They were insured. That wasn't the point. The point was the access to the office without damage to get in. The point was finding out who could do this with such ease. The point was tracking this person down not only to further prevent such thefts but also to leverage this info to get better security around labs and high profile offices. All of this is now successful because of what we did.
Also, thankfully as a well-pair scientist and lawyer I know the difference between petty theft and grand theft unlike you. The person now implicated in the theft stands to serve a minimum of 7 years because this isn't his first felony. The others get 18-24 months for possession of stolen goods at a minimum, one other looks like they will get 5+ because of a criminal record that is quite lengthy. People may not like lawyers but they sure as hell love what they can do to get folks out of a pickle.
Have to agree AC. With encryption and a good hardware level password, the stolen laptop would be almost useless to the thieves, even making it hard to sell it. The process would become more like/
1) Purchase new replacement from insurance process
2) Restore from a backup and move on!
If you _REALLY_ wanted to see "vigilante" style justice served in the case of such thefts, partition the drive as follows. One partition is a securely encrypted OS that you use. The other is Windows. Set the default to automatically boot Windows and load it up with backdoors, keyloggers, automatic webcam capture to web etc like people have already described.
Petty theft is under $5000 in Ontario. This is grand theft and the problem was more serious as the theft involved absolutely no damage to the premises. Someone had access to a master or sub-master key. Secondly, there is some back-story to the break-in wherein we had a suspect in mind but couldn't prove it (past break-ins, vendetta etc).
Encrypting the hdd was a non-starter because of performance with a VM we must use. That's an internal IT decision not ours. This was a work system and therefore needed to be on the intranet. The filesystem encryption was dramatically slowing down the VM we would use on a daily basis. Truecrypt was used for the sensitive data. We weren't paranoid about data loss. We had plenty of backups as I mentioned (mirrored systems, back-up to the university servers which are themselves backed up regularly).
The key was tracking down the perp and getting some answers. Which we did and this has forced the hand of the university to install cameras outside the major labs (something they resisted), increased security around the master keys. Decreased the number of people who have access to those keys regularly etc. etc.
In the end, it worked out and with not too much effort. The upside is that a whole lot of other people got their computers back, along with some other pricey items stolen from offices, labs and other places off campus.
I actually just went through this exact situation a week ago. Here's my story and how I was able to get the computer back with the cops' help. My country (Canada) works very similar to most US states so hopefully this will help you.
Our outfit is into tech in a big way. We are all scientists of some sort and up and up on O/S, security and the latest tech gizmos. When my boss wanted to upgrade his systems to dual Macbook Pros, we immediately setup s mirroring system where he could be perpetually synchronized between his office and home with automated backups to the university servers. We had a script I had written to do much of this along with posting an IP address every hour in 24 blocks. We also were using Log Me In so that he could remote control his systems. The server ran on startup and wasn't viewable in the taskbar as my boss hates clutter.
Anyhow, we had two separate systems that were capable of posting IP addresses when online.
Three days after the theft we started getting IP writes in the logs.
The first and major things we both had to do was 1) restrain ourselves from doing absolutely anything to jeopardize the comp from going offline 2) contact the police immediately with the IP information.
Before we contacted the police again, I had determined where the IP was coming from (a home account from a major ISP). We waited another three days, consistently getting the same IP posting. We then went back to the police. Like the OP, they view a computer theft as insignificant given their work load. They saw a wealthy scientist ($500k/year) who had lost out on a $5000 laptop (Macbook Pro 17" with all the fixins) containing $30k of specialized software (and we had the discs of course to reload) a digital project worth $1.5k and a few other smaller items. Even though this was over $5000 (which is like a felony in Canada), they simply weren't able to provide us with much help. They knew what a computer was and even an IP but after that they were deers in headlights. I requested to speak with someone in their cyber-crimes division and I was told that because of the G8 and G20, I was out of luck there.
Not unlike research institutes and universities world-wide, this police department fought for funds internally and also internally, departments would "pay" other departments for work. In this case, because it would be a "special favour," during an immensely chaotic time for our police forces because of the heads of states well, they simply said no to all those requests.
Here is where things got both fun and tricky but I think could work for the OP.
A consistent IP can easily be traced to the ISP. If the IP is consistent over a select period of time, a motion can be filed before a judge and a warrant issued to get the personal information of the person owning said account. I happen to be a trained lawyer, so the detectives were really open to what I was suggesting, and since I also happen to be a computer scientist who does research into security as well as other things, they viewed me as an expert in the field. The first warrant was sought and granted within two days of us suggesting this avenue. This is your first MAJOR task and one that will be the most fruitful.
Legally, I was able to log into the stolen computer without comprising any investigation because I was about to be "contracted" by the police department to do what their cyber-crime division wouldn't do but could: gain network access and collect as much data as possible.
I did this and eventually worked around the router (a joke given the default settings that existed) and then the grey area began where we required another warrant: checking out the other comps on the network. While the search warrant was being issued for this, a SECOND warrant (and really the only other one we needed) was being issued to search the premises the cops received via the ISP. The IP had been consistently posting with the same address over 10 days and staying online for 6-10 hours at a time. I could hav
It seems like a convenient method of limiting brown-outs. The privacy implications may be enormous for some but for others it will appear to be a good idea particularly since folks can override the system.
The last time the US and Canada fought, how did that end again? Ah yes, your White House was lit on fire.
It would take a little more than your National Guard to take some Canadians down. Shooting some of the ICBMs you have pointed at them would work however.
Except they did it on their own personal free time, outside of work hours, thereby mooting your point. Had they been Federal government researchers, your point would stand!
Being pedantic here but the probability that somebody would win is not 100%, it is merely higher than nobody winning, when the numbers increase or a single ticket being chosen. There is a reason that multi-State powerball lottos can have such massive pots, time after time, no one wins, so the pot increases. The probability can only be 100% if a ticket is generated for every single possible number.
Biblical literalist Christians aren't the general Christian population, at least not worldwide. Perhaps if you are in the Bible Belt of the US sure, but otherwise not even close. The "general" Christian population would be classified as Catholic, since out of the nearly 2 billion Christians, 1 billion are Catholic. The rule of thumb for them is contextual study of the bible. Some parts may be taken to be literal (genealogies for instance) others figurative or metaphorical or allegorical. It's simply not fair to lump all Christians into a "general" category which is simply a pocket universe of Christians found in the Southern States. That said, the Big Bang theory was proposed by a Catholic priest and the idea of a 13.7B year old Universe or Multiverse has no theological hold on what most Christians believe. Ultimately for them, God sparked it all, be it a singular universe or a multiverse. The age of the universe matters not to them, nor the number.
The interesting fact is there is a revival going on albeit with relatively slow inertia as compared with online files. The revival? Good old LP's. The stats are clear, over the past 8 years as CD sales have decreased, with Redbook only players practically vanishing to be supplanted by the DAP phenomenon, turntables and LP's have been steadily rising and have had their best sales year this past year in decades.
For the record labels, LP's have the advantage of built in DRM. Sure, like any DRM, it isn't full proof, anyone can hook up a deck to a computer with the right gear (and some decks are built with a USB output) but the fact that recording is in real-time and that software cleaning of the signal is often required means most won't bother.
Many labels in the indie rock genre are releasing lp's with codes for an mp3 download, usually at 192 kb/s. Not too bad but not lossless either. If you want lossless you spin your record or do a need drop. Still, the convenience is there, higher quality audio at home and the mp3 tracks for on the go any time any place.
My ideal situation would be an LP with a FLAC download code and perhaps this will come to be. For now, when I can, I buy vinyl. To me it sounds better most often (at least the records I buy) compared to the CD counterparts and the art and liner notes are far more attractive.
I use this both under Ubuntu and Leopard on my Mac Book Pro. I have never, not once had a problem and I've read and written to my 5 NTFS drives with 10 partitions.
No one said the video store was copying it. The OP said they bought a legit copy and rent that one out. If they copy the original and rent out multiple copies then they are likely in clear violation of copyright law and can be sued.
As for capitalism vs. communism...you betray your argument with that reference. Sure he deserves to be compensated, but when someone, within the law is exercising their rights and is turning a larger profit than the little guy, the little guy should have implemented better protective legal measures to halt this.
In this case, he should have distributed the video with some type of copyright. If he did, then it is a simple measure of forwarding a reminder to the video company and requesting they cease renting the video outright or unless some form or compensation can be made. In can also persue legal avenues to sue them for lost revenue. The US has wonderful laws to protect capitalism, they don't need laws that automatically assume folks are criminals and thereby inhibit their fair use of a product, in this case (as in the case of Autodesk) reselling the software.
For the boat video guy, he can either copyright his works in the future or he can try to market his video in direct competition price-wise with the online video store. If he isnt' turning a profit now selling at $80 he sure won't do it while retaining that price and having a competeing company offer a short term loan at $15.
Everyone needs protection so they won't get screwed. If the big guys get screwed it means the little guys will likely get screwed even more.
The problem is that the OP is complaining that someone is making money off of his work. If the video is popular and is successfully renting for $15 (which is not a cheap rental...most rental stores I know are less than $5) then how can selling it for about that price not be a win win?
Your speculation on volume consumer goods would work if there was a high production cost. The problem is that the OP already spent the money on making the video. If it was expensive to do, moving 30 units/per isn't likely to make his money back or turn a profit any time soon. If the video is being rented frequently, it would only need to be rented 160x. Figuring that renting is mildly inconvenient (having to return it via the post in this case and if the OP is right in his assumption that most people copy it, then that extra effort figures into the hassle/cost.)
Sell it for $15 and who knows how many will sell? Certainly those that would rent it for $15 would buy it for that cost or might even pay a premium of $5 over the rental cost to get it a pro copy.
It really depends on the rental volume in this case. If it is rented out 10x year, the likelihood of him selling 10 more copies at 80 bucks is pretty nil, but if it is renting out 200 times a year, then he is turning a larger profit matching or just slightly increasing the price.
Otherwise, I agree, niche and high quality products usually demand a higher price and often people are willing to spend the money on it. But when the product is a silver disc and that silver disc can easily be rented...one can understand why $80 vs. $15 is going to be dramatic on sales. In the end this argument totally depends on the volume of rental sales.
If the OP's copyright policy clearly prohibits renting, then he should either slap the online company with a cease and desist order or come to some agreement where he gets some form of royalty from each rental.
I understand perfectly well. Libraries can and do liquidate their stock over time. Abiding by the same first-sale doctrine. My elaboration on why the author sees his video renting as bad but could be spun to be good was the intent over the direct comparison in terms of copyright holding violations (which of course my indication that a book can be photocopied, as simply as the author indicates his movie can be copied, is a direct comparison. Both are illegal but both are feasible. In the case of the doctrine of first-sale the law shouldn't be constructed to first assume everyone is a criminal, in fact no law should ever be enacted that first assumes someone is a criminal).
In the event that the video store is "renting" without a legal foot to stand on, i.e., the copyright is such that it prohibits such activities then OP shouldn't be whining about a "first-sale" doctrine but rather should be going out and getting a lawyer for a cease and desist order. What is at stake in that event is something quite different from the first-sale doctrine, it is regarding copyright infringement. The Ebay seller was not walking all over copyrights and if Autodesk was claiming that, it is evident why they lost the case. In the OP's case, if he is claiming the doctrine of first-sale somehow violates copyright the he is sorely mistaken and would lose in court. He would win the case though if he simply filed a motion of copyright infringement.
If we can assume then, it is quite legal for this video store to rent the video (else why would the OP continue to let this happen) then the only beef he can have is the fact that someone is making money off of his works and he is not receiving any royalties, comparable to what Autodesk was complaining about: we want all interested customers to buy from us directly.
In that case, my arguments from the above post are valid.
Despite that sucking for your wallet, I don't see why this is a bad thing. If you priced your video to match the $15 online price, you would likely sell quite a bit more. If you are selling the video on optical media then the cost is minimal for you. The main cost of course was in recording and editing your video. If you haven't made your money back selling at $80 you might want to consider lowering your price.
As for it cutting both ways, this is no different than an author of a text for a limited audience, say a quantum physics prof writing an academic text, or a post-doc releasing their thesis to the public. Chances are they won't sell many and the ones they do sell will mostly be picked up by university libraries. Guess what? A good amount of students will borrow the book for FREE!!! Yes that's right, despite the fact that the tome, written through blood sweat and tears, is available for a paltry sum of >$80, students and professors alike will more often opt to borrow it from their library rather than shell out for a copy.
They can even photocopy the book for a mere fraction of the cost!
Does this suck? For the author yes in a way, but there are a few ways to work around this:
1) having it in libraries and avaialable for free to faculty and students increases the number of people who will become familiar with the author's work. Likewise with you, having your video rented at $15 a pop is going to expose more people to your name and efforts than likely would have happened had you continued to sell 30/year. If you ever decide to write about building boats or doing a follow up vid or something different, you will be immediately more recognizable. If your work was good in the first place, you will have an immediately respectful fanbase who might be willing to buy those future works.
2)selling it cheaper. My thesis advisor's first book (a reworking of his thesis) sells for about $140. He's sold maybe 1100 in 15 years. It's not likely to sell many more as the relevance shifts in the field. He didn't control the price outright, the publisher pushed a high price on him. Had it sold for $30 instead, many more people would have bought it, he's been told by fellow academes. Of course at $140, they just borrowed it.
Sell your DVD directly for $15 and you compete with the video store. You offer folks a legal fully made up copy vs. their home ripped version.
If the video is a hot renter, your video will be a hotter seller.
I use a 24" Dell as my second monitor but my MBP is more than capable of making use of a 30". In fact, Apple promotes this! Now, whether or not a Dell 30" (which has more modern specs) is somehow quite superior to an Apple 30" I'm not sure, but if not, then the MBP should be able to drive any 30" too.
I use Windows at work, I have a Debian server and a Ubuntu desktop at home and I own a MBP dual booting Leopard and XP SP2. Windows is easily the most frustrating out of the ones I use but my response is mainly an enquiry regarding your mac.
I run dual monitors (24" Dell) with my MBP, I run VM Ware Fusion with 1 GB of RAM allocated to the machine (I run a 2G MBP so it is capped at 2 Gigs of Ram). I have Fink installed and when compiling I can still have the VM up and all the while not having any stability issues. I hardly have any updates (and I check weekly). I've never experienced nor heard of anyone in my circle (we are about 20) who have had issues with Leopard. Despite it being a bit sluggish compared to a well setup Ubuntu install or a stripped down XP SP2, I would say it is more stable than the other two over time. I do get the "sleep" problem you mention though, but that seems to be endemic across laptops and OS'. For whatever reason, no one has perfected awaking from sleep yet.
I'm wondering if your laptop might not have some serious issues. What you describe seems out of the ordinary. You might want to send it off for a checkup. Perhaps you have dying RAM? I've never had to restart Leopard safe for a major update (usually a security patch) and certainly never when plugging in a second monitor. I plug it in and it just works.
Sure, myself and the 20 folks I work with are a small sample size and therefore this is mostly anecdotal, but just in case, you may want to get it looked at.
Let's face it. People are lazy and getting a bogus humanistic degree is much easier than an engineering one. It depends on where you go to college, I imagine. In my experience, at top American universities (like top 5) humanities degrees are at least as difficult to earn as engineering degrees. The easy ones are econ and poly sci, which I think aren't what you mean by "bogus humanistic degrees." Science degrees are certainly easier than engineering, but not by much. I both agree and disagree with you and I suppose I'm in a rather unique position as I have an engineering degree and natural science degrees from top universities along with graduate degrees and some law degrees.
Humanities degrees from top schools are as difficult but not because the conceptual nature of the material is more difficult (save for philosophy) but because the professors at this level feel the need to reaffirm to themselves that what they do, what they live for, is at least as important and challenging as those in the buildings next door. I don't want to debate the societal impact of a great novel vs. a new wonder drug or brand new tech, but certainly those that practice and teach the stuff want to be recognized for their accomplishments. Only in philosophy where the collaboration is tightly linked to mathematics, neuropsychology/neuroscience and physics does one not usually encounter the say hard-nosed determination to lay out the students because of some need to prove their field worthy.
That aside, I'll say that at least at a top 5 school (I have three degrees from MIT), my "hard science" undergrad was significantly more difficult than my engineering degree. This was in terms of conceptual difficulty. In terms of raw labour, engineering courses tend to have more homework but the exam material is quite a bit less intense.
Having a law degree as well, I will say that both my undergrad science degree and my engineering degree were far more difficult and rigorous than my law degree. In fact, law school was practically a joke in comparison. The pressure there is more in the cut-throat nature of ensuring a solid placement, either law review or clerkships. Yet there is no way I would make the same wage as a straight engineer vs. as a lawyer. As mentioned a bunch of posts above...look to the high paying career choices and one will recognize exactly what is in high demand (though with lawyers I would say it is more of a self-imposed high wage...we built the system, locked it down and ensured that the barrier to entry would be very very high not to mention in most instances, requiring one have a legal degree to do something quite simple but I digress...)
I use Rogers and am in Ottawa. Besides Bell, Rogers is it! Though I don't experience this ad injection bs (I don't use their browser) I must say they are hands down the fastest and most reliable ISP in this metro. Though pricey, one can now get 20D/1U speeds for their premium package at 100/month and I'm getting 12D/1U for their mid level. Standard is 10 for that price.
I suppose they aren't really high speed for the likes of Sweden or Japan, but in Canada, outside of business OC lines, I don't know of anyone faster.
Yes they were intertwined but only in so much as the state had a "recognized" religion. The idea of "Separation of Church and State" in the US was more an experiment in ensuring that every religion had equal opportunity under the law. That is, no one religion would usurp all others. True the Pope did wield quite a bit of power, again, when the monarchs so chose to go against the Papacy, they did so with ease more often than not. In fact, the Holy See was often under the thumb of state powers, particularly in having to "appoint" those hand picked individuals of the State to be ordained bishops and act as nuncios. Too often people make bold blanket statements with regards to the Catholic Church without much knowledge in history whatsoever. I'm not stating you are doing that, but you are certainly mistaken on a few points.
As for the "charges" brought against him, those listed were for his excommunication indeed, but after the "guilty" verdict, his excommunication was finalized. The secular authorities then burned him not because of his excommunication, nor by the request of the Inquisition but because of his practicing magic and divination. Reading Firpo among others will shed much light on this.
The point though that must be driven home is that the Catholic Church (as an entity) did not put people to death, secular institutions did. If in particular places examples exist where people who were Catholic and held power killed people (as in Spain for instance) this must be distinguished from claiming "The Catholic Church did it!" Because that is not the case. Rogue individuals or extremists in any organization act on their own in such matters. When discussing the horrors that went on during the Spanish Inquisition, the Pope was attempting to gain control of the rogue bishops and cardinals but was oftne thwarted by the Spanish monarchy at the time.
By "they" I assume you mean the Church. By "they" however you would be wrong. The Church excommunicated folks. Secular powers "burned his ass at the stake for that." Big misconception that is thrown around quite frequently.
Of course one could argue that because the Church was quite politically influential, their decision to excommunicate had the general reprocussion of "burning" or some other unpleasant demise effected by the state. Not the point though, the Church certainly didn't burn him, and the State could have refused to, as they often refused to follow the Pope when it didn't suit their needs.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes :(
They were insured. That wasn't the point. The point was the access to the office without damage to get in. The point was finding out who could do this with such ease. The point was tracking this person down not only to further prevent such thefts but also to leverage this info to get better security around labs and high profile offices. All of this is now successful because of what we did.
Also, thankfully as a well-pair scientist and lawyer I know the difference between petty theft and grand theft unlike you. The person now implicated in the theft stands to serve a minimum of 7 years because this isn't his first felony. The others get 18-24 months for possession of stolen goods at a minimum, one other looks like they will get 5+ because of a criminal record that is quite lengthy. People may not like lawyers but they sure as hell love what they can do to get folks out of a pickle.
Have to agree AC. With encryption and a good hardware level password, the stolen laptop would be almost useless to the thieves, even making it hard to sell it. The process would become more like/
1) Purchase new replacement from insurance process
2) Restore from a backup and move on!
If you _REALLY_ wanted to see "vigilante" style justice served in the case of such thefts, partition the drive as follows. One partition is a securely encrypted OS that you use. The other is Windows. Set the default to automatically boot Windows and load it up with backdoors, keyloggers, automatic webcam capture to web etc like people have already described.
Petty theft is under $5000 in Ontario. This is grand theft and the problem was more serious as the theft involved absolutely no damage to the premises. Someone had access to a master or sub-master key. Secondly, there is some back-story to the break-in wherein we had a suspect in mind but couldn't prove it (past break-ins, vendetta etc).
Encrypting the hdd was a non-starter because of performance with a VM we must use. That's an internal IT decision not ours. This was a work system and therefore needed to be on the intranet. The filesystem encryption was dramatically slowing down the VM we would use on a daily basis. Truecrypt was used for the sensitive data. We weren't paranoid about data loss. We had plenty of backups as I mentioned (mirrored systems, back-up to the university servers which are themselves backed up regularly).
The key was tracking down the perp and getting some answers. Which we did and this has forced the hand of the university to install cameras outside the major labs (something they resisted), increased security around the master keys. Decreased the number of people who have access to those keys regularly etc. etc.
In the end, it worked out and with not too much effort. The upside is that a whole lot of other people got their computers back, along with some other pricey items stolen from offices, labs and other places off campus.
I actually just went through this exact situation a week ago. Here's my story and how I was able to get the computer back with the cops' help. My country (Canada) works very similar to most US states so hopefully this will help you.
Our outfit is into tech in a big way. We are all scientists of some sort and up and up on O/S, security and the latest tech gizmos. When my boss wanted to upgrade his systems to dual Macbook Pros, we immediately setup s mirroring system where he could be perpetually synchronized between his office and home with automated backups to the university servers. We had a script I had written to do much of this along with posting an IP address every hour in 24 blocks. We also were using Log Me In so that he could remote control his systems. The server ran on startup and wasn't viewable in the taskbar as my boss hates clutter.
Anyhow, we had two separate systems that were capable of posting IP addresses when online.
Three days after the theft we started getting IP writes in the logs.
The first and major things we both had to do was 1) restrain ourselves from doing absolutely anything to jeopardize the comp from going offline 2) contact the police immediately with the IP information.
Before we contacted the police again, I had determined where the IP was coming from (a home account from a major ISP). We waited another three days, consistently getting the same IP posting. We then went back to the police. Like the OP, they view a computer theft as insignificant given their work load. They saw a wealthy scientist ($500k/year) who had lost out on a $5000 laptop (Macbook Pro 17" with all the fixins) containing $30k of specialized software (and we had the discs of course to reload) a digital project worth $1.5k and a few other smaller items. Even though this was over $5000 (which is like a felony in Canada), they simply weren't able to provide us with much help. They knew what a computer was and even an IP but after that they were deers in headlights. I requested to speak with someone in their cyber-crimes division and I was told that because of the G8 and G20, I was out of luck there.
Not unlike research institutes and universities world-wide, this police department fought for funds internally and also internally, departments would "pay" other departments for work. In this case, because it would be a "special favour," during an immensely chaotic time for our police forces because of the heads of states well, they simply said no to all those requests.
Here is where things got both fun and tricky but I think could work for the OP.
A consistent IP can easily be traced to the ISP. If the IP is consistent over a select period of time, a motion can be filed before a judge and a warrant issued to get the personal information of the person owning said account. I happen to be a trained lawyer, so the detectives were really open to what I was suggesting, and since I also happen to be a computer scientist who does research into security as well as other things, they viewed me as an expert in the field. The first warrant was sought and granted within two days of us suggesting this avenue. This is your first MAJOR task and one that will be the most fruitful.
Legally, I was able to log into the stolen computer without comprising any investigation because I was about to be "contracted" by the police department to do what their cyber-crime division wouldn't do but could: gain network access and collect as much data as possible.
I did this and eventually worked around the router (a joke given the default settings that existed) and then the grey area began where we required another warrant: checking out the other comps on the network. While the search warrant was being issued for this, a SECOND warrant (and really the only other one we needed) was being issued to search the premises the cops received via the ISP. The IP had been consistently posting with the same address over 10 days and staying online for 6-10 hours at a time. I could hav
It seems like a convenient method of limiting brown-outs. The privacy implications may be enormous for some but for others it will appear to be a good idea particularly since folks can override the system.
Right....
The last time the US and Canada fought, how did that end again? Ah yes, your White House was lit on fire.
It would take a little more than your National Guard to take some Canadians down. Shooting some of the ICBMs you have pointed at them would work however.
A breath of fresh air in the murky air of pollution spewed by the RIAA/MPAA et. al.
Try Open Office for Mac which is very fast. Recently released with real Mac integration and NeoOffice will soon be dust in the wind.
Except they did it on their own personal free time, outside of work hours, thereby mooting your point. Had they been Federal government researchers, your point would stand!
Being pedantic here but the probability that somebody would win is not 100%, it is merely higher than nobody winning, when the numbers increase or a single ticket being chosen. There is a reason that multi-State powerball lottos can have such massive pots, time after time, no one wins, so the pot increases. The probability can only be 100% if a ticket is generated for every single possible number.
Biblical literalist Christians aren't the general Christian population, at least not worldwide. Perhaps if you are in the Bible Belt of the US sure, but otherwise not even close. The "general" Christian population would be classified as Catholic, since out of the nearly 2 billion Christians, 1 billion are Catholic. The rule of thumb for them is contextual study of the bible. Some parts may be taken to be literal (genealogies for instance) others figurative or metaphorical or allegorical. It's simply not fair to lump all Christians into a "general" category which is simply a pocket universe of Christians found in the Southern States. That said, the Big Bang theory was proposed by a Catholic priest and the idea of a 13.7B year old Universe or Multiverse has no theological hold on what most Christians believe. Ultimately for them, God sparked it all, be it a singular universe or a multiverse. The age of the universe matters not to them, nor the number.
The interesting fact is there is a revival going on albeit with relatively slow inertia as compared with online files. The revival? Good old LP's. The stats are clear, over the past 8 years as CD sales have decreased, with Redbook only players practically vanishing to be supplanted by the DAP phenomenon, turntables and LP's have been steadily rising and have had their best sales year this past year in decades.
For the record labels, LP's have the advantage of built in DRM. Sure, like any DRM, it isn't full proof, anyone can hook up a deck to a computer with the right gear (and some decks are built with a USB output) but the fact that recording is in real-time and that software cleaning of the signal is often required means most won't bother.
Many labels in the indie rock genre are releasing lp's with codes for an mp3 download, usually at 192 kb/s. Not too bad but not lossless either. If you want lossless you spin your record or do a need drop. Still, the convenience is there, higher quality audio at home and the mp3 tracks for on the go any time any place.
My ideal situation would be an LP with a FLAC download code and perhaps this will come to be. For now, when I can, I buy vinyl. To me it sounds better most often (at least the records I buy) compared to the CD counterparts and the art and liner notes are far more attractive.
It's not native but it works like a charm:
http://www.ntfs-3g.org/index.html
I use this both under Ubuntu and Leopard on my Mac Book Pro. I have never, not once had a problem and I've read and written to my 5 NTFS drives with 10 partitions.
No one said the video store was copying it. The OP said they bought a legit copy and rent that one out. If they copy the original and rent out multiple copies then they are likely in clear violation of copyright law and can be sued.
As for capitalism vs. communism...you betray your argument with that reference. Sure he deserves to be compensated, but when someone, within the law is exercising their rights and is turning a larger profit than the little guy, the little guy should have implemented better protective legal measures to halt this.
In this case, he should have distributed the video with some type of copyright. If he did, then it is a simple measure of forwarding a reminder to the video company and requesting they cease renting the video outright or unless some form or compensation can be made. In can also persue legal avenues to sue them for lost revenue. The US has wonderful laws to protect capitalism, they don't need laws that automatically assume folks are criminals and thereby inhibit their fair use of a product, in this case (as in the case of Autodesk) reselling the software.
For the boat video guy, he can either copyright his works in the future or he can try to market his video in direct competition price-wise with the online video store. If he isnt' turning a profit now selling at $80 he sure won't do it while retaining that price and having a competeing company offer a short term loan at $15.
Even better! It is too bad then that someone who shouts out a big "no way! this guy is talking outta his ass" is himself doing so.
Everyone needs protection so they won't get screwed. If the big guys get screwed it means the little guys will likely get screwed even more.
The problem is that the OP is complaining that someone is making money off of his work. If the video is popular and is successfully renting for $15 (which is not a cheap rental...most rental stores I know are less than $5) then how can selling it for about that price not be a win win?
Your speculation on volume consumer goods would work if there was a high production cost. The problem is that the OP already spent the money on making the video. If it was expensive to do, moving 30 units/per isn't likely to make his money back or turn a profit any time soon. If the video is being rented frequently, it would only need to be rented 160x. Figuring that renting is mildly inconvenient (having to return it via the post in this case and if the OP is right in his assumption that most people copy it, then that extra effort figures into the hassle/cost.)
Sell it for $15 and who knows how many will sell? Certainly those that would rent it for $15 would buy it for that cost or might even pay a premium of $5 over the rental cost to get it a pro copy.
It really depends on the rental volume in this case. If it is rented out 10x year, the likelihood of him selling 10 more copies at 80 bucks is pretty nil, but if it is renting out 200 times a year, then he is turning a larger profit matching or just slightly increasing the price.
Otherwise, I agree, niche and high quality products usually demand a higher price and often people are willing to spend the money on it. But when the product is a silver disc and that silver disc can easily be rented...one can understand why $80 vs. $15 is going to be dramatic on sales. In the end this argument totally depends on the volume of rental sales.
If the OP's copyright policy clearly prohibits renting, then he should either slap the online company with a cease and desist order or come to some agreement where he gets some form of royalty from each rental.
I understand perfectly well. Libraries can and do liquidate their stock over time. Abiding by the same first-sale doctrine. My elaboration on why the author sees his video renting as bad but could be spun to be good was the intent over the direct comparison in terms of copyright holding violations (which of course my indication that a book can be photocopied, as simply as the author indicates his movie can be copied, is a direct comparison. Both are illegal but both are feasible. In the case of the doctrine of first-sale the law shouldn't be constructed to first assume everyone is a criminal, in fact no law should ever be enacted that first assumes someone is a criminal).
In the event that the video store is "renting" without a legal foot to stand on, i.e., the copyright is such that it prohibits such activities then OP shouldn't be whining about a "first-sale" doctrine but rather should be going out and getting a lawyer for a cease and desist order. What is at stake in that event is something quite different from the first-sale doctrine, it is regarding copyright infringement. The Ebay seller was not walking all over copyrights and if Autodesk was claiming that, it is evident why they lost the case. In the OP's case, if he is claiming the doctrine of first-sale somehow violates copyright the he is sorely mistaken and would lose in court. He would win the case though if he simply filed a motion of copyright infringement.
If we can assume then, it is quite legal for this video store to rent the video (else why would the OP continue to let this happen) then the only beef he can have is the fact that someone is making money off of his works and he is not receiving any royalties, comparable to what Autodesk was complaining about: we want all interested customers to buy from us directly.
In that case, my arguments from the above post are valid.
Despite that sucking for your wallet, I don't see why this is a bad thing. If you priced your video to match the $15 online price, you would likely sell quite a bit more. If you are selling the video on optical media then the cost is minimal for you. The main cost of course was in recording and editing your video. If you haven't made your money back selling at $80 you might want to consider lowering your price.
As for it cutting both ways, this is no different than an author of a text for a limited audience, say a quantum physics prof writing an academic text, or a post-doc releasing their thesis to the public. Chances are they won't sell many and the ones they do sell will mostly be picked up by university libraries. Guess what? A good amount of students will borrow the book for FREE!!! Yes that's right, despite the fact that the tome, written through blood sweat and tears, is available for a paltry sum of >$80, students and professors alike will more often opt to borrow it from their library rather than shell out for a copy.
They can even photocopy the book for a mere fraction of the cost!
Does this suck? For the author yes in a way, but there are a few ways to work around this:
1) having it in libraries and avaialable for free to faculty and students increases the number of people who will become familiar with the author's work. Likewise with you, having your video rented at $15 a pop is going to expose more people to your name and efforts than likely would have happened had you continued to sell 30/year. If you ever decide to write about building boats or doing a follow up vid or something different, you will be immediately more recognizable. If your work was good in the first place, you will have an immediately respectful fanbase who might be willing to buy those future works.
2)selling it cheaper. My thesis advisor's first book (a reworking of his thesis) sells for about $140. He's sold maybe 1100 in 15 years. It's not likely to sell many more as the relevance shifts in the field. He didn't control the price outright, the publisher pushed a high price on him. Had it sold for $30 instead, many more people would have bought it, he's been told by fellow academes. Of course at $140, they just borrowed it.
Sell your DVD directly for $15 and you compete with the video store. You offer folks a legal fully made up copy vs. their home ripped version.
If the video is a hot renter, your video will be a hotter seller.
I use a 24" Dell as my second monitor but my MBP is more than capable of making use of a 30". In fact, Apple promotes this! Now, whether or not a Dell 30" (which has more modern specs) is somehow quite superior to an Apple 30" I'm not sure, but if not, then the MBP should be able to drive any 30" too.
I use Windows at work, I have a Debian server and a Ubuntu desktop at home and I own a MBP dual booting Leopard and XP SP2. Windows is easily the most frustrating out of the ones I use but my response is mainly an enquiry regarding your mac.
I run dual monitors (24" Dell) with my MBP, I run VM Ware Fusion with 1 GB of RAM allocated to the machine (I run a 2G MBP so it is capped at 2 Gigs of Ram). I have Fink installed and when compiling I can still have the VM up and all the while not having any stability issues. I hardly have any updates (and I check weekly). I've never experienced nor heard of anyone in my circle (we are about 20) who have had issues with Leopard. Despite it being a bit sluggish compared to a well setup Ubuntu install or a stripped down XP SP2, I would say it is more stable than the other two over time. I do get the "sleep" problem you mention though, but that seems to be endemic across laptops and OS'. For whatever reason, no one has perfected awaking from sleep yet.
I'm wondering if your laptop might not have some serious issues. What you describe seems out of the ordinary. You might want to send it off for a checkup. Perhaps you have dying RAM? I've never had to restart Leopard safe for a major update (usually a security patch) and certainly never when plugging in a second monitor. I plug it in and it just works.
Sure, myself and the 20 folks I work with are a small sample size and therefore this is mostly anecdotal, but just in case, you may want to get it looked at.
Humanities degrees from top schools are as difficult but not because the conceptual nature of the material is more difficult (save for philosophy) but because the professors at this level feel the need to reaffirm to themselves that what they do, what they live for, is at least as important and challenging as those in the buildings next door. I don't want to debate the societal impact of a great novel vs. a new wonder drug or brand new tech, but certainly those that practice and teach the stuff want to be recognized for their accomplishments. Only in philosophy where the collaboration is tightly linked to mathematics, neuropsychology/neuroscience and physics does one not usually encounter the say hard-nosed determination to lay out the students because of some need to prove their field worthy.
That aside, I'll say that at least at a top 5 school (I have three degrees from MIT), my "hard science" undergrad was significantly more difficult than my engineering degree. This was in terms of conceptual difficulty. In terms of raw labour, engineering courses tend to have more homework but the exam material is quite a bit less intense.
Having a law degree as well, I will say that both my undergrad science degree and my engineering degree were far more difficult and rigorous than my law degree. In fact, law school was practically a joke in comparison. The pressure there is more in the cut-throat nature of ensuring a solid placement, either law review or clerkships. Yet there is no way I would make the same wage as a straight engineer vs. as a lawyer. As mentioned a bunch of posts above...look to the high paying career choices and one will recognize exactly what is in high demand (though with lawyers I would say it is more of a self-imposed high wage...we built the system, locked it down and ensured that the barrier to entry would be very very high not to mention in most instances, requiring one have a legal degree to do something quite simple but I digress...)
The comments regarding Picardtagger are good but if you want something automatic use ieatbrainz:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ieatbrainz/
I use Rogers and am in Ottawa. Besides Bell, Rogers is it! Though I don't experience this ad injection bs (I don't use their browser) I must say they are hands down the fastest and most reliable ISP in this metro. Though pricey, one can now get 20D/1U speeds for their premium package at 100/month and I'm getting 12D/1U for their mid level. Standard is 10 for that price.
I suppose they aren't really high speed for the likes of Sweden or Japan, but in Canada, outside of business OC lines, I don't know of anyone faster.
Yes they were intertwined but only in so much as the state had a "recognized" religion. The idea of "Separation of Church and State" in the US was more an experiment in ensuring that every religion had equal opportunity under the law. That is, no one religion would usurp all others. True the Pope did wield quite a bit of power, again, when the monarchs so chose to go against the Papacy, they did so with ease more often than not. In fact, the Holy See was often under the thumb of state powers, particularly in having to "appoint" those hand picked individuals of the State to be ordained bishops and act as nuncios. Too often people make bold blanket statements with regards to the Catholic Church without much knowledge in history whatsoever. I'm not stating you are doing that, but you are certainly mistaken on a few points.
As for the "charges" brought against him, those listed were for his excommunication indeed, but after the "guilty" verdict, his excommunication was finalized. The secular authorities then burned him not because of his excommunication, nor by the request of the Inquisition but because of his practicing magic and divination. Reading Firpo among others will shed much light on this.
The point though that must be driven home is that the Catholic Church (as an entity) did not put people to death, secular institutions did. If in particular places examples exist where people who were Catholic and held power killed people (as in Spain for instance) this must be distinguished from claiming "The Catholic Church did it!" Because that is not the case. Rogue individuals or extremists in any organization act on their own in such matters. When discussing the horrors that went on during the Spanish Inquisition, the Pope was attempting to gain control of the rogue bishops and cardinals but was oftne thwarted by the Spanish monarchy at the time.
By "they" I assume you mean the Church. By "they" however you would be wrong. The Church excommunicated folks. Secular powers "burned his ass at the stake for that." Big misconception that is thrown around quite frequently.
Of course one could argue that because the Church was quite politically influential, their decision to excommunicate had the general reprocussion of "burning" or some other unpleasant demise effected by the state. Not the point though, the Church certainly didn't burn him, and the State could have refused to, as they often refused to follow the Pope when it didn't suit their needs.