The US created no such thing don't let your jingoism get the better of you just because the signing took place in the US. 50 countries decided to try again (the first attempt being "The League of Nations" established in 1919 under the Treaty of Versailles)
I understand what you mean though. The U.N. has done a good bit of adapting since its primary purpose fell apart. One part you didn't quite get right though: "Unless things change with the way the US does business, it's going to find itself alone when bad things start to happen." That "alone" you speak of isn't going to be economic, we're just too loaded with resources. No, it's likely going to be if the U.S. removes all the other countries.
Proving you don't understand what he ment - he wasn't talking about resources (most of which are outside your country anyway) but that in the eyes of the majority of the planet the US have been behaving like the neighborhood bully, not listening to anybody, always believing himself to be right and beating up anybody who gets in the way.
Have you looked for an end-user license agreement in a store?
Looking would do no good since there are none in the stores. And for it to be a contract one should be presented with at the point of purchase.
The market will decide whether EULA enforcment is good or bad based on how it spends money.
No - the market takes into consideration what it can do, that what they are allowed to do under some law. Most everybody know they can get a nocd crack on the internet or from friends and so they ignore the attempts at copyright protection. If they *couldn't* get those, then there would have been an uproar.
The only people who seem to be having problems with EULA enforcement are the folks who don't pay for the software, and they really aren't part of the market.
Usupported postulation.
So, let's see. If someone has a toll bridge, [snip]
No lets not see - this is essentially strawman argumentation: Just invent something else and attack that. It is not relevant.
Half-life 2 doesn't freeze when it needs to spin the CD[snip]
A lot of Slashdotters know of Babylon 5. Then the producer JMS was asked to do a spinoff called Crusade (which i think had potential) but it was quickly cancled. Why? Well fans had their ideas, but recently at a convention, when asked if Crusade would be out on DVD, JMS said that he would only be interested in working with them if he would be allowed to tell the truth on the DVD's, when asked what the truth was, he had this to tell:
JMS: I want the real truth to come out. Including the fact...I ran into some guys who worked for TNT about two years after Crusade went down. And they said, "Did you ever hear the rest of the story?" JMS: "What rest of the story?" TNT guys: "We found out, we did a research survey, a five year long study of our ratings. This was just after Crusade got going. And, we found out that the audience for B5 came for B5, then left afterward. And the TNT regular viewers didn't stick around for B5 and went away and came back. B5 wasn't adding to our viewer base." So...they decided to pull the plug on Crusade for that reason and use the money to buy another show. But they couldn't say that because they'd be in breach of contract with Warner Bros. So their job was to make it impossible for us so they could then say, "We aren't getting the show we want, our notes aren't being dealt with, therefore we aren't responsible, we're canceling the show, this is your nut Warner Bros., you take care of it." That is why all the notes became so egregious. If I had given them everything they wanted, they still would have pulled the plug. They just wanted out. Yeah, I want that information out there. (Audience: We'll take care of that) On the DVDs."
... on a minor note, the people who did the special effects for Firefly also do the effects for the new BSG - which means, the occasional out of focus space shot, cameramen a bit slow in tracking the action, the odd wild zoom when something 'unexpected' happens etc.
You don't like it, thats your opinion. I don't get whats with you adolescents who feel the need to snipe at anyone and everyone who expresses an opinion about something simply to harass them.
Basic psychology, they feel insecure and unsure of own worth and when they hear an option which is different from theirs, they don't have the mental ballast and self assuredness to simply see it as another opinion, they feel it means they ARE WRONG, and that it makes them less - ie, they feel threatened by it and feel they must violently try to tear it down. Of course this insecurity can be present at any age it depends on the maturing process the individual has been through.
It wasn't just the two first episodes that were shown out of order, a lot of them where. And unfortunately many sites (like tvtome) just list them in the Fox broadcast order which was not the intented order.
Of course this only matters if you are downloading the series.... or if you are a foreign station checking the order:-/
They invest huge amounts of money for THEIR sake not ours - because they know they have an immoral law that can allow them to make even more money back for a job done only once.
You didn't answer because you don't have a logical answer. Because there's no logical reason to think that software companies spend money on anti-piracy just so that they can piss off users. What do they get out of it? Hint: it has something to do with piracy.
Duh - perhaps some idiot lawyers think it prevents pirating, but here is a hint for you, mr idiot - it never has - its just gets cracked and they move merrily along.
There was an excellent example with Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament: Q3 had heavy duty encryption on its servers and according to ID it was never cracked, UT had some lame diskcheck which was cracked on the afternoon of its release. Yet UT sold much much more.
Moral of the story: Most things in the so called "intellectual property" genre is utter crap and therefore does not sell that well - but that which is quality does. End of lesson.
You still haven't answered the question: How are software companies making MORE profit by implementing anti-piracy measures that themselves cost money to implement? Why are they doing this when they know users are going to be annoyed (=lost profit)?
Because they know that the users are going to find cracks and won't be sufficiently annoyed to stop buying the products.
So software companies use activation on a product that NO ONE is forced to buy.
Because software activation is amoral and WRONG. Just like slavery is wrong and won't go away just because you say "well don't own slaves then" - and this is slavery
What I don't understand is why you resent the company rather than the thieves who've forced companies to take this position.
No - they must take resposibility. Nobody FORCED them to do anything, they are making a ton of money as it is - their greed causes them to think they could make much more by amoral means. They deserve all they get.
Story contents aside, why wouldn't michael just post that IN THE FORUM? I think the objection here essentially lies in his ego being so large to think that his opinion is so important that it needs to be in the article text as opposed to posting a comment like us underlings get to do. Forget about Half-Life, forget about steam - the editors are abusing their privilages by posting their personal comments where they don't belong.
Have you SEEN how many replies this thread has generated? This is clearly headline news, everybody has a strong opinion about it...
"People are discovering that when you buy any product that is subject to "activation", you haven't really bought anything. "
What the hell do you expect them to do then Michael?
Just use CD keys and get over it - Nobody ever cracked ID's Quake 3 servers - it was too hard.
Is Valve just supposed to put up with tens of thousands of people playing their game without paying for it?
1. People have cracked it and are playing 2. They get more money than they deserve as it is, so stop being so damn greedy.
So does this mean I can find some way to hack the Slashdot premium membership database and just start giving away premium memberships to whomever wants one? Would that be OK with you?
Though you are right, a case could be made for him being a hypocrite;)
A company like Valve has to try and keep their product from being blatently stolen.
You can't steal digital products. You can only steal something you actually touch.
You said "People are discovering that when you buy any product that is subject to "activation", you haven't really bought anything." OK, let's play this game "You bought a product license, you haven't really bought anything". That's not a true statement: You buy the right to use the product, which is the good you paid for.
This is not a "good" you bought.
It may not be the good you THOUGHT you paid for, but then again, you do read the end-user licenses, right?
They don't show it to you in the stores.
All product activation does is enforce the license. Oops...you don't want license enforcement. That's fine. Find another game then. The market will decide if this technology is a good idea or not.
The market has decided: 99% think that EULA's are nonsense that are not legally valid and don't agree to anything.
Unlike the vast majority of the people here who don't like Steam, I actually do believe in giving people money for what they produce. I think people deserve to be compensated for their work.
Well, i don't think they have a right to get paid over and over and over and over and over and over again for at job done ONCE - if steam was designed such way that each time a copy was sold they reduced the price a bit then perhaps we were on our way to something fair, but as it is - only imoral.
And I think the "but I don't like swapping CD's" argument is thin, at best, and more likely it's an outright lie.
That's probably because you lie yourself all the time, liars tend to think everybody lies.
It's a stupid argument all the way around.
No, its just an argument you do agree with(Windows seems to freeze everytime it has to spin on the CD to see whats in it, so there is a good reason there as well.)
this is about a game we all want to play freely, without this activation junk
Well, you may want to do that (and there is a cracked version out there you can go find if that is what you) but most of us wanto BUY a game as OUR property, not all this imoral nonsense about intellectual propery and activation crap.
But still, most people here see that Valve is acting within it's rights.
They are acting within the law, but they have no right.
That's a pretty strong indicator
That the law is corrupt and dictated by the rich - yeah, it sure is.
Duped into buying a license? Have you (legally) bought any software that wasn't licensed? Companies don't sell software; they never have. They sell the license to use their software. You don't own Windows, or Half-Life, or any other copyrighted software; you're bound by the license agreement, and all you own is what that agreement gives you.
Except 99.99% of the buyers of the world do NOT agree with that. They bought it - its theirs. And if push comes to shove, they sure as hell will push down the immoral craps who inforce this travesty.
Activation is what you have a problem with, and that exists because people are dishonest. Activation is an attempt to make the "cost" of pirating a game higher than the cost of actually buying--if you still think the games are too expense, stop buying.
Yeah, that's like say "If you think owning slaves is wrong, then don't own any slaves!" - doesn't work that way.
uhm... yes... they should pay you for reading the document that tells you what the rules are for using their property...
Property is something you can touch (and only sell once) - the current perversion of the law is just a proof that money can buy other things than property.
No, they won't pay you for these things... but there is no reason for them too... get it, read the EULA if you wish, and then return it if you don't like it... the return process will probably take no more than 30 minutes, if you have to wait a long time and then have to go buy the necessary stamps or whatever. It's been this way for a long time... only now you actually have to play by the rules.
No, the EULA has always been amoral and not legally valid - now may be the time to really test this in countries around the world. Or more likely people will just find cracks and avoid those of bad morals.
You agree to it before you download it via steam. If you purchase the box, read the EULA and still disagree with it
Why should we? Its not legally valid.
click "I Disagree" and call Valve saying you disagree with their EULA and would like a full refund for the game. You can send them the game and they will refund the purchase price.
Slashdot Mirror
"Our goal is not to prosecute the individual, our goal is
World domination - check.
So the U.S. creates an organization
The US created no such thing don't let your jingoism get the better of you just because the signing took place in the US. 50 countries decided to try again (the first attempt being "The League of Nations" established in 1919 under the Treaty of Versailles)
I understand what you mean though. The U.N. has done a good bit of adapting since its primary purpose fell apart. One part you didn't quite get right though: "Unless things change with the way the US does business, it's going to find itself alone when bad things start to happen." That "alone" you speak of isn't going to be economic, we're just too loaded with resources. No, it's likely going to be if the U.S. removes all the other countries.
Proving you don't understand what he ment - he wasn't talking about resources (most of which are outside your country anyway) but that in the eyes of the majority of the planet the US have been behaving like the neighborhood bully, not listening to anybody, always believing himself to be right and beating up anybody who gets in the way.
Have you looked for an end-user license agreement in a store?
Looking would do no good since there are none in the stores. And for it to be a contract one should be presented with at the point of purchase.
The market will decide whether EULA enforcment is good or bad based on how it spends money.
No - the market takes into consideration what it can do, that what they are allowed to do under some law. Most everybody know they can get a nocd crack on the internet or from friends and so they ignore the attempts at copyright protection. If they *couldn't* get those, then there would have been an uproar.
The only people who seem to be having problems with EULA enforcement are the folks who don't pay for the software, and they really aren't part of the market.
Usupported postulation.
So, let's see. If someone has a toll bridge, [snip]
No lets not see - this is essentially strawman argumentation: Just invent something else and attack that. It is not relevant.
Half-life 2 doesn't freeze when it needs to spin the CD[snip]
Irrelevant since I didn't mention Half-Life 2
Sorry, but looking at what everyone is saying, and what gets modded up in general, most people agree that Valve is in the right.
I don't agree.
When I said I wanted to play it freely, I did not mean without paying for it.
I know, but when you make stupid sweeping generalisation, it deserves a verbal wrist slap.
By the way, I didn't know patent and copyright law was immoral. Is it?
Yes. Or at least the way it has been twisted over the last few centuries.
Also, you are not buying the game.
And *THAT* is why its wildly immoral.
Granted, you think protecting one's property is immoral
Not with real property no.
Again, who are you to determine what rights Valve has?
Who are you to limit my rights to have an opinion?
I'd say the people who you elected are a better judge of their rights than you.
Then i'd say you are a dangerous individual who shouldn't have the right to vote.
... on a minor note, the people who did the special effects for Firefly also do the effects for the new BSG - which means, the occasional out of focus space shot, cameramen a bit slow in tracking the action, the odd wild zoom when something 'unexpected' happens etc.
You don't like it, thats your opinion. I don't get whats with you adolescents who feel the need to snipe at anyone and everyone who expresses an opinion about something simply to harass them.
Basic psychology, they feel insecure and unsure of own worth and when they hear an option which is different from theirs, they don't have the mental ballast and self assuredness to simply see it as another opinion, they feel it means they ARE WRONG, and that it makes them less - ie, they feel threatened by it and feel they must violently try to tear it down. Of course this insecurity can be present at any age it depends on the maturing process the individual has been through.
It wasn't just the two first episodes that were shown out of order, a lot of them where. And unfortunately many sites (like tvtome) just list them in the Fox broadcast order which was not the intented order.
:-/
Of course this only matters if you are downloading the series.... or if you are a foreign station checking the order
after investing huge amounts of money
They invest huge amounts of money for THEIR sake not ours - because they know they have an immoral law that can allow them to make even more money back for a job done only once.
You didn't answer because you don't have a logical answer. Because there's no logical reason to think that software companies spend money on anti-piracy just so that they can piss off users. What do they get out of it? Hint: it has something to do with piracy.
Duh - perhaps some idiot lawyers think it prevents pirating, but here is a hint for you, mr idiot - it never has - its just gets cracked and they move merrily along.
There was an excellent example with Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament: Q3 had heavy duty encryption on its servers and according to ID it was never cracked, UT had some lame diskcheck which was cracked on the afternoon of its release. Yet UT sold much much more.
Moral of the story: Most things in the so called "intellectual property" genre is utter crap and therefore does not sell that well - but that which is quality does. End of lesson.
You still haven't answered the question: How are software companies making MORE profit by implementing anti-piracy measures that themselves cost money to implement? Why are they doing this when they know users are going to be annoyed (=lost profit)?
Because they know that the users are going to find cracks and won't be sufficiently annoyed to stop buying the products.
So software companies use activation on a product that NO ONE is forced to buy.
Because software activation is amoral and WRONG. Just like slavery is wrong and won't go away just because you say "well don't own slaves then" - and this is slavery
What I don't understand is why you resent the company rather than the thieves who've forced companies to take this position.
No - they must take resposibility. Nobody FORCED them to do anything, they are making a ton of money as it is - their greed causes them to think they could make much more by amoral means. They deserve all they get.
Story contents aside, why wouldn't michael just post that IN THE FORUM? I think the objection here essentially lies in his ego being so large to think that his opinion is so important that it needs to be in the article text as opposed to posting a comment like us underlings get to do. Forget about Half-Life, forget about steam - the editors are abusing their privilages by posting their personal comments where they don't belong.
Have you SEEN how many replies this thread has generated? This is clearly headline news, everybody has a strong opinion about it...
"People are discovering that when you buy any
/. in a long time;
product that is subject to "activation", you
haven't really bought anything."
OK? That's the stupidest thing I've read on
Well kid, if you have a problem facts then perhaps you shouldn't read slashdot.
so Valve decided that to attempt to crack down on piracy
Bullshit. They are trying to make everybody a slave - the damn has long since been cracked and is out there.
... and that is what some of us complain about - not some shit about getting pirated versions (since they are already out there if you want)
"People are discovering that when you buy any product that is subject to "activation", you haven't really bought anything. "
;)
What the hell do you expect them to do then Michael?
Just use CD keys and get over it - Nobody ever cracked ID's Quake 3 servers - it was too hard.
Is Valve just supposed to put up with tens of thousands of people playing their game without paying for it?
1. People have cracked it and are playing
2. They get more money than they deserve as it is, so stop being so damn greedy.
So does this mean I can find some way to hack the Slashdot premium membership database and just start giving away premium memberships to whomever wants one? Would that be OK with you?
Though you are right, a case could be made for him being a hypocrite
A company like Valve has to try and keep their product from being blatently stolen.
You can't steal digital products. You can only steal something you actually touch.
You said "People are discovering that when you buy any product that is subject to "activation", you haven't really bought anything." OK, let's play this game "You bought a product license, you haven't really bought anything". That's not a true statement: You buy the right to use the product, which is the good you paid for.
This is not a "good" you bought.
It may not be the good you THOUGHT you paid for, but then again, you do read the end-user licenses, right?
They don't show it to you in the stores.
All product activation does is enforce the license. Oops...you don't want license enforcement. That's fine. Find another game then. The market will decide if this technology is a good idea or not.
The market has decided: 99% think that EULA's are nonsense that are not legally valid and don't agree to anything.
Unlike the vast majority of the people here who don't like Steam, I actually do believe in giving people money for what they produce. I think people deserve to be compensated for their work.
Well, i don't think they have a right to get paid over and over and over and over and over and over again for at job done ONCE - if steam was designed such way that each time a copy was sold they reduced the price a bit then perhaps we were on our way to something fair, but as it is - only imoral.
And I think the "but I don't like swapping CD's" argument is thin, at best, and more likely it's an outright lie.
That's probably because you lie yourself all the time, liars tend to think everybody lies.
It's a stupid argument all the way around.
No, its just an argument you do agree with(Windows seems to freeze everytime it has to spin on the CD to see whats in it, so there is a good reason there as well.)
Someday, circumventing copy protection won't be seen as a white-hat activity.
No, it will be a right under the law.
But it will be seen as people trying to cheat others out of compensation for their work.
Except the greedy bastards except to get paid over and over and over and over and over for a job done once.
4) The company does what Valve did and disables cracks.
Actually according to newsgroups post there is a crack out which works fine.
To those who pirate games: If you don't like DRM and the DMCA, look in the mirror for the reason that we are stuck with those.
Yep, greedy lawers and incompetent politicians.
If you want to change the world, start with the only person that you CAN control: yourself.
And then go AND VOTE!
Fact of the matter is, there's no excuse to pirate this game,
No excuse no - but a very good moral reason: They use steam.
Look, even most of /. disagrees with you,
Actually, no they dont.
this is about a game we all want to play freely, without this activation junk
Well, you may want to do that (and there is a cracked version out there you can go find if that is what you) but most of us wanto BUY a game as OUR property, not all this imoral nonsense about intellectual propery and activation crap.
But still, most people here see that Valve is acting within it's rights.
They are acting within the law, but they have no right.
That's a pretty strong indicator
That the law is corrupt and dictated by the rich - yeah, it sure is.
Duped into buying a license? Have you (legally) bought any software that wasn't licensed? Companies don't sell software; they never have. They sell the license to use their software. You don't own Windows, or Half-Life, or any other copyrighted software; you're bound by the license agreement, and all you own is what that agreement gives you.
Except 99.99% of the buyers of the world do NOT agree with that. They bought it - its theirs. And if push comes to shove, they sure as hell will push down the immoral craps who inforce this travesty.
Activation is what you have a problem with, and that exists because people are dishonest. Activation is an attempt to make the "cost" of pirating a game higher than the cost of actually buying--if you still think the games are too expense, stop buying.
Yeah, that's like say "If you think owning slaves is wrong, then don't own any slaves!" - doesn't work that way.
uhm... yes... they should pay you for reading the document that tells you what the rules are for using their property...
Property is something you can touch (and only sell once) - the current perversion of the law is just a proof that money can buy other things than property.
No, they won't pay you for these things... but there is no reason for them too... get it, read the EULA if you wish, and then return it if you don't like it... the return process will probably take no more than 30 minutes, if you have to wait a long time and then have to go buy the necessary stamps or whatever. It's been this way for a long time... only now you actually have to play by the rules.
No, the EULA has always been amoral and not legally valid - now may be the time to really test this in countries around the world. Or more likely people will just find cracks and avoid those of bad morals.
You agree to it before you download it via steam. If you purchase the box, read the EULA and still disagree with it
Why should we? Its not legally valid.
click "I Disagree" and call Valve saying you disagree with their EULA and would like a full refund for the game. You can send them the game and they will refund the purchase price.
And they'll pay for postage, packing and fare?