The private copying exemption (which is what makes downloading legal) and the establishment of the tariffs are both part of Part VIII of the Copyright Act, titled "Private Copying". To say that they're not directly related is just plain wrong. We pay the tariff, and in exchange we get the private copying exemption.
Say what you want, but seriously, nothing beats WMA on quality for really tiny files.
Do you have any evidence to back that up? Here's some evidence to the contrary - a public listening test that put Nero HE-AAC at the top of the pile at such low bitrates, followed by MP3Pro.
The levy doesn't apply to the recording hardware, just the media. As for DVD media, the levy doesn't apply to them either. From the official tariff:
29 cents for each audio cassette of 40 minutes or more in length;
21 cents for each CD-R or CD-RW;
77 cents for each CD-R Audio, CD-RW Audio or MiniDisc;
for non-removable memory permanently embedded in a digital audio recorder, $2 for each recorder that can record no more than 1 Gigabyte (Gb) of data, $15 for each recorder that can record more than 1 Gb and no more than 10 Gbs of data, and $25 for each recorder that can record more than 10 Gbs of data. (struck down)
The worst offender I've seen here is this story. The submitter in that case clearly assumed that everyone who'd read it knew what the hell "H2G2" was, and so made no effort to explain it.
For all those who cry out "RTFA!", use your goddamn heads. First, don't assume TFA is even reachable when the story is fresh. Ever heard of the slashdot effect? Second, why should thousands of people have to take the time and effort to search out the answer when it would take far less effort for the submitter to spell the fucking abbreviation out?
Note to the editors: You're just as much at fault when you accept such stories.
Bullcrap. You can plug the cable directly into the iPod. The cable connector on the dock and the iPod are identical. The dock is really just a stand with a line out.
Looking at Zinf.org, the only Win32 version on the download page is 2.2.1, and according to the SourceForge project page, that version is over two years old. And it's got a buffer overflow bug. What am I missing that makes it attractive in the wake of Winamp's development slowing down?
Powermenu is another app that enables minimizing any window to the tray, as well as Always On Top, Process Priority and Window Transparency settings for all windows.
'Audio recording medium' is not a technical definition in this case, but a legal one.
The document describing the tariff not only defines what is considered an audio recording medium, but it also lays out the size of the levy collected on those items. If PC hard drives were considered audio recording media, we'd be paying a levy on them as well, which we're not.
80. (1) Subject to subsection (2), the act of reproducing all or any substantial part of
(a) a musical work embodied in a sound recording,
(b) a performer's performance of a musical work embodied in a sound recording, or
(c) a sound recording in which a musical work, or a performer's performance of a musical work, is embodied
onto an audio recording medium for the private use of the person who makes the copy does not constitute an infringement of the copyright in the musical work, the performer's performance or the sound recording.
"blank audio recording medium" means
(a) a recording medium, regardless of its material form, onto which a sound recording may be reproduced, that is of a kind ordinarily used by individual consumers for that purpose and on which no sounds have ever been fixed, including
(i) audio cassettes (1/8 inch tape) of 40 minutes or more in length;
(ii) recordable compact discs (CD-R, CD-RW, CD-R Audio, CD-RW Audio);
(iii) MiniDiscs;
(iv) non-removable memory, including solid state and hard disk, that is permanently embedded in a digital audio recorder; and
(b) any medium prescribed by regulations pursuant to sections 79 and 87 of the Act;
Standard PC hard drives do not qualify, so just ripping your friends' CDs to your own hard drive is not legal. Burning CD copies of them is.
Me, I paid the levy on my iPod, and put all of the music on it myself. Therefore it's all legal.
One more note: The revisions to the levy made last December were accompanied by an opinion handed down by the Copyright Board regarding the legality of P2P downloading. The decision was that the Copyright Act does not address the legality of the source:
There is no requirement in Part VIII that the source copy be a non-infringing copy. Hence, it is not relevant whether the source of the track is a pre-owned recording, a borrowed CD, or a track downloaded from the Internet.
Of course, the conditions of Section 80 must still be met.
You can play DVD's from any region on any player if you use software with decss... like VLC and such. (Yes, it works under Windows too.)
No, you can't. For about the last five years, DVD drives themselves have been enforcing region coding in firmware. Firmwares that do not enforce regioning are called RPC-1. Ones that do are called RPC-2. The only way to make a recent drive RPC-1 is with a hacked firmware, since the companies only release RPC-2.
The Firmware Page is one of the best sources for hacked RPC-1 firmware. But if no one has hacked up a new firmware for your drive, then there's no way around region coding regardless what software you're using.
Here's the reason for this: It's perfectly possible to get gapless AAC and MP3 using pretty much the same method that Vorbis does. It's just that it requires certain information (i.e. encoder delay) to be passed to the decoder, and only Vorbis has set in its spec how to do so.
There are encoders that'll add the info into tags for AAC (Nero) and MP3 (LAME), but few decoders know how to use that info.
FLAC, as with all lossless codecs, is inherently gapless-capable.
They're also making a 40GB version as well. But what I'd like to know is, are they going to work harder at making it available than they did for the iHP-140?
When I was looking for a 40GB player (yes, my music collection plus use as a portable HDD necessitates 40GB for me), I could find quite a few local places that had the iHP-120, but no one who had the iHP-140. Heck, it was even a pain finding any online store in Canada that had it.
I ended up buying an iPod since I could have it in my hands right when I purchased it, get a student discount and not have to pay any shipping.
You should also look at the follow up test here. The test you linked to shows WMA standard (not pro) as slightly lower quality than AAC. This one shows WMApro and AAC are within the margin of error from each other.
Keep in mind that these tests were comparing files at 128kbps. The MSN music files are encoded at 160kbps and probably used the WMApro encoder. This seems to support the belief that the MSN files are probably better quality than iTunes files.
Number one, that test you linked to is not a follow-up test. According to this page the test I linked was conducted between 2004-05-12 and 2004-05-23, whereas the test you linked was conducted between 2003-07-23 and 2003-08-03.
Second, there are few if any portable devices capable of playing WMA Pro. So I'd bet good money that the MSN music service is using regular WMA.
And just to preemptively dispel the misconception: No, you cannot play WMA Pro files with a WMA standard decoder. They're totally different and incompatible codecs.
at least try to find an equally or more credible benchmark that has different findings.
No problem. This test was performed by Roberto Amorim of HydrogenAudio using an ITU standard test methodology.
HydrogenAudio has among the strictest standards for audio comparisons - merely posting "codec X is better than codec Y at N bitrate" without ABX test results to back it up is against the posting guidelines. I've yet to see anyone make a convincing critcism of their methods.
Its like buying thousands of packets of a breakfast cereal you don't like, but they give away a cool plastic toy with each box...
You'd be surprised. My Dad told me a story of when he was a kid - Dr Pepper was a relatively new drink at the time, and he and his friends tried it and didn't like it - but his friends kept buying it!
My Dad: "Why do you keep buying that stuff? You said you didn't like it!"
His friends: "Yeah, but you might win a free bottle!"
Basically, his friends kept buying stuff they didn't like because they might win more of it.
It's not hard to find. Go to Info for IT pros from the main XP site (left side), click on the SP2 link near the top, then "List of all Updates". That'll get you here.
Here in Saskatchewan we've had residential DSL available since 1996. Yes, nineteen ninety six. Our total population is about a million, mostly over about a third of the province, putting the population density at about five per square kilometre in that area.
So, how well are we covered for broadband? DSL is available in over two hundred communities. (sasktel.com -> Internet services -> High Speed Internet -> click on "communities" in the "High Speed Basic Internet" section. Direct linking to the list doesn't work.)
Slashdot Mirror
The private copying exemption (which is what makes downloading legal) and the establishment of the tariffs are both part of Part VIII of the Copyright Act, titled "Private Copying". To say that they're not directly related is just plain wrong. We pay the tariff, and in exchange we get the private copying exemption.
Only the tariff collected on portable digital audio players was struck down. It still applies to blank CDs, tapes and Minidiscs.
Do you have any evidence to back that up? Here's some evidence to the contrary - a public listening test that put Nero HE-AAC at the top of the pile at such low bitrates, followed by MP3Pro.
Nor do I.
The worst offender I've seen here is this story. The submitter in that case clearly assumed that everyone who'd read it knew what the hell "H2G2" was, and so made no effort to explain it.
For all those who cry out "RTFA!", use your goddamn heads. First, don't assume TFA is even reachable when the story is fresh. Ever heard of the slashdot effect? Second, why should thousands of people have to take the time and effort to search out the answer when it would take far less effort for the submitter to spell the fucking abbreviation out?
Note to the editors: You're just as much at fault when you accept such stories.
Bullcrap. You can plug the cable directly into the iPod. The cable connector on the dock and the iPod are identical. The dock is really just a stand with a line out.
Looking at Zinf.org, the only Win32 version on the download page is 2.2.1, and according to the SourceForge project page, that version is over two years old. And it's got a buffer overflow bug. What am I missing that makes it attractive in the wake of Winamp's development slowing down?
2in * 3.3in * 0.7in = 4.62in^3
So the volume of the Micro is under half that of the Zen Touch. I'd say that's significant.
Because miniaturization ain't free.
Powermenu is another app that enables minimizing any window to the tray, as well as Always On Top, Process Priority and Window Transparency settings for all windows.
No, the iHPs do not play FLAC.
The document describing the tariff not only defines what is considered an audio recording medium, but it also lays out the size of the levy collected on those items. If PC hard drives were considered audio recording media, we'd be paying a levy on them as well, which we're not.
To clarify things in Canada's case, here's section 80 from the Copyright Act:
Emphasis mine. What qualifies as an audio recording medium is specified in the Private Copying Certified Tariff:
Standard PC hard drives do not qualify, so just ripping your friends' CDs to your own hard drive is not legal. Burning CD copies of them is.
Me, I paid the levy on my iPod, and put all of the music on it myself. Therefore it's all legal.
One more note: The revisions to the levy made last December were accompanied by an opinion handed down by the Copyright Board regarding the legality of P2P downloading. The decision was that the Copyright Act does not address the legality of the source:
Of course, the conditions of Section 80 must still be met.
No, you can't. For about the last five years, DVD drives themselves have been enforcing region coding in firmware. Firmwares that do not enforce regioning are called RPC-1. Ones that do are called RPC-2. The only way to make a recent drive RPC-1 is with a hacked firmware, since the companies only release RPC-2.
The Firmware Page is one of the best sources for hacked RPC-1 firmware. But if no one has hacked up a new firmware for your drive, then there's no way around region coding regardless what software you're using.
There are encoders that'll add the info into tags for AAC (Nero) and MP3 (LAME), but few decoders know how to use that info.
FLAC, as with all lossless codecs, is inherently gapless-capable.
That's possible from DVD audio, but no lossless codec that I know of operates on DSD (which is used in SACDs) - just PCM.
Sure, transcoded from 384kbps freeformat MP3. You might as well just buy it in that format, as FLAC isn't likely to be any smaller.
When I was looking for a 40GB player (yes, my music collection plus use as a portable HDD necessitates 40GB for me), I could find quite a few local places that had the iHP-120, but no one who had the iHP-140. Heck, it was even a pain finding any online store in Canada that had it.
I ended up buying an iPod since I could have it in my hands right when I purchased it, get a student discount and not have to pay any shipping.
Number one, that test you linked to is not a follow-up test. According to this page the test I linked was conducted between 2004-05-12 and 2004-05-23, whereas the test you linked was conducted between 2003-07-23 and 2003-08-03.
Second, there are few if any portable devices capable of playing WMA Pro. So I'd bet good money that the MSN music service is using regular WMA.
And just to preemptively dispel the misconception: No, you cannot play WMA Pro files with a WMA standard decoder. They're totally different and incompatible codecs.
No problem. This test was performed by Roberto Amorim of HydrogenAudio using an ITU standard test methodology.
HydrogenAudio has among the strictest standards for audio comparisons - merely posting "codec X is better than codec Y at N bitrate" without ABX test results to back it up is against the posting guidelines. I've yet to see anyone make a convincing critcism of their methods.
Well, my mistake. It was relatively new to the area (Saskatchewan).
You'd be surprised. My Dad told me a story of when he was a kid - Dr Pepper was a relatively new drink at the time, and he and his friends tried it and didn't like it - but his friends kept buying it!
My Dad: "Why do you keep buying that stuff? You said you didn't like it!"
His friends: "Yeah, but you might win a free bottle!"
Basically, his friends kept buying stuff they didn't like because they might win more of it.
Low? Yes. New? No.
It's not hard to find. Go to Info for IT pros from the main XP site (left side), click on the SP2 link near the top, then "List of all Updates". That'll get you here.
So, how well are we covered for broadband? DSL is available in over two hundred communities. (sasktel.com -> Internet services -> High Speed Internet -> click on "communities" in the "High Speed Basic Internet" section. Direct linking to the list doesn't work.)
The "density" argument still doesn't wash.