Huh? Maybe I'm missing something here, but these are state-wide laws. They don't apply to other US states, let alone to other countries. This isn't the WTO.
Again, maybe there's something I'm not aware of, but reading the UCITA resources at badsoftware.com doesn't suggest there's any international issue here.
In what country is the largest software corporation in the world located?
What company's software does 90+ % of the *world's* desktops supposedly run?
What software company easily has the $$$ to pay off the right people to pass such a law?
What software company would benefit the most from this?
What company would most likely wish to have the same type of control *everywhere* in the world (in a "consistent" fashion) their software runs?
What company could easily "move their headquarters" (on paper) from one of those states in the Pacific Northwest, to Virginia?
It's pretty common to find pirated videotapes in ma+pa video stores. Are you sure that you know what you are looking for?
Common? In a big city? On the sidewalks? Where do you guys live? As a music aficionado who travelse the Western states about once a month for a week or two at a time, I see lots of drugs, booze, and lots of bodies for sale on the streets, but bootleg copies conviently for sale have not presented themselves to me.
I don't know about the poster who you're responding to, but *I* live on the east coast babe... -) Here's a U.S. cultural learning experience for ya...   In the "downtown" areas and commercial strips in many neighborhoods in the east (and I'm talking Boston, NY, Philly, Baltimore, D.C.), you will see vendors who will setup a table, put a cute little table cloth on it, and spread out a whole array of "goods for sale" at "really cheap prices"...   hee hee.   And what a selection too!   You can get umbrellas and paper towels and plastic gloves and tapes and incense and greeting cards and watches and knit hats and sunglasses and CDs and bootleg NFL jackets and bootleg NBA basketball tank tops and hot but "official" NBL baseball caps - all on the same table!   Man...   you gotta come east some time.   I've been west myself (Texas, Missouri, Colorado, California, Washington state) and no, I guess you don't see it that much there - although I *know* you do have stuff like that in places like Venice Beach in L.A., 'cause I saw it!   Our east coast cities have assorted "vendor ordinances" that cover the hotdog guy in a cart all the way up to the guy who sticks the table out on the sidewalk.   It's almost guaranteed that everything on that table is bootlegged... -) But the guy is "in business for himself" (and thus supposedly "not on welfare", ie., "self-employed"), out in the weather, trying to "make a living".   C'est la vie.
I believe you. Perhaps I was not looking in the right places. My theory was that employees who make incomes at stores who have much invested in the retail market would not be happy at bootleg vendors not playing by the same rules and promptly call for enforcement. They might be upset at someone who is selling a good collection $16 cd's for $4 and call the cops to bust them on one of many of the city's ordinances.
You know...   when you wrote this part, you had me rolling on the floor because what actually happens is that the guy with the table full of music tapes will PURPOSELY setup shop *right outside a music store*.   In fact, alot of fruit vendors, who operate out of trucks, do the same here in Philly, where they will park their fruit trucks across the street from a supermarket and sell their fruit for *alot* less then the supermarket...   Of course, as you said, the stores try to chase them away and some have even gone to the city councils, etc., to pass more ordinances...   But many lose because of what?   "Competition" and the fact that many who make the ordinances don't want to stifle the competiton.   Of course the next step is for the store to try to prove that the guy is selling bootleg stuff, and so either the guy sneeks real stuff in his batch before they haul him away (and then the store loses the case again) or they pack up and move in front of a different store and go through the whole process again...  
Believe me, it's a never-ending battle and alot of chain stores have given up over here...
What you have to relize here, is that this isn't a US law. Its a state law. And states have no power to do any kind of diplomacy with other nations. The US government should have no interest in protecting this law overseas, so it shouldn't matter.
Very true, however alot of the concern is that if enough states pass these types of laws, then that's when the feds often step in to make an equivalent federal law - witness the recently revoked federal 55 mph speed limit law, which started off as a bunch of state laws.
There has been mumbling on high about having more federal regulation of these issues in general, and if that does come about, and international committees come together to discuss it, you may end up with a treaty...
No this hasn't happened, but the U.S. does have some interests overseas.   For example our embassies and consulates - which are "technically" considered resting on U.S. soil in a foreign land... and of course the military installations.   But most importantly, U.S. companies (and there's quite a few) in other countries.   How would they be impacted, unless they're are singled out as exceptions within the law?
Uh question to moderators...   why is this flamebait?   It may be a rant, but certainly not a flame unless we have some music company representatives online here who take personal offense and want to take it as a flame!   Nuthin' but the truth spoken here...   I still have my $15, almost 15-year old Lionel Ritchie CD sittin' here dusty in a cabinet.
This is not much different then when I was in college and they had course study and degrees in such things as "basket weaving" and "frisbee throwing" (I kid you not).   The frisbee throwing was related to physics...
The point was to design an entire course of study (which included the "required" courses like humanities, social/behavioral sciences, writing, foreign languages, and physical/biological sciences + math) around that "theme".
It might sound hokey on the surface but if gaming is a market, how else to do it?   I can see it including stuff like psychology, etc., whereby you need to understand human behavior quite a bit in order to design a game, or history, where you might want to focus on "epic" games with historical themes.   Of course the programming is a must as well...
There are larger issues here that no one has yet touched on. Mainly, that Napster has validated and empowered an entire community of illegal MP3's; they've brought music bootlegging into the mainsteam. MP3's have been available for a while, but you had to search hard for them, going to seedy sites that were littered with porno ads and the like. Most people using Napster, however, will think, "This is so easy, it can't be criminal!"
Amen.   And that was the gist of the "VCR" thread, ie., it being so easy and prolific, that the criminality is lost.
Personally, I'm not an advocate of bootlegged music, but I can't help rooting for Napster. We all know that music CD's are grossly overpriced. I don't think that the RIAA would have to worry that much about the bootleg industry if they could keep their prices reasonable; but paying $18 for a CD is absurd, especially when they are cheaper to produce than vinyl LP's (which sold for under $10). CD prices continue to rise in spite of the fact that the music industry is bigger than ever. I believe that the music industry is top-heavy with overpaid execs who aspire to add another $10 mil to their compensation package.
Amen again.   I remember buying my first consumer CD player in 1986.   At that time, there were only 4 CD manufacturers in the world (located in Japan, Germany, and a single one in the U.S.).   The store where I bought the player had a little box that had maybe 10 CD titles in it, with a bunch of duplicates.   That was it.   I reluctantly picked up a Lionel Ritchie CD for US$15 and slinked on home.
The CD industry of 1986 then promised me this:
"As soon as we get more manufacturers to retool for CDs, the price will drop to the level of record albums, that is, $7.00 per CD"
"CDs will last forever."
"CDs don't skip or scratch like records"
"CDs won't rot or warp like records"
"CDs will sound better than records"
Then there was all the hullaboo with the AAD and the ADD and DDD (analog recording/mixing/mastering vs digital recording/mixing/mastering) and what sounded better.
It's interesting that it's the young folks today who are pushing the mp3s and the Napsters, but tell me why *I* shouldn't support mp3 when I was basically lied to and ripped off by the CD revolution???   Within 5 years, you couldn't find a vinyl record anywhere except maybe a used record store.   So what the industry lost in record sales, they made DOUBLE in CD sales by effectively eliminating the cheaper format.   Seems that payback's a bitch... -)
PS2 only has 2 ports, though apparently USB controllers are a viable option.
The USB option would be good news - get yourself a hub and away you go!
As to the size, it's not as large as it looks. And the DVD doesn't need cooling, though the GS and EE chips both do. The unit looks to be slightly more than two CDs wide, and about one and a half deep.
Hmm... the current box is about 10" wide, about 7" deep, and about 1.75" high.   Based on what you say, maybe it's near the same size - although if it's slightly more than 2 CDs wide, that would make it about 12+".   Plus it might be a little taller to accomodate a fan...   I'm just thinking in terms of the lugging... -)
>But do we ban this sort of "trade > engine" technology or do we hire cybercops to do > the "monitoring" - that's what I meant by "Big > Brother".;-)
Well I wouldn't say we hire anyone.
And I guess I used the word us too loosely and didn't really mean us as in "we the citizens".   But if we, the citizens, keep telling companies that produce these types of products that they are obligated to monitor if they want to stay in business, then they will do the hiring...   And there's already an increasing number of "cybercops for sale" out there as it is....   We won't necessarily see the gov't as the traditional "Big Brother", it'll be the corporations who are trying to protect their assests from lawsuits...   The gov't has nothing to lose but your tax money (which is important to us, but of no real "personal" value to the gov't).   But a corporation has ownership of their assets, thus making it a more painful loss and thus making them more likely to protect those assets via a cybercop... -)
Why is it hard for you to understand that this is about ignoring illegal activity, when you know it's happening? Trading MP3es is not wrong, but trading someone else's property is.
Don't ever assume what I understand and don't understand. -)
If you see my other post to you before I did this one, you'll note that there will often come a point when you can no longer realistically "police".   Case in point - jaywalking.   Technically, if a sign is posted at an intersection that says "No Jaywalking" and I see a person begin to walk across the street against the light, I have the right by law and/or ordinance to confront that person and make a "citizen's arrest" for that person violating the law.   What are the chances of me doing this?   Nil.   Why does the cop on the corner watching the person jaywalk not take action?   Why doesn't that same cop arrest EVERY person standing at the scene watching the guy jaywalking - since they witnessed a crime and didn't report it?   Because the amount of time and resources to process that person through the system would not justify doing it.   This is what is happening to the internet - it is getting too big to police.
This is the reality.   I not arguing the law with you.   Yes, every citizen (I'll only say this for the U.S. because I don't know the laws of other countries) has a "sworn" duty to uphold the law, but reality says that it doesn't happen - whether it's the little guy on the street, or the cop who is supposed to do it, or the corporation.   Do we lock everyone up or do we educate people on what "stealing" means?   Some may feel that the loss of 3 cents or whatever of royalty for each mp3 copied illegally is not as valid, or better, is not as obvious as a crime by say a robber who breaks into the music company and rips off $10,000 and cases of CDs.  
It's all relative... but stealing is stealing. -)
> And that was exactly my point with my post about > comparing Napster to ebay. And in fact, > how many times have we heard in the news where > people have tried to trade and auction stuff > like human eggs or children, etc. using ebay?
These were serious? In that case, it would be ebays responsability to turn them over to the authorities, once it was brought to their attention.
Well...   it was all in the news and ebay pulled the listings from their site.   I expect they went through a procedure to try to track who posted it because selling children and wives, etc. is obviously illegal.   I am unsure whether ebay caught it or someone else though...
Whenever Napster is aware of a possible copyright violation, they should be required to inform the authorities. There's no big brother aspect, because their users have open shares, and Napster is fully in their right to record who uses their service.
I would think so, but at some point, like with ebay, when your user base grows beyond your abilities to monitor it, then what?   I hate to say, the "out" of "I didn't know it was happening" gets used as an excuse.   At this point, now that the Napster issue is in the media - they can't really claim that they didn't know...   But do we ban this sort of "trade engine" technology or do we hire cybercops to do the "monitoring" - that's what I meant by "Big Brother". -)
And as an FYI, everything I've posted is basically from a devil's advocate standpoint to generate some discussion, because I think that this has some far-reaching consequences that we don't even see yet.
And come on people, be honest... Everyone who has never ever ever downloaded one song from napster which they did not already own, raise your hands high above everyone elses so we can call you liars. I admit that i did. I also admit that I deleted the song, as well as the program immediately thereafter.
I don't think that's the issue that I was beginning to allude to...   I think the issue is moving towards eventual oversight and regulation ?? (ie., don't blame the hapless user, blame the company who gave the user the means to do illegal activities) - and I know that alot out there are against gov't intervention in general and would perhaps prefer "self policing" from a company like Napster   Perhaps the discussions here may prompt a change in the software engine.   But I'm sure that there are many such "underground" entities out there where shady activities are going on and it's just that Napster "got caught".   However, sometimes policing gets to the point of diminishing returns... -)
Napster has less in common with a tape recorder than it has in common with a music shop, or even a bakery where people come to talk. Napster does not itself replicate any data, whatsoever, however it does stand by and watch other people violate the law.
And that was exactly my point with my post about comparing Napster to ebay.   And in fact, how many times have we heard in the news where people have tried to trade and auction stuff like human eggs or children, etc. using ebay?
That was my "monkey wrench" to generate some more discussion.   Do we go after ebay for allowing the trading of copyrighted material?   Do we sue the Bell or AT&T companies for being the conduit via the telephone or even the internet for illegal activities?   Do we go after the U.S. Postal service when someone uses it and it's employees and it's trucks as a conduit for transfering illegal items?
In order for someone like a Napster host to realistically monitor these types of activities, we would then need to go into "Big Brother" mode.   Would this not violate privacy?
Ah, but the person you're responding to is referring to consumer-level piracy: in other words, you snagging a copy of a movie from a friend. And this hasn't materialized on any large scale. The pirated movies you see for sale on the street weren't made by consumer-level pirates. They were made by large-scale, organized pirates. These people are less affected by the price of VCRs - if most people had $100 videocassette players (i.e. no recording) and videocassette recorders were $1000 items, you'd probably still see the sort of piracy you're describing.
Let me echo what I said in response to another post.   In the past 5 or so years, there has been a proliferation of "tapes for sale" on vendor tables.   These aren't mass-produced (ie., the "big" piraters), these are HOMEMADE, ie., someone buys a ticket to a popular movie, carries his little palm-sized 8mm video recorder into the theater, props it up on his shoulder, and starts taping.   He then takes it home to his tiny transfering setup, and reproduces a bunch of tapes.   He then proceeds to hawk them on the streets or sells them to someone who will hawk them - while the movie is playing in the theater!   Sometimes they are able to get legitimate shrink wrap boxes and everything.   Doing this with music is even easier, because they make their own labels.   Again, these aren't major "chinese" piraters - these are little CONSUMERS trying to make a quick buck, right here in the US of A.
Capitalism and entrepreneurism.   Ain't it something else? -)
Most of the music cassette and video crap sitting on the tables for sale are pirated.
In most big cities, there are "street vendors".   These street vendors have tables setup on the sidewalk.   It is a well known fact that most of the stuff on these tables on the sidewalks (including the so-called "designer" watches and pocketbooks, etc.) ARE fake.   Ever wonder what one of the causes for closing down the "Crazy Eddie's" chain out of New York was?   Ever walked into similar chain stores in any big city?   I guess not.
have yet to see one pirated shrink wrap cassette or video. Granted, I have seen taped music in a few homes, but in a retail store? Where do you get this information?
I don't mean to start a flame (which is useless) but I would like to note that just because you haven't had a certain experience, then you cannot assume that it can't happen or doesn't exist.   That's pretty arrogant.   I have been the victim of the receipt of a pirated tape that was legitimately purchased as a gift.   What is the mark of a pirated tape - even one with a legitimate-looking box and shrink wrap?   It is one that you play and you can tell that some IDIOT was sitting in a movie theater WITH a camcorder, recording the thing, and then passed it along to piraters to reproduce.   And how do you know this other than the jerkiness and blurriness and otherwise poor quality of the tape?   Why you can HEAR the audience cheering and talking in the background.   Needless to say, the thing went in the trash.
And I live in Philadelphia and maybe you need to visit the city more often... -).   I would NEVER buy crap like that off of any vendor or in any of the prolific "electronic" chain stores like the old "Sound of Music" chains, which were also shutdown due to pirated and "hot" stuff.
Of course, one of the things that makes Napster work the way it does is that the file transfer itself is peer-to-peer, which conveniently means the files are never stored in anyone's server. Therefore there are N,000 separate individuals at any one time that they would need to go after. As N->infinity (and it definitely seems to be rising steadily), it's going to become completely unfeasible.
Let me throw a monkey wrench in here for a moment...   When I read your statement, I thought about ebay.   Why?   Because much of what ebay does is (in a way) "peer to peer", ie., people trading stuff between themselves - and although I only visited there once or twice, I wouldn't be surprised if people would trade say, their entire vinyl collections (after making a tape copy) to someone else... -)
I don't know all the intricacies of software EULAS or copyrights (and please forgive my previous misspellings of it!) or the various licensing issues...   and I may be wrong, and someone please correct me, but don't alot of the music licenses forbid "transfering" to others, although maybe they mean in the "commercial" sense (or do they)?
Which explains why they go after Napster. Napster may not be doing anything illegal, but at least they're one specific company that stays put.
So if transfer of copyrighted material is forbidden, would not that impact any online "trading" sites or even flea markets at a county fair?   What makes a digital transfer any different then a "physical" one except the speed at which it can be done?   And I say this in terms of someone making a copy of a certain music format (vinyl - so now you have 2 copies) and then transfering the original to someone else via a site like ebay.   If that's the case, should ebay be policed for this type of copyright infringement?
Just curious if anyone wants to comment on this... -)
I hope _you_ are just kidding.:) CSS was not invented to control piracy through copying, as CSS does not prevent copying. CSS prevents playback, useful for leveraging your muscle against those who don't serve your corporate interests.
You're preachin' to the choir... -).   Forgot to wrap my "tongue in cheek" code around the statement... -)
But the point of the matter is you have to go buy a multitap for the PS2, while it comes built in on the N64 and DC. And 4 is pretty much the limit for most mulitplayer games, so very very few games let you have more than 4. I'm just sorta wondering about Sony since it wouldnt' take that much extra money to stick in 4 controller ports, and then everyone would be happy.
Good point, although maybe the initial thought in the design back when it first released was that you'd have alot more "solo" use on it then "group" use.   The explosion of multi-multi player games sortof blew that notion away.   I guess it's all part of the tradeoffs.   I picked the Playstation over the others because: 1.)There were more games available for it and 2.)The format was CD-ROM based (and I can play music CDs on it).
I tried to study the page from this article that showed the innards of the PS2, but I can't tell if they still only have 2 ports or whether they opted for more.   The one thing I did notice was that the thing looks huge... (and they did say that it was bigger due to cooling required for the DVD-ROM).   I wish they had put a ruler or something against the units in the pictures so I can see how big we're talking.
Heck...   alot of us tend to carry these things around ya know! -)
About those multi-taps, why the hell did Sony only put two controller ports on the damn thing? It's so stupid of them. the N64 has 4, Dreamcast has 4, and I'll bet my life the Dolphin will have 4, but yet Sony only puts TWO(!) controller ports on it.
Hey - just get yourself the 4-port extender that plugs into one of the 2 default ports like I did.   Buy 2 extenders and you got yourself 8-ports!
Finding games to do 8 is tricky though, although I think stuff like Monopoly is setup for that!
When VCRs were first released the movie industry's protestations were immediately shown to be baseless. Pirating (on the level of _consumers_ which was the industry fear) never materialized.
I hope you're just kidding. -)   When was the last time you strolled the streets of any "big city" (fill in the blank) in the U.S.?   Most of the music cassette and video crap sitting on the tables for sale are pirated.   In fact, I have often seen complete, shrink-wrapped videos of movies *for sale* that are STILL playing in the theaters!
When Congress allowed the VCR format to go ahead, that was back in the late '70s, when the average consumer VCR cost well over US$1000.   Now that the VCR can be had in many cases for under US$100, video piracy IS rampant and music cassette piracy even more so.
I hate to say that it's a fact of the business and this is why there was Macrovision (remember that?), which was used to try to stem the piracy tide.   This encoding was subsequently dropped in many cases (because people got around it anyway and many VCRs wouldn't even legitimately PLAY the movie without gumming up the picture).
This is also why DVDs were incoded with CSS - to try to STOP piracy.   And thus the source of all the grief around DeCSS... which by the way is supposed to allow the playing of an encoded digital video - not necessarily allow the pirating of it... but I digress.
What you say is right on target regarding MP3s, but Napster very much promotes piracy. It is a means for people to copy copyrighted music from one person's computer to another -- what part of that is not blatant piracy?
Well... right now, I can go to a store and buy a dual cassette recorder/player.   My purpose might be to record a public affairs show and then make copies of my own recording... nothing illegal about that... no copywrite infringement.
And this is my point - and I expect that the libertarians and gun supporters would agree - it's not the device that gives you the "means" that is to blame -- it's the PERSON with the device.
If a law is clearly spelled out and a person chooses to violate that law, then I'm afraid that the person is to blame.
Should we ban all such media distribution devices because there are those who choose to break the law with them?   No one is forcing them to only copy and illegally distribute copywrited material - that is a choice.   Sure, realistically, we know that it's going to happen, but must *I*, as someone who wants to maybe use these things for legitimate purposes, be punished as well?
I noticed that the article mentioned that multi-taps weren't available yet.   That's the best feature - to have you and a bunch of friends duking it out (and tripping over the wires).
Since I have a Playstation, I'll be following this closely.   I recall over a year ago that this thing was supposed to have come out last fall and Dreamcast beat them to the punch.   I am also curious about the supposed internet accessibility that has been claimed for this unit...
As far as I know, unless another country chooses to pattern their own laws after this, only through a treaty between countries, would this extend beyond the U.S. borders.   And as a FYI, treaties are pretty difficult things to enact here in the U.S.!
The argument that something like Napster foments piracy is the same tired old issue that surfaced with the first reel-to-reels, then the cassette, then the VCR tape, etc.   Yes, there will always be free-loaders.   But is blaming the "engine" that was created for legitimate purposes the way to solve the piracy and copywrite issue?   This is like suing all the cassette recorder manufacturers for promoting piracy.   They tried it at one time and failed.   It'll never happen here either.
What usually DOES happen is that the business suddenly realizes that they have a new format to sell (which they have started doing with.mp3s) and so they make even more $$$ by capturing a wider range of audiences, ie., those who purchase vinyl, cassette, CD, and now mp3.
The bandwidth issue though, is a concern.   Despite claims to the contrary, the infrastructure out there is not what it should be to handle the increases in streaming media.   More choices of bandwidth providers would certainly bring the costs down for upgrades, but I expect that most sites, particulary at colleges, have gone with their local Bell company at quite a cost.   Perhaps the latest network providers - the fiber providers - may be the answer.   Fiber will certainly offer the bandwidth needed to do this sort of thing.
Use JPEG2000 with wavelets to get the best quality to size ratios. Plug-in may be required on some platforms, but that's the same for PNG.
Cool.   Never heard of that one!  :-)
(Hasn't UNISYS stopped chasing.gif users because of the bad publicity and the impending patent expiration?)
I would expect that it would be in their best interest to quit...   I haven't heard anything recently on the issue...   although you would think that in a similar case, Amazon.com would quit with their patent issue...   Besides, it's an impossible task to try to hunt down every gif user...   sortof like those who have been trying to hunt down every DeCSS linker... -)
PNGs are generally the same quality as GIFs, and often smaller. Try gif2png and see for yourself.
Cool...   Thanks for the info.   I have gif2png but never got around to trying it, probably because I like jpegs (though they're always so huge).   I did sortof agree with move to go to pngs, so maybe I will!
Slashdot Mirror
Again, maybe there's something I'm not aware of, but reading the UCITA resources at badsoftware.com doesn't suggest there's any international issue here.
- In what country is the largest software corporation in the world located?
- What company's software does 90+ % of the *world's* desktops supposedly run?
- What software company easily has the $$$ to pay off the right people to pass such a law?
- What software company would benefit the most from this?
- What company would most likely wish to have the same type of control *everywhere* in the world (in a "consistent" fashion) their software runs?
- What company could easily "move their headquarters" (on paper) from one of those states in the Pacific Northwest, to Virginia?
Right.   Same answer to all 6 questions.It's pretty common to find pirated videotapes in ma+pa video stores. Are you sure that you know what you are looking for?
;-) Here's a U.S. cultural learning experience for ya...   In the "downtown" areas and commercial strips in many neighborhoods in the east (and I'm talking Boston, NY, Philly, Baltimore, D.C.), you will see vendors who will setup a table, put a cute little table cloth on it, and spread out a whole array of "goods for sale" at "really cheap prices"...   hee hee.   And what a selection too!   You can get umbrellas and paper towels and plastic gloves and tapes and incense and greeting cards and watches and knit hats and sunglasses and CDs and bootleg NFL jackets and bootleg NBA basketball tank tops and hot but "official" NBL baseball caps - all on the same table!   Man...   you gotta come east some time.   I've been west myself (Texas, Missouri, Colorado, California, Washington state) and no, I guess you don't see it that much there - although I *know* you do have stuff like that in places like Venice Beach in L.A., 'cause I saw it!   Our east coast cities have assorted "vendor ordinances" that cover the hotdog guy in a cart all the way up to the guy who sticks the table out on the sidewalk.   It's almost guaranteed that everything on that table is bootlegged...   ;-) But the guy is "in business for himself" (and thus supposedly "not on welfare", ie., "self-employed"), out in the weather, trying to "make a living".   C'est la vie.
Common? In a big city? On the sidewalks? Where do you guys live? As a music aficionado who travelse the Western states about once a month for a week or two at a time, I see lots of drugs, booze, and lots of bodies for sale on the streets, but bootleg copies conviently for sale have not presented themselves to me.
I don't know about the poster who you're responding to, but *I* live on the east coast babe...  
I believe you. Perhaps I was not looking in the right places. My theory was that employees who make incomes at stores who have much invested in the retail market would not be happy at bootleg vendors not playing by the same rules and promptly call for enforcement. They might be upset at someone who is selling a good collection $16 cd's for $4 and call the cops to bust them on one of many of the city's ordinances.
You know...   when you wrote this part, you had me rolling on the floor because what actually happens is that the guy with the table full of music tapes will PURPOSELY setup shop *right outside a music store*.   In fact, alot of fruit vendors, who operate out of trucks, do the same here in Philly, where they will park their fruit trucks across the street from a supermarket and sell their fruit for *alot* less then the supermarket...   Of course, as you said, the stores try to chase them away and some have even gone to the city councils, etc., to pass more ordinances...   But many lose because of what?   "Competition" and the fact that many who make the ordinances don't want to stifle the competiton.   Of course the next step is for the store to try to prove that the guy is selling bootleg stuff, and so either the guy sneeks real stuff in his batch before they haul him away (and then the store loses the case again) or they pack up and move in front of a different store and go through the whole process again...  
Believe me, it's a never-ending battle and alot of chain stores have given up over here...
What you have to relize here, is that this isn't a US law. Its a state law. And states have no power to do any kind of diplomacy with other nations. The US government should have no interest in protecting this law overseas, so it shouldn't matter.
Very true, however alot of the concern is that if enough states pass these types of laws, then that's when the feds often step in to make an equivalent federal law - witness the recently revoked federal 55 mph speed limit law, which started off as a bunch of state laws.
There has been mumbling on high about having more federal regulation of these issues in general, and if that does come about, and international committees come together to discuss it, you may end up with a treaty...
No this hasn't happened, but the U.S. does have some interests overseas.   For example our embassies and consulates - which are "technically" considered resting on U.S. soil in a foreign land... and of course the military installations.   But most importantly, U.S. companies (and there's quite a few) in other countries.   How would they be impacted, unless they're are singled out as exceptions within the law?
Just adding some food for thought...
Uh question to moderators...   why is this flamebait?   It may be a rant, but certainly not a flame unless we have some music company representatives online here who take personal offense and want to take it as a flame!   Nuthin' but the truth spoken here...   I still have my $15, almost 15-year old Lionel Ritchie CD sittin' here dusty in a cabinet.
;-)
Just curious...
This is not much different then when I was in college and they had course study and degrees in such things as "basket weaving" and "frisbee throwing" (I kid you not).   The frisbee throwing was related to physics...
;-)
The point was to design an entire course of study (which included the "required" courses like humanities, social/behavioral sciences, writing, foreign languages, and physical/biological sciences + math) around that "theme".
It might sound hokey on the surface but if gaming is a market, how else to do it?   I can see it including stuff like psychology, etc., whereby you need to understand human behavior quite a bit in order to design a game, or history, where you might want to focus on "epic" games with historical themes.   Of course the programming is a must as well...
Amen.   And that was the gist of the "VCR" thread, ie., it being so easy and prolific, that the criminality is lost.
Personally, I'm not an advocate of bootlegged music, but I can't help rooting for Napster. We all know that music CD's are grossly overpriced. I don't think that the RIAA would have to worry that much about the bootleg industry if they could keep their prices reasonable; but paying $18 for a CD is absurd, especially when they are cheaper to produce than vinyl LP's (which sold for under $10). CD prices continue to rise in spite of the fact that the music industry is bigger than ever. I believe that the music industry is top-heavy with overpaid execs who aspire to add another $10 mil to their compensation package.
Amen again.   I remember buying my first consumer CD player in 1986.   At that time, there were only 4 CD manufacturers in the world (located in Japan, Germany, and a single one in the U.S.).   The store where I bought the player had a little box that had maybe 10 CD titles in it, with a bunch of duplicates.   That was it.   I reluctantly picked up a Lionel Ritchie CD for US$15 and slinked on home.
The CD industry of 1986 then promised me this:
- "As soon as we get more manufacturers to retool for CDs, the price will drop to the level of record albums, that is, $7.00 per CD"
- "CDs will last forever."
- "CDs don't skip or scratch like records"
- "CDs won't rot or warp like records"
- "CDs will sound better than records"
Then there was all the hullaboo with the AAD and the ADD and DDD (analog recording/mixing/mastering vs digital recording/mixing/mastering) and what sounded better.It's interesting that it's the young folks today who are pushing the mp3s and the Napsters, but tell me why *I* shouldn't support mp3 when I was basically lied to and ripped off by the CD revolution???   Within 5 years, you couldn't find a vinyl record anywhere except maybe a used record store.   So what the industry lost in record sales, they made DOUBLE in CD sales by effectively eliminating the cheaper format.   Seems that payback's a bitch...  
Just adding more to the discussion...  
"
PS2 only has 2 ports, though apparently USB controllers are a viable option.
The USB option would be good news - get yourself a hub and away you go!
As to the size, it's not as large as it looks. And the DVD doesn't need cooling, though the GS and EE chips both do. The unit looks to be slightly more than two CDs wide, and about one and a half deep.
Hmm... the current box is about 10" wide, about 7" deep, and about 1.75" high.   Based on what you say, maybe it's near the same size - although if it's slightly more than 2 CDs wide, that would make it about 12+".   Plus it might be a little taller to accomodate a fan...   I'm just thinking in terms of the lugging... -)
>But do we ban this sort of "trade ;-)
;-)
> engine" technology or do we hire cybercops to do
> the "monitoring" - that's what I meant by "Big
> Brother".
Well I wouldn't say we hire anyone.
And I guess I used the word us too loosely and didn't really mean us as in "we the citizens".   But if we, the citizens, keep telling companies that produce these types of products that they are obligated to monitor if they want to stay in business, then they will do the hiring...   And there's already an increasing number of "cybercops for sale" out there as it is....   We won't necessarily see the gov't as the traditional "Big Brother", it'll be the corporations who are trying to protect their assests from lawsuits...   The gov't has nothing to lose but your tax money (which is important to us, but of no real "personal" value to the gov't).   But a corporation has ownership of their assets, thus making it a more painful loss and thus making them more likely to protect those assets via a cybercop...  
Why is it hard for you to understand that this is about ignoring illegal activity, when you know it's happening? Trading MP3es is not wrong, but trading someone else's property is.
;-)
;-)
Don't ever assume what I understand and don't understand.  
If you see my other post to you before I did this one, you'll note that there will often come a point when you can no longer realistically "police".   Case in point - jaywalking.   Technically, if a sign is posted at an intersection that says "No Jaywalking" and I see a person begin to walk across the street against the light, I have the right by law and/or ordinance to confront that person and make a "citizen's arrest" for that person violating the law.   What are the chances of me doing this?   Nil.   Why does the cop on the corner watching the person jaywalk not take action?   Why doesn't that same cop arrest EVERY person standing at the scene watching the guy jaywalking - since they witnessed a crime and didn't report it?   Because the amount of time and resources to process that person through the system would not justify doing it.   This is what is happening to the internet - it is getting too big to police.
This is the reality.   I not arguing the law with you.   Yes, every citizen (I'll only say this for the U.S. because I don't know the laws of other countries) has a "sworn" duty to uphold the law, but reality says that it doesn't happen - whether it's the little guy on the street, or the cop who is supposed to do it, or the corporation.   Do we lock everyone up or do we educate people on what "stealing" means?   Some may feel that the loss of 3 cents or whatever of royalty for each mp3 copied illegally is not as valid, or better, is not as obvious as a crime by say a robber who breaks into the music company and rips off $10,000 and cases of CDs.  
It's all relative... but stealing is stealing.  
Grr..Stupid HTML....I would like a readable post.
;-)
;-)
> And that was exactly my point with my post about
> comparing Napster to ebay. And in fact,
> how many times have we heard in the news where
> people have tried to trade and auction stuff
> like human eggs or children, etc. using ebay?
These were serious? In that case, it would be ebays responsability to turn them over to the authorities, once it was brought to their attention.
Well...   it was all in the news and ebay pulled the listings from their site.   I expect they went through a procedure to try to track who posted it because selling children and wives, etc. is obviously illegal.   I am unsure whether ebay caught it or someone else though...
Whenever Napster is aware of a possible copyright violation, they should be required to inform the authorities. There's no big brother aspect, because their users have open shares, and Napster is fully in their right to record who uses their service.
I would think so, but at some point, like with ebay, when your user base grows beyond your abilities to monitor it, then what?   I hate to say, the "out" of "I didn't know it was happening" gets used as an excuse.   At this point, now that the Napster issue is in the media - they can't really claim that they didn't know...   But do we ban this sort of "trade engine" technology or do we hire cybercops to do the "monitoring" - that's what I meant by "Big Brother".  
And as an FYI, everything I've posted is basically from a devil's advocate standpoint to generate some discussion, because I think that this has some far-reaching consequences that we don't even see yet.
And come on people, be honest... Everyone who has never ever ever downloaded one song from napster which they did not already own, raise your hands high above everyone elses so we can call you liars. I admit that i did. I also admit that I deleted the song, as well as the program immediately thereafter.
;-)
I don't think that's the issue that I was beginning to allude to...   I think the issue is moving towards eventual oversight and regulation ?? (ie., don't blame the hapless user, blame the company who gave the user the means to do illegal activities) - and I know that alot out there are against gov't intervention in general and would perhaps prefer "self policing" from a company like Napster   Perhaps the discussions here may prompt a change in the software engine.   But I'm sure that there are many such "underground" entities out there where shady activities are going on and it's just that Napster "got caught".   However, sometimes policing gets to the point of diminishing returns...  
Napster has less in common with a tape recorder than it has in common with a music shop, or even a bakery where people come to talk. Napster does not itself replicate any data, whatsoever, however it does stand by and watch other people violate the law.
;-)
And that was exactly my point with my post about comparing Napster to ebay.   And in fact, how many times have we heard in the news where people have tried to trade and auction stuff like human eggs or children, etc. using ebay?
That was my "monkey wrench" to generate some more discussion.   Do we go after ebay for allowing the trading of copyrighted material?   Do we sue the Bell or AT&T companies for being the conduit via the telephone or even the internet for illegal activities?   Do we go after the U.S. Postal service when someone uses it and it's employees and it's trucks as a conduit for transfering illegal items?
In order for someone like a Napster host to realistically monitor these types of activities, we would then need to go into "Big Brother" mode.   Would this not violate privacy?
Just adding some more to think about....  
Ah, but the person you're responding to is referring to consumer-level piracy: in other words, you snagging a copy of a movie from a friend. And this hasn't materialized on any large scale. The pirated movies you see for sale on the street weren't made by consumer-level pirates. They were made by large-scale, organized pirates. These people are less affected by the price of VCRs - if most people had $100 videocassette players (i.e. no recording) and videocassette recorders were $1000 items, you'd probably still see the sort of piracy you're describing.
;-)
Let me echo what I said in response to another post.   In the past 5 or so years, there has been a proliferation of "tapes for sale" on vendor tables.   These aren't mass-produced (ie., the "big" piraters), these are HOMEMADE, ie., someone buys a ticket to a popular movie, carries his little palm-sized 8mm video recorder into the theater, props it up on his shoulder, and starts taping.   He then takes it home to his tiny transfering setup, and reproduces a bunch of tapes.   He then proceeds to hawk them on the streets or sells them to someone who will hawk them - while the movie is playing in the theater!   Sometimes they are able to get legitimate shrink wrap boxes and everything.   Doing this with music is even easier, because they make their own labels.   Again, these aren't major "chinese" piraters - these are little CONSUMERS trying to make a quick buck, right here in the US of A.
Capitalism and entrepreneurism.   Ain't it something else?  
Most cassettes and videos are pirated?
;-).   I would NEVER buy crap like that off of any vendor or in any of the prolific "electronic" chain stores like the old "Sound of Music" chains, which were also shutdown due to pirated and "hot" stuff.
Read my statement again.   I said:
When was the last time you strolled the streets
And I said:
Most of the music cassette and video crap sitting on the tables for sale are pirated.
In most big cities, there are "street vendors".   These street vendors have tables setup on the sidewalk.   It is a well known fact that most of the stuff on these tables on the sidewalks (including the so-called "designer" watches and pocketbooks, etc.) ARE fake.   Ever wonder what one of the causes for closing down the "Crazy Eddie's" chain out of New York was?   Ever walked into similar chain stores in any big city?   I guess not.
have yet to see one pirated shrink wrap cassette or video. Granted, I have seen taped music in a few homes, but in a retail store? Where do you get this information?
I don't mean to start a flame (which is useless) but I would like to note that just because you haven't had a certain experience, then you cannot assume that it can't happen or doesn't exist.   That's pretty arrogant.   I have been the victim of the receipt of a pirated tape that was legitimately purchased as a gift.   What is the mark of a pirated tape - even one with a legitimate-looking box and shrink wrap?   It is one that you play and you can tell that some IDIOT was sitting in a movie theater WITH a camcorder, recording the thing, and then passed it along to piraters to reproduce.   And how do you know this other than the jerkiness and blurriness and otherwise poor quality of the tape?   Why you can HEAR the audience cheering and talking in the background.   Needless to say, the thing went in the trash.
And I live in Philadelphia and maybe you need to visit the city more often...  
Of course, one of the things that makes Napster work the way it does is that the file transfer itself is peer-to-peer, which conveniently means the files are never stored in anyone's server. Therefore there are N,000 separate individuals at any one time that they would need to go after. As N->infinity (and it definitely seems to be rising steadily), it's going to become completely unfeasible.
;-)
;-)
Let me throw a monkey wrench in here for a moment...   When I read your statement, I thought about ebay.   Why?   Because much of what ebay does is (in a way) "peer to peer", ie., people trading stuff between themselves - and although I only visited there once or twice, I wouldn't be surprised if people would trade say, their entire vinyl collections (after making a tape copy) to someone else...  
I don't know all the intricacies of software EULAS or copyrights (and please forgive my previous misspellings of it!) or the various licensing issues...   and I may be wrong, and someone please correct me, but don't alot of the music licenses forbid "transfering" to others, although maybe they mean in the "commercial" sense (or do they)?
Which explains why they go after Napster. Napster may not be doing anything illegal, but at least they're one specific company that stays put.
So if transfer of copyrighted material is forbidden, would not that impact any online "trading" sites or even flea markets at a county fair?   What makes a digital transfer any different then a "physical" one except the speed at which it can be done?   And I say this in terms of someone making a copy of a certain music format (vinyl - so now you have 2 copies) and then transfering the original to someone else via a site like ebay.   If that's the case, should ebay be policed for this type of copyright infringement?
Just curious if anyone wants to comment on this...  
I hope _you_ are just kidding. :) CSS was not invented to control piracy through copying, as CSS does not prevent copying. CSS prevents playback, useful for leveraging your muscle against those who don't serve your corporate interests.
;-).   Forgot to wrap my "tongue in cheek" code around the statement...   ;-)
You're preachin' to the choir...  
But the point of the matter is you have to go buy a multitap for the PS2, while it comes built in on the N64 and DC. And 4 is pretty much the limit for most mulitplayer games, so very very few games let you have more than 4. I'm just sorta wondering about Sony since it wouldnt' take that much extra money to stick in 4 controller ports, and then everyone would be happy.
;-)
Good point, although maybe the initial thought in the design back when it first released was that you'd have alot more "solo" use on it then "group" use.   The explosion of multi-multi player games sortof blew that notion away.   I guess it's all part of the tradeoffs.   I picked the Playstation over the others because: 1.)There were more games available for it and 2.)The format was CD-ROM based (and I can play music CDs on it).
I tried to study the page from this article that showed the innards of the PS2, but I can't tell if they still only have 2 ports or whether they opted for more.   The one thing I did notice was that the thing looks huge... (and they did say that it was bigger due to cooling required for the DVD-ROM).   I wish they had put a ruler or something against the units in the pictures so I can see how big we're talking.
Heck...   alot of us tend to carry these things around ya know!  
About those multi-taps, why the hell did Sony only put two controller ports on the damn thing? It's so stupid of them. the N64 has 4, Dreamcast has 4, and I'll bet my life the Dolphin will have 4, but yet Sony only puts TWO(!) controller ports on it.
Hey - just get yourself the 4-port extender that plugs into one of the 2 default ports like I did.   Buy 2 extenders and you got yourself 8-ports!
Finding games to do 8 is tricky though, although I think stuff like Monopoly is setup for that!
When VCRs were first released the movie industry's protestations were immediately shown to be baseless. Pirating (on the level of _consumers_ which was the industry fear) never materialized.
;-)   When was the last time you strolled the streets of any "big city" (fill in the blank) in the U.S.?   Most of the music cassette and video crap sitting on the tables for sale are pirated.   In fact, I have often seen complete, shrink-wrapped videos of movies *for sale* that are STILL playing in the theaters!
I hope you're just kidding.  
When Congress allowed the VCR format to go ahead, that was back in the late '70s, when the average consumer VCR cost well over US$1000.   Now that the VCR can be had in many cases for under US$100, video piracy IS rampant and music cassette piracy even more so.
I hate to say that it's a fact of the business and this is why there was Macrovision (remember that?), which was used to try to stem the piracy tide.   This encoding was subsequently dropped in many cases (because people got around it anyway and many VCRs wouldn't even legitimately PLAY the movie without gumming up the picture).
This is also why DVDs were incoded with CSS - to try to STOP piracy.   And thus the source of all the grief around DeCSS... which by the way is supposed to allow the playing of an encoded digital video - not necessarily allow the pirating of it... but I digress.
What you say is right on target regarding MP3s, but Napster very much promotes piracy. It is a means for people to copy copyrighted music from one person's computer to another -- what part of that is not blatant piracy?
;-)
Well... right now, I can go to a store and buy a dual cassette recorder/player.   My purpose might be to record a public affairs show and then make copies of my own recording... nothing illegal about that... no copywrite infringement.
And this is my point - and I expect that the libertarians and gun supporters would agree - it's not the device that gives you the "means" that is to blame -- it's the PERSON with the device.
If a law is clearly spelled out and a person chooses to violate that law, then I'm afraid that the person is to blame.
Should we ban all such media distribution devices because there are those who choose to break the law with them?   No one is forcing them to only copy and illegally distribute copywrited material - that is a choice.   Sure, realistically, we know that it's going to happen, but must *I*, as someone who wants to maybe use these things for legitimate purposes, be punished as well?
Just some food for thought.  
I noticed that the article mentioned that multi-taps weren't available yet.   That's the best feature - to have you and a bunch of friends duking it out (and tripping over the wires).
Since I have a Playstation, I'll be following this closely.   I recall over a year ago that this thing was supposed to have come out last fall and Dreamcast beat them to the punch.   I am also curious about the supposed internet accessibility that has been claimed for this unit...
As far as I know, unless another country chooses to pattern their own laws after this, only through a treaty between countries, would this extend beyond the U.S. borders.   And as a FYI, treaties are pretty difficult things to enact here in the U.S.!
The argument that something like Napster foments piracy is the same tired old issue that surfaced with the first reel-to-reels, then the cassette, then the VCR tape, etc.   Yes, there will always be free-loaders.   But is blaming the "engine" that was created for legitimate purposes the way to solve the piracy and copywrite issue?   This is like suing all the cassette recorder manufacturers for promoting piracy.   They tried it at one time and failed.   It'll never happen here either.
.mp3s) and so they make even more $$$ by capturing a wider range of audiences, ie., those who purchase vinyl, cassette, CD, and now mp3.
What usually DOES happen is that the business suddenly realizes that they have a new format to sell (which they have started doing with
The bandwidth issue though, is a concern.   Despite claims to the contrary, the infrastructure out there is not what it should be to handle the increases in streaming media.   More choices of bandwidth providers would certainly bring the costs down for upgrades, but I expect that most sites, particulary at colleges, have gone with their local Bell company at quite a cost.   Perhaps the latest network providers - the fiber providers - may be the answer.   Fiber will certainly offer the bandwidth needed to do this sort of thing.
Use JPEG2000 with wavelets to get the best quality to size ratios. Plug-in may be required on some platforms, but that's the same for PNG.
:-)
.gif users because of the bad publicity and the impending patent expiration?)
;-)
Cool.   Never heard of that one!  
(Hasn't UNISYS stopped chasing
I would expect that it would be in their best interest to quit...   I haven't heard anything recently on the issue...   although you would think that in a similar case, Amazon.com would quit with their patent issue...   Besides, it's an impossible task to try to hunt down every gif user...   sortof like those who have been trying to hunt down every DeCSS linker...  
PNGs are generally the same quality as GIFs, and often smaller. Try gif2png and see for yourself.
Cool...   Thanks for the info.   I have gif2png but never got around to trying it, probably because I like jpegs (though they're always so huge).   I did sortof agree with move to go to pngs, so maybe I will!