After googling a bit, I found this interview which appears to be the source of the quote. The pertenant portion of the interview:
When I asked Motion Picture Association of America president Jack Valenti whether the director of the highest-grossing movie of all time was the ideal spokesperson against petty theft, he tap-danced. 'I found the most convincing part to be the working stiffs,' said Valenti of the PSA, 'the guys who have a modest home and kids who go to public schools. They make $75,000 to $100,000 a year. That's not much to live on. I don't have to tell you that,' he said, vastly overestimating the U.S. poverty level and what I get paid for this column. I vowed right then not only to pirate a movie but also to find a way to use the Internet to steal directly from Jack Valenti's home....
Just puts you on the same footing as mail-order businesses. At least your customers don't have to pay postage to order from you!
No it does not put them on the same footing as mail-order businesses. As a matter of fact it puts them at a disadvantage since with mail-order business only residents of the same state in which the business is based have to pay a sales tax. This is just one of many reasons this law is stupid.
There was some business about the gummint not getting enough taxes lately. Well there is the small problem of the economy sucking right now, which might be part of the reason for this. And raising taxes is exactly the opposite of what we need to do to fix it.
The RIAA are claiming they own the copyright on the material (or rather represent the copyright holder) and therefore can download any of these files.
Analogies suck for arguments and so does yours. Cops do check powder to see if it is cocaine. They don't snort it, though they may touch it to their tongue as a field test (cocaine is a topical anasthetic), but ultimately they do have laboratories specifically for the purpose of telling the difference between cocaine and sheetrock (unrotunately sometimes after people have been in jail awhile for possessing sheetrock).
IANAL, but as I understand there are some remedies here. Essentially (though I forget the complex legal terminology for it) you cannot just threaten to sue someone at random and then not do it, or just apologize. They can sue you for threatening a frivolous lawsuit.
You know the funny thing is that the letter also says that the accusation is being made "under penalty of perjury." One has to wonder if the RIAA letter has similar language. I think both entities deserve a whacking on this count.
However, his placing of the mp3s in an unlinked directory is a security device, which you would have to circumvent to access the mp3s. Therefore the only means to access these files is unauthorized, and violates the DMCA. Congratulations! The RIAA cracked your computer and you have proof!:)
Naval Academy fires broadside at copyright violations - 6.December.2002 "Punishment could range from loss of leave time to court martial and expulsion."
Shoot Iraqis trying to surrender: SOP. Trade MP3s however, and it's time for a serious court martial.
But as many posters have pointed out they willingly did not practice due diligence before making their accusations and their negligence caused damage. The article talks about severe disruption of University operations during finals. When anyone else is negligent and causes damage they are liable for the damages caused by their negligence. Why should the RIAA lawyers be any different? They should know better.
There was a famous case in which someone (IIRC they worked for Intel) was fired because they tried to improve the security of some of their systems, and after he was fired, they had not disabled his account, so he logged in and got his email and downloaded files he had stored there. The access was through logging in, but since he did not have authorization to be on the system he was found guilty.
Something else I noticed about this, is that the article does not trace the history of saturday morning anywhere near its roots. My understanding was that before the cartoons, there were saturday morning monster movie marathons. And before that, there were serials and such at the theatre on saturdays...
The INS was created to reduce immigration. It's not so much that they trust the mail service as that they don't care if you get something unless it is a notice to leave the country. They are also, as you observed, cheap bastards.
Obviously you have never been to this site. They had some troubles recently, and were selling the site before, but looks like they are still in business...
No flames, though. You can't mail flaming dogshit and it would be tough to convince the mailperson to set a package on fire on a doorstep. I suppose you could hire minions in various cities to do your bidding and they could deliver/ignite the dog shit.
here is a certain amount of ironic justice in sending spam to a spammer but any figure that becomes infamous has a large number of people upset with him or her and thus, could bring this type of attack upon him.
You are thinking too small. If it is possible to send thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of snail mails trivially to one person and therefore DOS them, just think what would happen if you did it to thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of people. There are more than enough publicly available addresses to do that fairly trivially. They don't even have to be people you are upset with; they could be random. (After all, what if the person executing the attack is pissed at the Post Office? Or the government?)
Imagine even if someone did this to, say, all the people/government offices in DC (the whole congress, then all the aides and such, etc.)
Do script kiddies only dos people they know who have made them mad? Don't they very often, in the spirit of anarchy/random maliciousness attack random targets?
What makes people constantly think that this is a war between Linux and Microsoft? I read it all day long from the posters on here (most of which do not contribute to open source) and in the media.
Because Linux is our only hope. If Microsoft continues to rule the desktop, control of the personal computer will pass utterly from the hands of users, and ultimately even the option of running Linux will go away. In the face of Microsoft's stated policies on DRM, regular audits, harrassing end-users, endless activation, etc, the Windows world is becoming an unconscionable nightmare even for normal users whereas before it was just very annoying.
I think it's clear you can't currently get away from broken computers, but Microsoft's tactics add insult to injury. As a result it is clear to me alternatives to microsoft need to become true alternatives. I and a lot of other people have switched completely to Linux, and to users like us it makes perfect sense that Linux should be better.
I understand no one should be forced to work on it, but I don't understand why more developers don't see it as a labour of love. When I work on something, I feel a vested interest in having it succeed and be better than anything else, because it is my personal creation. There are plenty of people who also feel this way about any number of things including software they write.
Yet more and more irate developers in the Open Source world respond to this challenge with a cry to leave their hobby alone, that this is something they do for fun and it is too much to expect that it gets better. It is entirely within their right to feel that way, and I understand them feeling that way, but understand there are people who feel differently, and as Microsoft puts the squeeze on tighter become more desperate to make things work.
The upside for you would be some of these people might crack open a C book and try to learn to help out more. I personally have heretofore felt somewhat embarrassed about my previous lack of direct involvement in the community, but I am intent on reforming myself because my itch is to make Linux a better environment in which to work. But I would hope those developers who share your sentiments would not stand in the way of thsoe hwo do not.
Maybe I've just missed the point of open source stuff over the last few years, but I always thought the idea was that people contribute to an OS project because it scratches their itch. For example, I find an open source database I would like to use in a project, but I need to tweak on it a bit to make it work on my platform, so I make the tweaks and contribute them to the commons.
I don't care if Joe Sixpack can't use the database, but then again I'm not going to whine because nobody but 'geeks' uses it. I know there are people that whine because nobody uses their hard-to-understand project, and they need to either stop whining or spend some time making their stuff more usable.
Every time this subject comes up on slashdot or some mailing list or newsgroup or whatever, some smart ass comes out with the same answer you are giving as though they were very clever to think of it and it was a novel answer. Honestly, I think it is a valid answer, but don't you realize you are just proving the parent's point?
Besides, if you had read the article, "because the developers could give a rat's ass" is already covered in the article as one reason Open Source projects may not interoperate well.
Fair enough, I'll bet that's a great system, but the problem is convincing management that Google is a consistently 99.9% reliable solution. Also, if you get a solution from Google that doesn't work, you can't necessary hold the source of that info responsible for damages, loss of income, etc. The company has to eat it. And probably the first thing they'd do to cut losses would be to kick you to the curb and get a yes-man admin, unfortunately.
Yes, well, neither can you hold support at a big company accountable for damages. At best they will apologize and try giving you a different answer.
Sorry, man, when it comes to Scientology, you never know what people are going to claim. Though there is always the rumour that Scientology itself started as a practical joke....
Slashdot Mirror
After googling a bit, I found this interview which appears to be the source of the quote. The pertenant portion of the interview:
When I asked Motion Picture Association of America president Jack Valenti whether the director of the highest-grossing movie of all time was the ideal spokesperson against petty theft, he tap-danced. 'I found the most convincing part to be the working stiffs,' said Valenti of the PSA, 'the guys who have a modest home and kids who go to public schools. They make $75,000 to $100,000 a year. That's not much to live on. I don't have to tell you that,' he said, vastly overestimating the U.S. poverty level and what I get paid for this column. I vowed right then not only to pirate a movie but also to find a way to use the Internet to steal directly from Jack Valenti's home....
Invade and occupy every country that remains the home of Spam?!?!
Yes, and in the immortal words of SNL "liberate the hell out of them." ;)
The serpent was a temp employee and has been dealt with accordingly. Sorry for the mistake... ;)
Just puts you on the same footing as mail-order businesses. At least your customers don't have to pay postage to order from you!
No it does not put them on the same footing as mail-order businesses. As a matter of fact it puts them at a disadvantage since with mail-order business only residents of the same state in which the business is based have to pay a sales tax. This is just one of many reasons this law is stupid.
There was some business about the gummint not getting enough taxes lately. Well there is the small problem of the economy sucking right now, which might be part of the reason for this. And raising taxes is exactly the opposite of what we need to do to fix it.
Oh please. ET was Old Yeller except that this time Old Yeller doesn't really die.
The RIAA are claiming they own the copyright on the material (or rather represent the copyright holder) and therefore can download any of these files.
Analogies suck for arguments and so does yours. Cops do check powder to see if it is cocaine. They don't snort it, though they may touch it to their tongue as a field test (cocaine is a topical anasthetic), but ultimately they do have laboratories specifically for the purpose of telling the difference between cocaine and sheetrock (unrotunately sometimes after people have been in jail awhile for possessing sheetrock).
IANAL, but as I understand there are some remedies here. Essentially (though I forget the complex legal terminology for it) you cannot just threaten to sue someone at random and then not do it, or just apologize. They can sue you for threatening a frivolous lawsuit.
You know the funny thing is that the letter also says that the accusation is being made "under penalty of perjury." One has to wonder if the RIAA letter has similar language. I think both entities deserve a whacking on this count.
However, his placing of the mp3s in an unlinked directory is a security device, which you would have to circumvent to access the mp3s. Therefore the only means to access these files is unauthorized, and violates the DMCA. Congratulations! The RIAA cracked your computer and you have proof! :)
Good God:
Naval Academy fires broadside at copyright violations - 6.December.2002
"Punishment could range from loss of leave time to court martial and expulsion."
Shoot Iraqis trying to surrender: SOP. Trade MP3s however, and it's time for a serious court martial.
Remember, kids, when you download MP3s, you are downloading Communism!
But as many posters have pointed out they willingly did not practice due diligence before making their accusations and their negligence caused damage. The article talks about severe disruption of University operations during finals. When anyone else is negligent and causes damage they are liable for the damages caused by their negligence. Why should the RIAA lawyers be any different? They should know better.
Well acctually no it hasn't thats just a lie put about by our enimies.
That's right. The bible was written originally in God's Language -- English! :)
There was a famous case in which someone (IIRC they worked for Intel) was fired because they tried to improve the security of some of their systems, and after he was fired, they had not disabled his account, so he logged in and got his email and downloaded files he had stored there. The access was through logging in, but since he did not have authorization to be on the system he was found guilty.
That would be pretty "challanging." Especially since the capitol is the building. The city which is teh seat of government is a capital.
Something else I noticed about this, is that the article does not trace the history of saturday morning anywhere near its roots. My understanding was that before the cartoons, there were saturday morning monster movie marathons. And before that, there were serials and such at the theatre on saturdays...
The INS was created to reduce immigration. It's not so much that they trust the mail service as that they don't care if you get something unless it is a notice to leave the country. They are also, as you observed, cheap bastards.
Obviously you have never been to this site. They had some troubles recently, and were selling the site before, but looks like they are still in business...
No flames, though. You can't mail flaming dogshit and it would be tough to convince the mailperson to set a package on fire on a doorstep. I suppose you could hire minions in various cities to do your bidding and they could deliver/ignite the dog shit.
Then read the article. The source code for the script is even in there. Sheesh!
here is a certain amount of ironic justice in sending spam to a spammer but any figure that becomes infamous has a large number of people upset with him or her and thus, could bring this type of attack upon him.
You are thinking too small. If it is possible to send thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of snail mails trivially to one person and therefore DOS them, just think what would happen if you did it to thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of people. There are more than enough publicly available addresses to do that fairly trivially. They don't even have to be people you are upset with; they could be random. (After all, what if the person executing the attack is pissed at the Post Office? Or the government?)
Imagine even if someone did this to, say, all the people/government offices in DC (the whole congress, then all the aides and such, etc.)
Do script kiddies only dos people they know who have made them mad? Don't they very often, in the spirit of anarchy/random maliciousness attack random targets?
What makes people constantly think that this is a war between Linux and Microsoft? I read it all day long from the posters on here (most of which do not contribute to open source) and in the media.
Because Linux is our only hope. If Microsoft continues to rule the desktop, control of the personal computer will pass utterly from the hands of users, and ultimately even the option of running Linux will go away. In the face of Microsoft's stated policies on DRM, regular audits, harrassing end-users, endless activation, etc, the Windows world is becoming an unconscionable nightmare even for normal users whereas before it was just very annoying.
I think it's clear you can't currently get away from broken computers, but Microsoft's tactics add insult to injury. As a result it is clear to me alternatives to microsoft need to become true alternatives. I and a lot of other people have switched completely to Linux, and to users like us it makes perfect sense that Linux should be better.
I understand no one should be forced to work on it, but I don't understand why more developers don't see it as a labour of love. When I work on something, I feel a vested interest in having it succeed and be better than anything else, because it is my personal creation. There are plenty of people who also feel this way about any number of things including software they write.
Yet more and more irate developers in the Open Source world respond to this challenge with a cry to leave their hobby alone, that this is something they do for fun and it is too much to expect that it gets better. It is entirely within their right to feel that way, and I understand them feeling that way, but understand there are people who feel differently, and as Microsoft puts the squeeze on tighter become more desperate to make things work.
The upside for you would be some of these people might crack open a C book and try to learn to help out more. I personally have heretofore felt somewhat embarrassed about my previous lack of direct involvement in the community, but I am intent on reforming myself because my itch is to make Linux a better environment in which to work. But I would hope those developers who share your sentiments would not stand in the way of thsoe hwo do not.
Probably it is dying [junetech.com].
You don't have to be a Kreskin to predict the answer to that question! :)
EGOE -- Erotic Group Of Engineers
Ah, so it is a mythological creature!
Maybe I've just missed the point of open source stuff over the last few years, but I always thought the idea was that people contribute to an OS project because it scratches their itch. For example, I find an open source database I would like to use in a project, but I need to tweak on it a bit to make it work on my platform, so I make the tweaks and contribute them to the commons.
I don't care if Joe Sixpack can't use the database, but then again I'm not going to whine because nobody but 'geeks' uses it. I know there are people that whine because nobody uses their hard-to-understand project, and they need to either stop whining or spend some time making their stuff more usable.
Every time this subject comes up on slashdot or some mailing list or newsgroup or whatever, some smart ass comes out with the same answer you are giving as though they were very clever to think of it and it was a novel answer. Honestly, I think it is a valid answer, but don't you realize you are just proving the parent's point?
Besides, if you had read the article, "because the developers could give a rat's ass" is already covered in the article as one reason Open Source projects may not interoperate well.
Fair enough, I'll bet that's a great system, but the problem is convincing management that Google is a consistently 99.9% reliable solution. Also, if you get a solution from Google that doesn't work, you can't necessary hold the source of that info responsible for damages, loss of income, etc. The company has to eat it. And probably the first thing they'd do to cut losses would be to kick you to the curb and get a yes-man admin, unfortunately.
Yes, well, neither can you hold support at a big company accountable for damages. At best they will apologize and try giving you a different answer.
Sorry, man, when it comes to Scientology, you never know what people are going to claim. Though there is always the rumour that Scientology itself started as a practical joke....