a parked car with the engine off would boil over (and does for lots of tourists not prepared for the heat!). Welcome to the desert!
Silly side note: The local news ran a story about this woman who bakes cookies in her car during the summer. She puts the cookie dough on a pan and sets the pan on the dash of her parked car while she's at work, a little later in the day, yummy cookies for the office staff! I kid you not!
BTW, I'm the one who sent this question to Ask Slashdot.
I live in Las Vegas, Nevada, and yes, temperatures in the trunk can reach 100C(212F) in the trunk when the car is parked out in the sun in the summer months when it is 115F outside. The highest temp I recorded in the trunk is 221F, according to my gallium thermometer. Yes, this is above the boiling point of water. Were it not for the antifreeze, the radiator in a parked car with the engine off would boil over (and does for lots of tourists not prepared for the heat!). Welcome to the desert!
Silly side note: The local news ran a story about this woman who bakes cookies in her car during the summer. She puts the cookie dough on a pan and sets the pan on the dash of her parked car while she's at work, a little later in the day, yummy cookies for the office staff! I kid you not!
>The only problem here is that Sony is making money from the PlayStation.
>Emulators for these game systems *might* technically be illegal
I think not. Atari was still making money off of 2600 systems when Coleco came up with their add-on 2600 emulator. Atari sued and lost. Hence, the precenent was set that emulators are not illegal.
All that can really still be an issue is how Connectix handled the PlayStation BIOS. If it's an unlicensed verbatim copy, Connectix will be in trouble. If it's a compatible substitute written from the ground up then they're OK just like BIOSs in PC clones are not grounds for lawsuits anymore.
They can record and re-record, easily.
Even CDRs have not replaced the cassette for this because (1) The recording process is still too complex for Consumer Joe Schmuck to execute and (2) CDRW's don't work in most CD players and (3) The usual CDRW packetized re-recording format isn't understood by any audio CD decks and (4) The tech is still bulky (compare to microcassette recorders for lectures) and (5) the recording process is power hungry (no CDR portable recorders).
Considering that CDs came out almost 20 years ago. I don't see VHS going away for at least another 20 years as well.
When I see handheld DVD camcorders for $500, I'll believe that VHS will die.
if they're within US borders. I'm serious. I requested them to mail me a broadcast schedule once, and they refused to do it unless (1) you reside outside the US, or (2) you plan to travel outside the US. Americans aren't even supposed to listen to VOA at home. So lame.
The company is not dead yet so if they own the copyright, then this whole Disney angle is moot.
So that innovation can be freely shared and built upon to improve technology in general after it's inventor has cashed in on his own genius.
Should this not be how it works for copyright law too?
Also, software ages at an incredible rate and its copyright should expire after no more than 20 years. Who benefits today from Atari 2600 Combat beinf officially locked for all practical eternity by current copyright law?
Heaven knows what classified secrets they may have already heard and absorbed. I guess the NSA will have to line up all the "exposed" furbies against a wall and have them shot, or incinerated, or microwaved, etc.
"I'm sorry Billy, but the Furby has to be put to sleep now for reasons of national security..."
Hmm. I wonder if that Furby in the White House can be subpoeneaed to testify before the Senate in the Clinton impeachment trial?!
OK, this was an emulator in hardware, and some of the chips were pretty standard (like the 6502 CPU), but it was an emulator nonetheless. Atari sued Coleco, of course, and lost. Hence, this set the precedent that emulators are legal. You can patent ASICs and board layouts. You can copyright the software (BIOS in the case of the PSX) but you can neither patent nor copyright the functionality. This was all settled a long time ago. Only lawyers stand to gain anything from this action.
This is what also protects WINE, SoftPC, MAME (the emulator, not the ROMs), Linux (a UNIX clone, ne?)