This guy natters on about exaggerated good qualities Windows has while making vague references to "band-aids" with regards to Linux and not stating anything concrete (which would be refutable.) Mod parent down, please.
He's not putting the DVD or Blu-Ray collection on his hard drive, he's putting video on his hard drive. Most video that is filmed is "designed" to be distributed on film reels. It is only later that it is put on DVDs and Blu-Ray discs. This is also ignoring direct download video sites and other media. Pretending that movies are "meant" to be on optical media is quite simply wrong.
As well, the issue seems to be divided more on what the distributor can require - whether or not they can dictate how people can enjoy media.
Plus, if you've ever owned or worked with an HTPC, you'd realize that eliminating the standalone player and playing media off of a hard drive connected to a display device will result in much better control over what you are doing. Standalone players only really exist because of laziness and ignorance.
I think that we're enjoying a good period right now where Wikileaks is still useful. How much time will we have before groups start to release faked documents to it in an attempt to discredit their rivals? Poisoning the well must only be a few years away, assuming they don't manage to dismantle the entire organization by then.
Indeed - my laptop came with large, metallic stickers that were difficult to get off, but if you pried them off (they were stiff) they didn't really leave any residue.
It makes sense, but aren't the ones who add the stickers the manufacturers? Also, I assumed the stickers were there by the request of the component manufacturers, how can they be so easily "eliminated"?
If it's true F/OSS, if people want to use it, they will use it no matter what the developers want. Other than approaching car mapping/GPS systems manufacturers, there isn't much they can do in an overtly commercial sense. This is one of the problems with OSS that isn't userspace software or something well-known; users don't hear about it and they don't get donations. If they asked their users (Bing, Mapquest, etc.) to make it more clear that OSM forms the main portion of whatever they are trying to use it for, it might get more recognition and attention.
I'd argue that there's nothing special about apt, although unless you want to write a pile of aliases for each of the options (apt-get upgrade install...) it can get annoying to type out, and the Ubuntu repos always seemed to have very idiosyncratic names for their packages. In this regard, I prefer Arch Linux's 'pacman' and the Arch repos, just for simplicity and convenience. Although I agree, apt is fine as a basic package manager.
Who knows? Maybe it's simply a more important issue. When people buy something, they have a chance to research it (buyer beware). With GM/GE foods, you could buy it without knowing, indirectly funding Monsanto's activities.
Our food and water supplies are far more critical than our drug supply.
By the way, an interesting short story I once read (I forget the name) was by Ben Bova, about the creation of an e-book reader (the story was written in the 80s.) At any rate, it discusses the realities of the publishing industry: that most authors never get published, and that publishers prefer what they think of as a "sure bet" (the multimillionaire authors who churn out half a dozen books a year, each trashier than the last.) Rewarding these people over and over gives no incentive for improvement, since their dedicated fans will buy it anyway. Look at (to give a television example) the last few Star Trek series; they leeched off of the previous ones' popularity and were of fairly poor quality.
Whether we like it or not, there will always be a certain class of person out there who eagerly reads the most awful trash. It's these consumers that big content wants to keep; if they begin downloading (and they already are, as teenagers and young adults) the big content industries will be crippled and will no longer be able to exploit people. They will have to improve to make people care enough to pay. This is what they are afraid of: improving.
I agree with this. Part of the FUD surrounding the issue is talking about the "rights of the artist", which seems designed to appeal to an American crowd. You could argue that it is a derivative of freedom of speech (freedom to choose how to distribute your works), but if the work is being shared, the message is more free than if it were kept tightly controlled. It basically boils down as "the right to make money from something you create, whether people want to pay you for it or not." I share media online, but I would not hesitate to pay someone money directly for their work - I've bought several self-published CDs from local groups, where I know the money will go directly to them, not be funneled into a record label's advertising or lawyers' fees. This is a decision I make because I know where the money will go, rather than vanishing into a void where only a fraction of the profits will go to the artists.
The truth is that filesharing and piracy, while illegal (in most places, anyway) is the only way to ameliorate the high costs of media. I would be willing to pay for every movie I watched, book I read, etc. as long as I knew that the profits were going to the creators. When an artist has been dead for decades (say, J.R.R. Tolkien), forget it. His family had more than enough time to be supported by the licensing of his works. Once you have generations of people who are rich because of something an ancestor did that allows them to take money from people who just want to enjoy some fiction that was written decades ago... you have problems.
That is because the GPL (and copyleft) are the first step to copyright reform and a less restrictive copyright system (see: ASCAP's attacks on copyleft being too permissive), so people are encouraged to GPL their works.
As well, much of the point of GPL is attribution and credit, similar to CC-BY. In fact, it is fairly similar to CC-BY-SA (Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike), growing virally. When people break copyright by sharing a copyrighted work, attribution is still intact, meaning that the only right being taken away from the artist is the right to decide who to license their works to and how much to charge (something that the GPL pretty much precludes, since anyone can share it as long as they fulfil the conditions).
And here's the thing. If Elanor were such a hot musician, she wouldn't need the sheet music.
I think you'll find that the only instrument which this is true for is guitar. It's the same reason why classical musicians don't glance at a piece and then play it on the spot - it takes poring over the sheet music with minor modifications and interpretational changes before someone can really play a piece of music the way they want to, not just copy what they heard.
Slashdot Mirror
It looks authentic, but does anyone have a translation of the article?
Advertising. Definitely advertising.
News about an unfair DMCA takedown (don't worry, there are thousands of those) or free advertising for Zen Magnets? You decide.
It's not based on usage, it's based on takedown requests. If there have been no takedown requests, the country isn't on the map.
Yes. In fact, you could say that he will only get paid if you keep on pirating movies ...
This guy natters on about exaggerated good qualities Windows has while making vague references to "band-aids" with regards to Linux and not stating anything concrete (which would be refutable.) Mod parent down, please.
He's not putting the DVD or Blu-Ray collection on his hard drive, he's putting video on his hard drive. Most video that is filmed is "designed" to be distributed on film reels. It is only later that it is put on DVDs and Blu-Ray discs. This is also ignoring direct download video sites and other media. Pretending that movies are "meant" to be on optical media is quite simply wrong.
As well, the issue seems to be divided more on what the distributor can require - whether or not they can dictate how people can enjoy media.
Plus, if you've ever owned or worked with an HTPC, you'd realize that eliminating the standalone player and playing media off of a hard drive connected to a display device will result in much better control over what you are doing. Standalone players only really exist because of laziness and ignorance.
Another example of why I take network news no more seriously than I do blogs, /., BoingBoing, etc.
I think that we're enjoying a good period right now where Wikileaks is still useful. How much time will we have before groups start to release faked documents to it in an attempt to discredit their rivals? Poisoning the well must only be a few years away, assuming they don't manage to dismantle the entire organization by then.
Indeed - my laptop came with large, metallic stickers that were difficult to get off, but if you pried them off (they were stiff) they didn't really leave any residue.
It makes sense, but aren't the ones who add the stickers the manufacturers? Also, I assumed the stickers were there by the request of the component manufacturers, how can they be so easily "eliminated"?
If it's true F/OSS, if people want to use it, they will use it no matter what the developers want. Other than approaching car mapping/GPS systems manufacturers, there isn't much they can do in an overtly commercial sense. This is one of the problems with OSS that isn't userspace software or something well-known; users don't hear about it and they don't get donations. If they asked their users (Bing, Mapquest, etc.) to make it more clear that OSM forms the main portion of whatever they are trying to use it for, it might get more recognition and attention.
I'd argue that there's nothing special about apt, although unless you want to write a pile of aliases for each of the options (apt-get upgrade install ...) it can get annoying to type out, and the Ubuntu repos always seemed to have very idiosyncratic names for their packages. In this regard, I prefer Arch Linux's 'pacman' and the Arch repos, just for simplicity and convenience. Although I agree, apt is fine as a basic package manager.
I guess they thought that more people would read it if it had "iPhone" in the title.
Nickel and dime. If the program is successful, they will expand it to other systems and areas, and expand its influence.
Who knows? Maybe it's simply a more important issue. When people buy something, they have a chance to research it (buyer beware). With GM/GE foods, you could buy it without knowing, indirectly funding Monsanto's activities.
Our food and water supplies are far more critical than our drug supply.
"Other people do stupid things, so it's okay for us to do stupid things as well."
Fixed.
By the way, an interesting short story I once read (I forget the name) was by Ben Bova, about the creation of an e-book reader (the story was written in the 80s.) At any rate, it discusses the realities of the publishing industry: that most authors never get published, and that publishers prefer what they think of as a "sure bet" (the multimillionaire authors who churn out half a dozen books a year, each trashier than the last.) Rewarding these people over and over gives no incentive for improvement, since their dedicated fans will buy it anyway. Look at (to give a television example) the last few Star Trek series; they leeched off of the previous ones' popularity and were of fairly poor quality.
Whether we like it or not, there will always be a certain class of person out there who eagerly reads the most awful trash. It's these consumers that big content wants to keep; if they begin downloading (and they already are, as teenagers and young adults) the big content industries will be crippled and will no longer be able to exploit people. They will have to improve to make people care enough to pay. This is what they are afraid of: improving.
I agree with this. Part of the FUD surrounding the issue is talking about the "rights of the artist", which seems designed to appeal to an American crowd. You could argue that it is a derivative of freedom of speech (freedom to choose how to distribute your works), but if the work is being shared, the message is more free than if it were kept tightly controlled. It basically boils down as "the right to make money from something you create, whether people want to pay you for it or not." I share media online, but I would not hesitate to pay someone money directly for their work - I've bought several self-published CDs from local groups, where I know the money will go directly to them, not be funneled into a record label's advertising or lawyers' fees. This is a decision I make because I know where the money will go, rather than vanishing into a void where only a fraction of the profits will go to the artists.
... you have problems.
The truth is that filesharing and piracy, while illegal (in most places, anyway) is the only way to ameliorate the high costs of media. I would be willing to pay for every movie I watched, book I read, etc. as long as I knew that the profits were going to the creators. When an artist has been dead for decades (say, J.R.R. Tolkien), forget it. His family had more than enough time to be supported by the licensing of his works. Once you have generations of people who are rich because of something an ancestor did that allows them to take money from people who just want to enjoy some fiction that was written decades ago
That is because the GPL (and copyleft) are the first step to copyright reform and a less restrictive copyright system (see: ASCAP's attacks on copyleft being too permissive), so people are encouraged to GPL their works.
As well, much of the point of GPL is attribution and credit, similar to CC-BY. In fact, it is fairly similar to CC-BY-SA (Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike), growing virally. When people break copyright by sharing a copyrighted work, attribution is still intact, meaning that the only right being taken away from the artist is the right to decide who to license their works to and how much to charge (something that the GPL pretty much precludes, since anyone can share it as long as they fulfil the conditions).
And here's the thing. If Elanor were such a hot musician, she wouldn't need the sheet music.
I think you'll find that the only instrument which this is true for is guitar. It's the same reason why classical musicians don't glance at a piece and then play it on the spot - it takes poring over the sheet music with minor modifications and interpretational changes before someone can really play a piece of music the way they want to, not just copy what they heard.
Letting them keep their money contributes more to general welfare ... for those with money.
Come on, at least get the spelling in TFS right.
I think that if they broadened their genital-blocking horizons, their userbase would dry up.
Chatroulette is working on image-recognition software that will filter out shots of male genitalia.
I guess we know where their priorities lie...