Or even better: Allow the whole sentence. Give people 128 characters for their passwords and they can craft lots of memorable secure passwords. What really gets me is when I am required to have an ungodly complex password but limits it to 8 or 12 characters. There are hardly any valid passwords left if you force a number, punctuation, lowercase, and uppercase, and disallow dictionary words and runs of numbers.
This! You know, the bank I used to use had something even more ridiculous: online passwords had to be exactly 6 characters or numbers, and they basically corresponded to the letters or numbers on a phone keypad, so your online and phone banking password were the same. So I could use 'tarzan' as my online password, but a hacker only has to guess '827926', or even 'vaswam' and they had an equivalent 'password'.
They said they used other forms of verification, such as trying to log in from a strange IP would generate a further challenge question that the user had to answer to proceed, etc., but I wasn't buying it. Their other methods are probably effective enough, since I haven't heard anything in the news regarding wide scale security breaches, but there is no reason why they couldn't have implemented those additional measures in combination with a secure password policy. I let them know exactly why I was transferring my business as I was moving my accounts, so it could be that they've changed their policies since then *shrugs*. Don't know, don't care, that one boneheaded decision was enough to lose this customer's trust.
Create a random, nonsense but memorable phrase composed of *gasp* dictionary words, pepper a couple of punctuation marks if you like (is a space considered punctuation for password verification? IDK) and vary the capitalization if that's one of the requirements for password verification. e.g., "correct, horse...battery staPLE!" I'm sure as you read that, the associated verbal emphasis is resounding in your cranium, making it easy to remember where the punctuation and capitals go, while making it very difficult for an attacker to brute force even with a dictionary attack.
Trouble is, there are too many crap password verification systems that either don't allow spaces, or don't allow passwords longer than, say, 12 characters. If you are artificially restricted to such a ridiculous degree, then it becomes incredibly hard to fashion a password that is both easy to remember, but hard for others to guess. In that case I will keep in mind your method, it may come in handy, thanks!
You cannot prove even one lost sale because there is no evidence to state that any one person who pirated your game would have bought your game if piracy did not exist. From an accounting perspective itâ(TM)s speculative and a company cannot accurately determine loss or gain based on speculative accounting. You canâ(TM)t rely on revenue due to speculation, you canâ(TM)t build a company off of what will âoeprobablyâ happen. Watch âoeThe Smartest Guys in the Roomâ and see how that worked out for Enron.
Okay, so Enron fudged it, but insurance companies in general are all about building a business speculating on what will "probably" happen. The things that let them keep going are in-depth risk analysis, diversification, and a fat cushion of capital. As long as they're right sufficiently more often than they're wrong, then they win overall.
Not that this will help EA out any, but that bit bugged me.
True that, but there's a huge difference between the accuracy of actuarial tables and that of marketing projections.
The insurance companies have to have the best, verifiable numbers possible to get a reasonable idea of how much they will have to pay out in an average year, so they can size their premiums accordingly. If they just say fugit and place the premiums at a hundred times what they figure they might pay out in a year, people simply won't buy their product. Those projections have to be based on the best information the companies can find, with very little room for corporate delusions.
Marketing and software development, on the other hand, is rife with self-delusion and speculation. With the advent of computers, that branch of salespeople now have a ready-made troll to beat when their overly optimistic estimates don't come close to the actuals...it must be them dam dirty pirates again, boss!
The existence of a pirated copy of a game does not equate directly to a lost sale any more than tripling the insurance premiums equates directly to profit. Some people will go ahead and pay the cost, while many, many others will refuse at any cost. True, they shouldn't be looking to benefit from the product without paying some price, but the gaming company cannot seriously claim that everyone who tries a game for shits and giggles would have bought it if they couldn't play the pirated version. That's like Luis Vuitton claiming that everyone who buys a knock-off handbag would have bought a real handbag if the knockoff weren't available...yeah, fat chance of that! It's much more likely that the game would have simply faded into obscurity, because people weren't interested enough to buy it so nobody's talking about it...
What the company does gain from piracy, however, is word of mouth marketing for their game. Pissing off their customers with DRM nightmares...well, that's also a form of word of mouth marketing.
I have many pictures of friends and family that I enjoy looking at, but none of them involve someone sitting on the toilet, puking up Jagermeister or getting a boil lanced.
Or reading slashdot...
Seriously, think about looking at someone else's vacation pictures, especially someone who compulsively photographs every bit of scenery and every single person they meet for more than five seconds. They may or may not remember the names of the places or people, by by gawd, they have those pics, and you have to see 'em too! No bathroom breaks, sit your ass back down on that couch!
Now imagine if that person could regale you with the same detailed slideshow from their everyday life, complete with brushing teeth and taking a shit. WHY?? Why would you subject someone to that!?! Especially someone you claim to care about (i.e., boyfriend, children, etc.)?
So no. This is a terrible, FB-inspired, 'everything I do in life is so fascinating that I must share it with the world!' idea.
I just *love* scrolling through all my bookmarks looking for one I know I have in there. Yes, I know, I can use the search bar to find it, but that doesn't really help when I just want to browse bookmarks of a particular type...for example, restaurants, or online stores.
In the past, I have stored these bookmark types in their own folders, then when I'm feeling peckish (for food or toys:), I'll just open the relevant bookmark folder and see what looks 'appetizing' today. With FF mobile, there is no way to even sort your bookmarks manually to group similar types together, much less have them tidily tucked away in their own folder like you can on the desktop client. You are stuck with some weird arse ordering system invented by Mozilla (new bookmarks go to the end of your bookmark list...almost?)
This (apparently deliberate) design choice just baffles me...why, Mozilla? Why take away folder and bookmark management tools for mobile devices, where people are constantly looking for ways to optimize screen real estate? Why??
It draws a graph showing you the current rate, in which you can see the average over time.
That's true, the new copy dialog is very nice. One thing I do miss, however, is some indication of the total size being copied...how hard would it have been to put "Copying 1 item (4.47GB) from A to B"?
When the question is wether to use a single password on multiple sites or writing all the passwords down, i vote for the second option.
Usually such things can be avoided, if the person is taught a password generating algorithm which modifies the password per site.
But writing them down (the safer with tools the better) is a lot better than re-using passwords all the time.
This is where password manager programs like Keepass are useful. Remember one password => access to rest of passwords.
For wider usability, you can 'dual' encrypt the database (so it requires both a passfile and a password) then store it on the cloud service provider of your choice...
Actually I don't think baenebooks.com sells books directly anymore. Last time I was there they said that they were now using amazon.com as their ebook distributor.
S'weird, cause I just bought their latest monthly book bundle...the downloads don't seem to come through Amazon...and I can pay with PayPal...
I did notice, though, that Tor is selling on there as well, so maybe they just decided not to bother setting up their own store.
I've noticed more and more Amazon eBooks, especially sci-fi books, being released without DRM. It's still very much in the minority, but at least it's happening.
I posted feedback to their help center a while back telling them that they needed to implement a DRM filter on their advanced search page, at least something like "DRM? Y/N". Yeah, right, I won't be holding my breath for it...
In the meantime, search Amazon for books from Baen or Tor, they're the only two major publishers I am aware of that have implemented a no DRM policy. Or better yet, buy direct from Baen. Tor's supposed to have a store too, but something seems to have gone awry there.
Indeed, as I've said before, if ads are going to be foisted on me, I'd rather see ads for Android phones and S&M equipment than for women's shoes and motorcycle insurance. And I care about how Google determines the former are more suited than the latter and the privacy controls it implements to prevent such data falling into the wrong hands, not the fact that Google figures it out in the first place.
er, kinky?
Good on you, though, for following your own path fearlessly and with abandon:)
MS reads everything on your sky-net drive. Supposenly to their fair use rules. However if there is something bad on them you loose your account. (even if that that data is never shared)
Now who is evil....
L O S E!!! FFS it's not that complicated!
Perhaps he meant to loose the account into the digital wilderness...little herds of bytes forever roaming free and unhindered, to flock and flee where they may?
Kind of a forced scenario there. Why can't we have good e-mail without advertisements as an option? Google's service is fine, and understanding their ToS means you understand you're going to have ads; that's the nature of the net right now. Doesn't mean you have to like it and that we must comply with this model.
What ads on GMail?
AdBlocker Plus and NoScript are your friends...:o)
... without an immediate apology? Are you sure that you're Canadian?
That's why he said "Screw off" instead of "Fuck off, you miserable, goat sucking, syphilitic, halitosis-ridden sons of diseased moose shit." Sincerely.
I'll never EVER buy another Sony product but I'm one in seven billion.
Make that two in seven billion...
I avoid Sony products like they carry malaria, now. I'm proud to say that the last Sony product I ever purchased was a PS2 (that sits in the basement, collecting dust). If I want to buy a CD, I make damn sure it's not a Sony Music CD: a movie, it can't be Sony Pictures, sorry. I'm sure they don't even notice, but I feel better...
I suppose the fallout if this gets passed will be a longer list of 'no-go' software/music/movie producers for me. *sigh*, oh well, time to start weaning myself away from closed source software anyway...
Were you, perhaps, unaware that copyright infringement actually *IS* a crime?
Yeah, so is jaywalking. If it's such a terrible crime, why don't they push for jail time instead of money, then? Will this settlement show up on a criminal records check? I don't think so.
No, they've made it pretty clear that this is simply their new business model, intended to prop up their old, outdated business model. Where I live, they're already charging a levy on blank storage devices, assuming that everyone is going to be using them to host copied content...guilty until proven innocent. Better yet: guilty even if proven innocent...
I'd like to be clear: I am not advocating not paying good artists for content that you enjoy, and I certainly do buy my music, always have. I don't, however, see a problem with grabbing a track or two from an artist I haven't heard (usually from a friends collection) to see if I like it enough to buy it. If a friend doesn't have the ones I'm wondering about, then yes, I'll look for it online because I can, and I'm a try before I buy kind of shopper...and more importantly, I'm an enthusiastic supporter of what I do really like, once I know I like it. (e.g. I sampled some Van Canto songs a couple months ago, played them several times over the course of a week or so, and bought all four of their albums...and am constantly playing them for friends. That's just the most extreme recent example that comes to mind) I don't see why I should be treated like a criminal for wanting to share my music with friends, or even for wanting to 'test drive' the artist before signing the lease.
I know the major online music stores have those 5 or 10 second previews available, but I have a slow music ear and usually have to hear a song several times before I know if I'll still like it or want to throw it out the window after the first week:o) I also have no patience for 'radio' music, since I find most of the stuff they play is...err...low quality, to put it mildly, or it's great stuff...that I already have. I honestly can't remember the last time I heard a new song on a radio that excited me (yet, strangely, it does happen somewhat more often with store and restaurant music. I wind up using SoundHound a lot)
OTOH, I do have a lot of cruft that I downloaded at the advice of others (reminds me, I have to do some digital housecleaning some day soon), stuff that I thought I might like, but turned out to be just annoying or 'meh' with repetition, so I toss it in the 'see if Jenny or John likes it before deleting' folder. I suppose the RIAA would have a 'lost profits' case against me for those tracks, since I didn't like their product enough to fork over dollars for it after I heard it, and I wasn't stuck paying them before I got to hear it...I must say, though, my real collection now has more songs from more artists than ever before, and all of it of better, more concentrated quality than in the days of mix tapes and CDs. I can buy *just* the songs I enjoy (and know I'll keep enjoying), without all the 'album filler' that used to frustrate me. I think that is the biggest reason the RIAA is panicking over 'lost profits': because people simply aren't willing to pay for filler meat any more (unless the artist is awesome, that is).
Oh my, how I do ramble. Sorry, tl;dr , happy Friday!
What basis do you have for believing that such a fund could realistically hope to cover the costs for enough cases that it might bankrupt those companies?
And even by offering to cover such costs in advance, it might be argued (they do have good lawyers, after all) that the person infringing on copyright with advance knowledge that the fine they could expect to pay has been given economic incentive to do so (even if not a monetarily profitable one), elevating it to the level of commercial infringement, where the damages will be orders of magnitude higher. Oh, and the organizers of the fund could end up being liable for deliberate contributory infringement as well, since they would have already admitted that they intended to pay such fines.
So.... tell me. How many volunteers do you think you are liable to get, that are willing to take the financial risks involved with financially supporting copyright infringers?
Really? Is this what happens when people choose legal aide lawyers, say? I know, I know, this is civil, not criminal law...but to my mind this is basically equivalent to a croud-funded class action lawsuit, only one where the claimant chooses how many people are participating in it. After all, the 'damages' they want to claim are criminal...but yes, IANAL. There may very well be no airtight legal way to set something like this up. That's a real shame.
The console itself is a featureless white sphere, with random blinky led's hidden under it's mysterious skin, designed to pulse in time with the game music and give no useful information at all.
The controller has just one big button with the trademark apple logo on it...all in-game functions and controls are determined by how fast you press the button, the precise location of the button in relation to your left ear, tilt, yaw and the current weather conditions...but don't worry if this sounds complicated, because Apple will play 99% of the game for you, so really all that grind work is taken care of in the background, according to your projected gaming tastes based on your music collection! You just go ahead and watch the pretty lights and...oohh...shiny...
Dig hole. Put in habitat. Cover hole. Instant 'cave':)
That's exactly what I was thinking, along with "inflatable dome over cave entrance / airlock to facilitate surface work / vehicle storage, with emergency procedures to hightail it underground if you get warning of a potential meteor strike / radiation event / etc."
All living quarters and environmental support equipment should be underground at the bare minimum, and most of the working areas too. Spend time figuring out how to reliably seal and pressurize an excavation, folks.
The problem with that theory is it requires enough willing participants to carry out. And the thing is, believe it or not, if enough people get dinged for this, however much it costs the organizations to do it, then that fine is genuinely going to act as a discouraging factor, reducing the number of potentially willing participants in your proposed scheme.
Tell you what though... if somebody does manage to pull off what you describe, I'll certainly admit to being wrong. That doesn't change what I currently expect the outcome to be, however.
Huh? What do you think the $1 collection is for?
I interpreted it as contributing to a fund that is used to pay the fines of those poor souls caught in this predicament, as long as they contested the charges and dragged it out enough to make it unprofitable for the claimants. He mentions setting up honeypots, but those wouldn't necessarily have to be tied to different people as long as each honeypot is a separate instance...it just increases the chances to get the RIAA/MPAA to 'bite' on a situation that will maximize their losses. That part is run by volunteers, the rest goes to regular people who step up and fight back, if their fight is unsuccessful.
Slashdot Mirror
Or even better: Allow the whole sentence. Give people 128 characters for their passwords and they can craft lots of memorable secure passwords. What really gets me is when I am required to have an ungodly complex password but limits it to 8 or 12 characters. There are hardly any valid passwords left if you force a number, punctuation, lowercase, and uppercase, and disallow dictionary words and runs of numbers.
This! You know, the bank I used to use had something even more ridiculous: online passwords had to be exactly 6 characters or numbers, and they basically corresponded to the letters or numbers on a phone keypad, so your online and phone banking password were the same. So I could use 'tarzan' as my online password, but a hacker only has to guess '827926', or even 'vaswam' and they had an equivalent 'password'.
They said they used other forms of verification, such as trying to log in from a strange IP would generate a further challenge question that the user had to answer to proceed, etc., but I wasn't buying it. Their other methods are probably effective enough, since I haven't heard anything in the news regarding wide scale security breaches, but there is no reason why they couldn't have implemented those additional measures in combination with a secure password policy. I let them know exactly why I was transferring my business as I was moving my accounts, so it could be that they've changed their policies since then *shrugs*. Don't know, don't care, that one boneheaded decision was enough to lose this customer's trust.
This is typically sufficient.
Create a random, nonsense but memorable phrase composed of *gasp* dictionary words, pepper a couple of punctuation marks if you like (is a space considered punctuation for password verification? IDK) and vary the capitalization if that's one of the requirements for password verification. e.g., "correct, horse...battery staPLE!" I'm sure as you read that, the associated verbal emphasis is resounding in your cranium, making it easy to remember where the punctuation and capitals go, while making it very difficult for an attacker to brute force even with a dictionary attack.
Trouble is, there are too many crap password verification systems that either don't allow spaces, or don't allow passwords longer than, say, 12 characters. If you are artificially restricted to such a ridiculous degree, then it becomes incredibly hard to fashion a password that is both easy to remember, but hard for others to guess. In that case I will keep in mind your method, it may come in handy, thanks!
Okay, so Enron fudged it, but insurance companies in general are all about building a business speculating on what will "probably" happen. The things that let them keep going are in-depth risk analysis, diversification, and a fat cushion of capital. As long as they're right sufficiently more often than they're wrong, then they win overall.
Not that this will help EA out any, but that bit bugged me.
True that, but there's a huge difference between the accuracy of actuarial tables and that of marketing projections.
The insurance companies have to have the best, verifiable numbers possible to get a reasonable idea of how much they will have to pay out in an average year, so they can size their premiums accordingly. If they just say fugit and place the premiums at a hundred times what they figure they might pay out in a year, people simply won't buy their product. Those projections have to be based on the best information the companies can find, with very little room for corporate delusions.
Marketing and software development, on the other hand, is rife with self-delusion and speculation. With the advent of computers, that branch of salespeople now have a ready-made troll to beat when their overly optimistic estimates don't come close to the actuals...it must be them dam dirty pirates again, boss!
The existence of a pirated copy of a game does not equate directly to a lost sale any more than tripling the insurance premiums equates directly to profit. Some people will go ahead and pay the cost, while many, many others will refuse at any cost. True, they shouldn't be looking to benefit from the product without paying some price, but the gaming company cannot seriously claim that everyone who tries a game for shits and giggles would have bought it if they couldn't play the pirated version. That's like Luis Vuitton claiming that everyone who buys a knock-off handbag would have bought a real handbag if the knockoff weren't available...yeah, fat chance of that! It's much more likely that the game would have simply faded into obscurity, because people weren't interested enough to buy it so nobody's talking about it...
What the company does gain from piracy, however, is word of mouth marketing for their game. Pissing off their customers with DRM nightmares...well, that's also a form of word of mouth marketing.
I have many pictures of friends and family that I enjoy looking at, but none of them involve someone sitting on the toilet, puking up Jagermeister or getting a boil lanced.
Or reading slashdot...
Seriously, think about looking at someone else's vacation pictures, especially someone who compulsively photographs every bit of scenery and every single person they meet for more than five seconds. They may or may not remember the names of the places or people, by by gawd, they have those pics, and you have to see 'em too! No bathroom breaks, sit your ass back down on that couch!
Now imagine if that person could regale you with the same detailed slideshow from their everyday life, complete with brushing teeth and taking a shit. WHY?? Why would you subject someone to that!?! Especially someone you claim to care about (i.e., boyfriend, children, etc.)?
So no. This is a terrible, FB-inspired, 'everything I do in life is so fascinating that I must share it with the world!' idea.
Sadly, doesn't look like it, yet. *Sigh*
I just *love* scrolling through all my bookmarks looking for one I know I have in there. Yes, I know, I can use the search bar to find it, but that doesn't really help when I just want to browse bookmarks of a particular type...for example, restaurants, or online stores.
In the past, I have stored these bookmark types in their own folders, then when I'm feeling peckish (for food or toys :), I'll just open the relevant bookmark folder and see what looks 'appetizing' today. With FF mobile, there is no way to even sort your bookmarks manually to group similar types together, much less have them tidily tucked away in their own folder like you can on the desktop client. You are stuck with some weird arse ordering system invented by Mozilla (new bookmarks go to the end of your bookmark list...almost?)
This (apparently deliberate) design choice just baffles me...why, Mozilla? Why take away folder and bookmark management tools for mobile devices, where people are constantly looking for ways to optimize screen real estate? Why??
...I love it!
"Google Store Sends User Information *That They Think They Have* To App Developers"
"...*the fake name, fake address and throwaway email that you registered with Google Wallet* is passed on to the developer..."
There. FTFY.
Why would anyone give the big G their real name? Learn how to use Visa or MC gift cards, man!
A pony.
The Windows8/Server 2012 dialog is much better in this case.
http://encosia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/windows-8-file-copy-dialog.png
It draws a graph showing you the current rate, in which you can see the average over time.
That's true, the new copy dialog is very nice. One thing I do miss, however, is some indication of the total size being copied...how hard would it have been to put "Copying 1 item (4.47GB) from A to B"?
It's the little things...
When the question is wether to use a single password on multiple sites or writing all the passwords down, i vote for the second option.
Usually such things can be avoided, if the person is taught a password generating algorithm which modifies the password per site.
But writing them down (the safer with tools the better) is a lot better than re-using passwords all the time.
This is where password manager programs like Keepass are useful. Remember one password => access to rest of passwords.
For wider usability, you can 'dual' encrypt the database (so it requires both a passfile and a password) then store it on the cloud service provider of your choice...
Actually I don't think baenebooks.com sells books directly anymore. Last time I was there they said that they were now using amazon.com as their ebook distributor.
S'weird, cause I just bought their latest monthly book bundle...the downloads don't seem to come through Amazon...and I can pay with PayPal...
I did notice, though, that Tor is selling on there as well, so maybe they just decided not to bother setting up their own store.
I've noticed more and more Amazon eBooks, especially sci-fi books, being released without DRM. It's still very much in the minority, but at least it's happening.
I posted feedback to their help center a while back telling them that they needed to implement a DRM filter on their advanced search page, at least something like "DRM? Y/N". Yeah, right, I won't be holding my breath for it...
In the meantime, search Amazon for books from Baen or Tor, they're the only two major publishers I am aware of that have implemented a no DRM policy. Or better yet, buy direct from Baen. Tor's supposed to have a store too, but something seems to have gone awry there.
...you're doing it "using a computer"!!
That makes it new, right? /sarcasm
Indeed, as I've said before, if ads are going to be foisted on me, I'd rather see ads for Android phones and S&M equipment than for women's shoes and motorcycle insurance. And I care about how Google determines the former are more suited than the latter and the privacy controls it implements to prevent such data falling into the wrong hands, not the fact that Google figures it out in the first place.
er, kinky?
Good on you, though, for following your own path fearlessly and with abandon :)
MS reads everything on your sky-net drive. Supposenly to their fair use rules. However if there is something bad on them you loose your account. (even if that that data is never shared)
Now who is evil....
L O S E!!! FFS it's not that complicated!
Perhaps he meant to loose the account into the digital wilderness...little herds of bytes forever roaming free and unhindered, to flock and flee where they may?
Kind of a forced scenario there. Why can't we have good e-mail without advertisements as an option? Google's service is fine, and understanding their ToS means you understand you're going to have ads; that's the nature of the net right now. Doesn't mean you have to like it and that we must comply with this model.
What ads on GMail?
AdBlocker Plus and NoScript are your friends... :o)
... without an immediate apology? Are you sure that you're Canadian?
That's why he said "Screw off" instead of "Fuck off, you miserable, goat sucking, syphilitic, halitosis-ridden sons of diseased moose shit." Sincerely.
You know you were thinking it...
I'll never EVER buy another Sony product but I'm one in seven billion.
Make that two in seven billion...
I avoid Sony products like they carry malaria, now. I'm proud to say that the last Sony product I ever purchased was a PS2 (that sits in the basement, collecting dust). If I want to buy a CD, I make damn sure it's not a Sony Music CD: a movie, it can't be Sony Pictures, sorry. I'm sure they don't even notice, but I feel better...
I suppose the fallout if this gets passed will be a longer list of 'no-go' software/music/movie producers for me. *sigh*, oh well, time to start weaning myself away from closed source software anyway...
the manufacturers are paying attention to home automation and connectivity and giving your oven an app.
I can't wait to try force-closing my oven! Yay, progress!
Were you, perhaps, unaware that copyright infringement actually *IS* a crime?
Yeah, so is jaywalking. If it's such a terrible crime, why don't they push for jail time instead of money, then? Will this settlement show up on a criminal records check? I don't think so.
No, they've made it pretty clear that this is simply their new business model, intended to prop up their old, outdated business model. Where I live, they're already charging a levy on blank storage devices, assuming that everyone is going to be using them to host copied content...guilty until proven innocent. Better yet: guilty even if proven innocent...
I'd like to be clear: I am not advocating not paying good artists for content that you enjoy, and I certainly do buy my music, always have. I don't, however, see a problem with grabbing a track or two from an artist I haven't heard (usually from a friends collection) to see if I like it enough to buy it. If a friend doesn't have the ones I'm wondering about, then yes, I'll look for it online because I can, and I'm a try before I buy kind of shopper...and more importantly, I'm an enthusiastic supporter of what I do really like, once I know I like it. (e.g. I sampled some Van Canto songs a couple months ago, played them several times over the course of a week or so, and bought all four of their albums...and am constantly playing them for friends. That's just the most extreme recent example that comes to mind) I don't see why I should be treated like a criminal for wanting to share my music with friends, or even for wanting to 'test drive' the artist before signing the lease.
I know the major online music stores have those 5 or 10 second previews available, but I have a slow music ear and usually have to hear a song several times before I know if I'll still like it or want to throw it out the window after the first week :o) I also have no patience for 'radio' music, since I find most of the stuff they play is...err...low quality, to put it mildly, or it's great stuff...that I already have. I honestly can't remember the last time I heard a new song on a radio that excited me (yet, strangely, it does happen somewhat more often with store and restaurant music. I wind up using SoundHound a lot)
OTOH, I do have a lot of cruft that I downloaded at the advice of others (reminds me, I have to do some digital housecleaning some day soon), stuff that I thought I might like, but turned out to be just annoying or 'meh' with repetition, so I toss it in the 'see if Jenny or John likes it before deleting' folder. I suppose the RIAA would have a 'lost profits' case against me for those tracks, since I didn't like their product enough to fork over dollars for it after I heard it, and I wasn't stuck paying them before I got to hear it...I must say, though, my real collection now has more songs from more artists than ever before, and all of it of better, more concentrated quality than in the days of mix tapes and CDs. I can buy *just* the songs I enjoy (and know I'll keep enjoying), without all the 'album filler' that used to frustrate me. I think that is the biggest reason the RIAA is panicking over 'lost profits': because people simply aren't willing to pay for filler meat any more (unless the artist is awesome, that is).
Oh my, how I do ramble. Sorry, tl;dr , happy Friday!
Like I said.... good luck with that.
What basis do you have for believing that such a fund could realistically hope to cover the costs for enough cases that it might bankrupt those companies?
And even by offering to cover such costs in advance, it might be argued (they do have good lawyers, after all) that the person infringing on copyright with advance knowledge that the fine they could expect to pay has been given economic incentive to do so (even if not a monetarily profitable one), elevating it to the level of commercial infringement, where the damages will be orders of magnitude higher. Oh, and the organizers of the fund could end up being liable for deliberate contributory infringement as well, since they would have already admitted that they intended to pay such fines.
So.... tell me. How many volunteers do you think you are liable to get, that are willing to take the financial risks involved with financially supporting copyright infringers?
Really? Is this what happens when people choose legal aide lawyers, say? I know, I know, this is civil, not criminal law...but to my mind this is basically equivalent to a croud-funded class action lawsuit, only one where the claimant chooses how many people are participating in it. After all, the 'damages' they want to claim are criminal...but yes, IANAL. There may very well be no airtight legal way to set something like this up. That's a real shame.
The console itself is a featureless white sphere, with random blinky led's hidden under it's mysterious skin, designed to pulse in time with the game music and give no useful information at all.
The controller has just one big button with the trademark apple logo on it...all in-game functions and controls are determined by how fast you press the button, the precise location of the button in relation to your left ear, tilt, yaw and the current weather conditions...but don't worry if this sounds complicated, because Apple will play 99% of the game for you, so really all that grind work is taken care of in the background, according to your projected gaming tastes based on your music collection! You just go ahead and watch the pretty lights and...oohh...shiny...
Dig hole. Put in habitat. Cover hole. Instant 'cave' :)
That's exactly what I was thinking, along with "inflatable dome over cave entrance / airlock to facilitate surface work / vehicle storage, with emergency procedures to hightail it underground if you get warning of a potential meteor strike / radiation event / etc."
All living quarters and environmental support equipment should be underground at the bare minimum, and most of the working areas too. Spend time figuring out how to reliably seal and pressurize an excavation, folks.
I wonder if this is more record labels bookeeping.
Wait, they're keeping scary bees now? In what, a haunted hive?
Sorry, couldn't resist, it tickled my funnybone :o)
Good luck with that.
The problem with that theory is it requires enough willing participants to carry out. And the thing is, believe it or not, if enough people get dinged for this, however much it costs the organizations to do it, then that fine is genuinely going to act as a discouraging factor, reducing the number of potentially willing participants in your proposed scheme.
Tell you what though... if somebody does manage to pull off what you describe, I'll certainly admit to being wrong. That doesn't change what I currently expect the outcome to be, however.
Huh? What do you think the $1 collection is for?
I interpreted it as contributing to a fund that is used to pay the fines of those poor souls caught in this predicament, as long as they contested the charges and dragged it out enough to make it unprofitable for the claimants. He mentions setting up honeypots, but those wouldn't necessarily have to be tied to different people as long as each honeypot is a separate instance...it just increases the chances to get the RIAA/MPAA to 'bite' on a situation that will maximize their losses. That part is run by volunteers, the rest goes to regular people who step up and fight back, if their fight is unsuccessful.
I'd contribute to something like that.