Start a broadband account. Then, a few weeks later, send an evil-looking lawyer letter to the ISP in question, stating that you are the "Mendax Interactive Entertainment Company" and that your game property "Iron Fist Kung Fu" was pirated via IRC on X date from Y ip (yours) and see if it gets cut off...
Excellent story-fodder, and no innocent bystanders harmed.
As long as your machine is relatively recent, Mandrake's installer seems to handle it with grace.
Scanners, email and games are actually no harder under Linux, I've seen... most problems stem from a flawed system base that's being built on, and a good installer should take care of that.
It sure hasn't kept competition alive. All that's happening is the services that are worse than what I have and don't offer what I need are the ones that are surviving.
Thank you phone companies. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. There is a special place reserved in my personal hell for you.
The fines for their anti-competitive practices appear to be far less than what they stand to gain in the future if they destroy all competition...
One would almost think that things were engineered this way from the beginning.
Everyone who I've talked to who has gotten DSL service from anyone other than the phone company has related a tale of delays and ball-dropping by the phone company... which are believable, since they are the ones with the incentive to do so! If Covad provides bad service, it will drive them out of the market. If the phone company provides bad service... well, isn't that what phone companies are known for?
All in all, it makes me wonder if the last mile shouldn't be a truly public utility, with all companies at an equal footing outside of it.
I really don't see how users or competitors would benefit from this.
Splitting up Microsoft, all in all, is just a bizarre way of applying century-old law to this problem.
I don't pretend to know what the best solution is, but this isn't it.
Too big for Slashdot.
on
Mob Software
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
This is an essay worth reading once to get the idea of, and a second time to get a real sense of what it means to you.
Slashdot comments are a little too ephemeral to get anything except for ridiculous jokes and twitch-trigger half-understanding out of this.
In short, it's too big for Slashdot. Slashdot is a forum built around the topical and momentary. I'm going to really wrap my head around this before I say anything about it. This essay really demands that sort of effort.
On the philosophical ground, these Stanford folks seem to have created a device capable of sifting the Akashic data banks. After all, where do these ideas come from? But like any chaotic concept, we reform it along the lines we expect to see.
So we have a machine that we can give a problem, and it will give us an answer, as long as we know what we want to hear.
This sounds an awful lot like most human-made software development (especially "community" development) in that it's really good at optimization, but it slows down significantly once new ground begins to be charted.
It of a conversation I recently had about this very idea- that GNU projects (GNOME was the example) tend to have this habit of just mulling around and looking funny for a long while before jelling into something usable- but once that happens, the thing created is a war-hardened program capable of getting the job done. Who knows, though, if it would have even existed had it not had previous environments' headlights to chase?
There's definitely a parallel here worthy of more observation.
The best way to bring about a revolution is to act as if the revolution has already happened. If the concepts are sound, you'll have changed everyone's lives and no one will notice. Most revolutions that happen with fire and smoke are irrelevant.
International law is like a playground where kids tell each other to do things, and then those so exhorted say "Oh yeah? Make me!" At best, it's favor-trading.
The executives so pushing are really banking on the current US position of international superiority.
A US studio executive will never be hauled into a foreign court. EVER. If such a circumstance came about, the US would scream bloody murder about sovereignty, jurisdiction, and what have you. However, if a citizen of another country breaks US law, the US then waves the flag of international cooperation. That's why things like the oft-mentioned Hague treaty on harmonizing international enforcement are so interesting- seeng through the glass of the playground, such initiatives are always one more powerful country trying to cow the others. You can be sure that if someone with enough money is bothered in the US, nothing will happen to them. Now, the US may offer up sacrificial lambs of less-powerful folks from time to time, which they couldn't give a damn about anyway, just so the US can enjoy the privilege of busting foreigners.
If the Saudis don't like US concepts of obscenity, tough. They can firewall off all non-Saudi sites. But if we don't like a site in Saudi Arabia, we'll go over there and give them cash to smash the writer, which they will happily do.
It's a Catch-22, and in a Catch-22, the side with the most power wins. There are no rules, really.
Most companies are slowly coming around to the idea that selling things to people is a dead-end. What's FAR more profitable is never selling anything- just loaning your property out to people.
Microsoft's biggest challenge right now is simply how to make money off of Office. Office worked great 5 years ago, and I'm still using my copy from that time. How does Microsoft get my money, then? They can't do it by improving Office- Office is *done*. The answer? Make me pay even though nothing has been improved. Make me pay even if I never upgrade my work machine.
The subscription model. It's a train that even companies selling physical objects got onto long ago. A unnamed company that I recently talked to offered me an improved method for packing the merchandise I ship. I requested further information, and it turned out that they never sell anything- they rent the machine that seals the packing units, and the materials that they work with. The monthly rent was pretty high, and one could never own the equipment. This struck me as a remarkably forward-looking and stable business plan. They aren't required to win the customer's trust and approval all over again every year.
Who can blame businesses if they want to get onto this train?
We're hampered by our own language and the concepts which many of us revel in.
"Free" vs "Libre" is the oldest conceptual problem of open source, and perhaps one of the subtlest tendrils that materialism has in our hearts. Free of cost is a very different thing from free of restraint (although they often coexist.) This is an obvious idea, with observation. But compare careful, rational examination with the deluge of advertisements proclaiming "FREE! FREE!" when what they give is usually the antithesis of freedom. At best it's the freedom of the streetcorner pusher, from whom the first one's free, but after that...
It's quite certain that many "hacker" types enjoy the idea of being on the edge of outlawdom, laughing at laws and dancing over restrictions. Our most popular images are those of the late-night network wanderer, the Gibson-Sterling high-tech low-life, the gleeful anarchist subverting whole structures but by money and influence with small, deliberate acts.
The life of freedom is one we envision, yearn for, and often claim, through these deliberate acts. However, the model of freedom in a society constrained by irrational laws is the outlaw.
When you believe in your heart of hearts that you are a free spirit, don't be surprised when the Man, who lives on restriction, treats you like an outlaw. An out-law- one outside of the laws. Laws are, to their proponents, like a planet's atmosphere. Inside, the only possible conception of life. Outside, the brutal vacuum.
It is possible that the establishments which we rail against are finally listening to our message- which is, simply that the world of information is changing, and with that change our physical world will be transfigured.
Perhaps they've decided they don't like our future.
We haven't proven that the restrictors, the fencebuilders have lost the mandate of heaven. Yet.
I am rather ashamed to be associated with folks that want to paste slogans onto a living person as if he were simply a name long dead.
Sklyarov's deeds speak for themselves in a practical sense- he proved, as a thousand cryptographers and analysts have proven before, why DMCA-like laws don't work on a practical basis.
That is his statement against the DMCA- and it's actually far more powerful than most protests. This isn't to say that protests lack importance (in fact, they are the brute muscle of social change,) simply that it's the direct, practical activism of people like Sklyarov that keep this movement in the realm of reality.
Remember that there is a significant percentage of "radicals" out there that just envy the opposition, and aren't exactly for real change. They are what Hakim Bey calls "police-without-power". Such people cannot be trusted in any sense, and I'd advise those who would wish to use Sklyarov as a playing-piece to examine their own motivations- and make certain that they really mean what they say.
Tactics are fine when it's all in your hands and on your neck, but don't ask someone else to die for your cause. Bottom line.
Free webcasting is probably the number one thing that the so-called "digital music revolution" (remember, friends- when someone says they're revolutionary, just think of them as a wheel spinning round and round in place, and you often have the right picture) has brought to me which I truly value.
This, more than anything else, is what music creators and marketers of all kinds should be standing behind, not trying to tax to death. Streamed mp3 has resulted in so many CD purchases that I've made, I can hardly count them. I've had my tastes opened to many new kinds of music...
But wait. I've spent most of that money on small-labeled music... such as Metropolis, Gashed, and the like.
I can't help liking the music I like. I can't help it that it's small-market. And I can't help it that until now I wouldn't have even discovered any of the acts which I now dote on without free, user-created webcasting. I honestly could care less what happens to large broadcasters- let them advertise and tax and fight forever. All of the webcasts I listen to, however, are generally money *losing* operations- they take no advertising and take no revenues whatsoever. They exist simply by enthusiasts for whoever wishes to hear their sound.
Do the larger webcasters consider the small ones to be competition? We shall see. I am most certainly wary of trusting any large corporation or entity until said groups make it certain that the interests of small webcasters are wedded to their agendas.
Law cases refer specifically to titles and sections of law- if the titles and sections referred to are removed, the perspective in which the decision was made is lost.
Thus, it makes much more sense to retract the sections involved explicitly rather than removing them completely. Think of it in terms of backward compatibility. Current laws must be compatible with older decisions made under the same code, because what those decisions were originally based on is what case review is about.
All these pursuits are a concept separate from "the Internet", they are things people do with the Internet. The Internet is a medium which enables certain kinds of expression.
The Internet is infrastructure, just like roads, as has been mentioned already. The reason society funds roads is because they're multi-purpose and elevate the pursuits of everyone involved. Roads are platform-agnostic (as long as you follow a few simple physical rules, you are ready to rock) as well as purpose-agnostic. It is these two things that make highways so damned useful.
What's funny about the "Information Superhighway" metaphor is that most people used it (and cracked on it) without really understanding it, but it had the core of the Internet's promise contained in it. To say that the Internet's value was only contained in silly dot-com only businesses is to say that the entire point of the interstate highway system was to create motels and Cracker Barrels. But that isn't true- the value of the highways is realized when you want to go visit your friend in Philadelphia, but you live in Baltimore. It's realized when you have to truck a shipment of goods to another city. You could take ten million tiny little toll roads through a million little municipalities, but that would take forever and be a pain in the ass. No one benefits from that, just like no one benefits from a fragmented, incompatible, gate(s?)-infested Internet. These folks don't want an Internet, they want 65 different Fidonet-alikes. Well, that's not infrastructure.
The true value of the Internet is when it makes us all more capable, universally. If all goes well, it will become so universal we forget it's even there. That is the promise that TCP/IP has been thus far fulfilling. But if it doesn't go well, it will be as bad a loss as if the interstate highway system had been junked.
I don't mind businesses deciding they want their own casino (with hookers, etc.) but I don't want to pay for it.
Chances are, given the way things are working out now, I'll have to.
Socialization of costs and privatization of profit is a macro-level expression of a kid eating a candy bar, then throwing the wrapper on the street because he doesn't want to find a trash can. It expresses the same level of maturity.
Well, most businesses didn't want to pay for it before. So why does everyone think businesses want to pay for it now?
Those that need it can get leased lines and armed guards and attack dogs with laser fangs and nuclear molar juice in case of capture. People have been doing this for years, and it is in fact quite profitable.
You can't socialize the cost of a network like that. Unless you plan to give it back to society, which is against the religion of these folks.
I'm used to starting up a fresh windows machine and having absolutely no capability. I have to go through the install dance for every single thing I need to do.
Linux just has it all... no wandering around, having to slowly regain the capability to do silly, simple things like opening zip files. It's all there. I've been exploring what capabilities I have right here on the Mandrake install CDs, and it surprises me every time. For most of the time that I need something, pretty much every single time the program to do it has been right there in the package list.
I'm enjoying Linux more each time I use my machine.
I wonder if someone's clock is set wrong by a few months... it's August 2 not April 1.
That having been said, I don't really think TuxRacer is enough of a game to really sell... especially on Windows, where there are so many admittedly superior alternatives.
Oh well, I don't grow these tomatoes, I just throw them.
We're *all* in the wrong industry. Why aren't we all out there trying to sell useless snake oil to recording and movie studios? It's been established that they want this snake oil like no one else, and will bite at nearly anything. They're desperate. This stratagem would accomplish two things.
1) Give a few of us a life of levantine luxury, as deluded media executives lavish the lucky charlatans with cash.
2) Fill the field of secure music with so much balderdash that eventually some company will tire of the money hemorrhage, be a "daring cost-cutting pioneer" and go back to what's simple and works. Then, no one will respect this stuff ever again, which would undoubtedly be a win for everyone involved.
Sounds like a plan to me.
The war on music is a lot like the war on drugs- it's ultimately pointless, painful mainly to individuals, and is, just like any war, essentially a big black hole to throw money into. They are both propped up by shrill, head-in-the-sand moralizing, and like all crusades of their ilk, will hopefully go the way of Prohibition.
Why, pray tell, does Sony make a big deal about MD recorders being "great for Internet music", and then go about making their own CDs uncopyable?
I thought the whole point of such things was compilation listening, or listening in places where CDs shouldn't go (such as long trips in China.) Both these purposes are foxed by this mindless garbage. Never mind the fact, too, that people are spending piles of money on MP3 based hardware... beautiful. Just beautiful.
Perhaps the manufacturers of MP3 hardware ought to get together and create "recording adapters" that get around this sort of scheme, just so people can use the equipment they've bought. Will it be illegal under DMCA? Not at all! It will be big hardware makers working against other big hardware makers. The only time law would come into play is if there was a money inequality.
Slashdot Mirror
Mulling a CD-R tax? Nothing new, really.
Other than that, it's just a fnord, like all press releases. Yawn.
A journalistic experiment:
Start a broadband account. Then, a few weeks later, send an evil-looking lawyer letter to the ISP in question, stating that you are the "Mendax Interactive Entertainment Company" and that your game property "Iron Fist Kung Fu" was pirated via IRC on X date from Y ip (yours) and see if it gets cut off...
Excellent story-fodder, and no innocent bystanders harmed.
As long as your machine is relatively recent, Mandrake's installer seems to handle it with grace.
Scanners, email and games are actually no harder under Linux, I've seen... most problems stem from a flawed system base that's being built on, and a good installer should take care of that.
It sure hasn't kept competition alive. All that's happening is the services that are worse than what I have and don't offer what I need are the ones that are surviving.
Thank you phone companies. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. There is a special place reserved in my personal hell for you.
The fines for their anti-competitive practices appear to be far less than what they stand to gain in the future if they destroy all competition...
One would almost think that things were engineered this way from the beginning.
Everyone who I've talked to who has gotten DSL service from anyone other than the phone company has related a tale of delays and ball-dropping by the phone company... which are believable, since they are the ones with the incentive to do so! If Covad provides bad service, it will drive them out of the market. If the phone company provides bad service... well, isn't that what phone companies are known for?
All in all, it makes me wonder if the last mile shouldn't be a truly public utility, with all companies at an equal footing outside of it.
It's confusing at best and vindictive at worst.
I really don't see how users or competitors would benefit from this.
Splitting up Microsoft, all in all, is just a bizarre way of applying century-old law to this problem.
I don't pretend to know what the best solution is, but this isn't it.
This is an essay worth reading once to get the idea of, and a second time to get a real sense of what it means to you.
Slashdot comments are a little too ephemeral to get anything except for ridiculous jokes and twitch-trigger half-understanding out of this.
In short, it's too big for Slashdot. Slashdot is a forum built around the topical and momentary. I'm going to really wrap my head around this before I say anything about it. This essay really demands that sort of effort.
On the philosophical ground, these Stanford folks seem to have created a device capable of sifting the Akashic data banks. After all, where do these ideas come from? But like any chaotic concept, we reform it along the lines we expect to see.
So we have a machine that we can give a problem, and it will give us an answer, as long as we know what we want to hear.
This sounds an awful lot like most human-made software development (especially "community" development) in that it's really good at optimization, but it slows down significantly once new ground begins to be charted.
It of a conversation I recently had about this very idea- that GNU projects (GNOME was the example) tend to have this habit of just mulling around and looking funny for a long while before jelling into something usable- but once that happens, the thing created is a war-hardened program capable of getting the job done. Who knows, though, if it would have even existed had it not had previous environments' headlights to chase?
There's definitely a parallel here worthy of more observation.
The best way to bring about a revolution is to act as if the revolution has already happened. If the concepts are sound, you'll have changed everyone's lives and no one will notice. Most revolutions that happen with fire and smoke are irrelevant.
International law is like a playground where kids tell each other to do things, and then those so exhorted say "Oh yeah? Make me!" At best, it's favor-trading.
The executives so pushing are really banking on the current US position of international superiority.
A US studio executive will never be hauled into a foreign court. EVER. If such a circumstance came about, the US would scream bloody murder about sovereignty, jurisdiction, and what have you. However, if a citizen of another country breaks US law, the US then waves the flag of international cooperation. That's why things like the oft-mentioned Hague treaty on harmonizing international enforcement are so interesting- seeng through the glass of the playground, such initiatives are always one more powerful country trying to cow the others. You can be sure that if someone with enough money is bothered in the US, nothing will happen to them. Now, the US may offer up sacrificial lambs of less-powerful folks from time to time, which they couldn't give a damn about anyway, just so the US can enjoy the privilege of busting foreigners.
If the Saudis don't like US concepts of obscenity, tough. They can firewall off all non-Saudi sites. But if we don't like a site in Saudi Arabia, we'll go over there and give them cash to smash the writer, which they will happily do.
It's a Catch-22, and in a Catch-22, the side with the most power wins. There are no rules, really.
Most companies are slowly coming around to the idea that selling things to people is a dead-end. What's FAR more profitable is never selling anything- just loaning your property out to people.
Microsoft's biggest challenge right now is simply how to make money off of Office. Office worked great 5 years ago, and I'm still using my copy from that time. How does Microsoft get my money, then? They can't do it by improving Office- Office is *done*. The answer? Make me pay even though nothing has been improved. Make me pay even if I never upgrade my work machine.
The subscription model. It's a train that even companies selling physical objects got onto long ago. A unnamed company that I recently talked to offered me an improved method for packing the merchandise I ship. I requested further information, and it turned out that they never sell anything- they rent the machine that seals the packing units, and the materials that they work with. The monthly rent was pretty high, and one could never own the equipment. This struck me as a remarkably forward-looking and stable business plan. They aren't required to win the customer's trust and approval all over again every year.
Who can blame businesses if they want to get onto this train?
We're hampered by our own language and the concepts which many of us revel in.
"Free" vs "Libre" is the oldest conceptual problem of open source, and perhaps one of the subtlest tendrils that materialism has in our hearts. Free of cost is a very different thing from free of restraint (although they often coexist.) This is an obvious idea, with observation. But compare careful, rational examination with the deluge of advertisements proclaiming "FREE! FREE!" when what they give is usually the antithesis of freedom. At best it's the freedom of the streetcorner pusher, from whom the first one's free, but after that...
It's quite certain that many "hacker" types enjoy the idea of being on the edge of outlawdom, laughing at laws and dancing over restrictions. Our most popular images are those of the late-night network wanderer, the Gibson-Sterling high-tech low-life, the gleeful anarchist subverting whole structures but by money and influence with small, deliberate acts.
The life of freedom is one we envision, yearn for, and often claim, through these deliberate acts. However, the model of freedom in a society constrained by irrational laws is the outlaw.
When you believe in your heart of hearts that you are a free spirit, don't be surprised when the Man, who lives on restriction, treats you like an outlaw. An out-law- one outside of the laws. Laws are, to their proponents, like a planet's atmosphere. Inside, the only possible conception of life. Outside, the brutal vacuum.
It is possible that the establishments which we rail against are finally listening to our message- which is, simply that the world of information is changing, and with that change our physical world will be transfigured.
Perhaps they've decided they don't like our future.
We haven't proven that the restrictors, the fencebuilders have lost the mandate of heaven. Yet.
Sounds like an amusing thing to watch while it grows...
I'd have given my GWB check to them. No such luck, I fear.
This also tells you a lot about how able I am to donate under other circumstances...
I am rather ashamed to be associated with folks that want to paste slogans onto a living person as if he were simply a name long dead.
Sklyarov's deeds speak for themselves in a practical sense- he proved, as a thousand cryptographers and analysts have proven before, why DMCA-like laws don't work on a practical basis.
That is his statement against the DMCA- and it's actually far more powerful than most protests. This isn't to say that protests lack importance (in fact, they are the brute muscle of social change,) simply that it's the direct, practical activism of people like Sklyarov that keep this movement in the realm of reality.
Remember that there is a significant percentage of "radicals" out there that just envy the opposition, and aren't exactly for real change. They are what Hakim Bey calls "police-without-power". Such people cannot be trusted in any sense, and I'd advise those who would wish to use Sklyarov as a playing-piece to examine their own motivations- and make certain that they really mean what they say.
Tactics are fine when it's all in your hands and on your neck, but don't ask someone else to die for your cause. Bottom line.
Free webcasting is probably the number one thing that the so-called "digital music revolution" (remember, friends- when someone says they're revolutionary, just think of them as a wheel spinning round and round in place, and you often have the right picture) has brought to me which I truly value.
This, more than anything else, is what music creators and marketers of all kinds should be standing behind, not trying to tax to death. Streamed mp3 has resulted in so many CD purchases that I've made, I can hardly count them. I've had my tastes opened to many new kinds of music...
But wait. I've spent most of that money on small-labeled music... such as Metropolis, Gashed, and the like.
I can't help liking the music I like. I can't help it that it's small-market. And I can't help it that until now I wouldn't have even discovered any of the acts which I now dote on without free, user-created webcasting. I honestly could care less what happens to large broadcasters- let them advertise and tax and fight forever. All of the webcasts I listen to, however, are generally money *losing* operations- they take no advertising and take no revenues whatsoever. They exist simply by enthusiasts for whoever wishes to hear their sound.
Do the larger webcasters consider the small ones to be competition? We shall see. I am most certainly wary of trusting any large corporation or entity until said groups make it certain that the interests of small webcasters are wedded to their agendas.
Law cases refer specifically to titles and sections of law- if the titles and sections referred to are removed, the perspective in which the decision was made is lost.
Thus, it makes much more sense to retract the sections involved explicitly rather than removing them completely. Think of it in terms of backward compatibility. Current laws must be compatible with older decisions made under the same code, because what those decisions were originally based on is what case review is about.
I meant Compuserve. Crossed mental threads.
All these pursuits are a concept separate from "the Internet", they are things people do with the Internet. The Internet is a medium which enables certain kinds of expression.
The Internet is infrastructure, just like roads, as has been mentioned already. The reason society funds roads is because they're multi-purpose and elevate the pursuits of everyone involved. Roads are platform-agnostic (as long as you follow a few simple physical rules, you are ready to rock) as well as purpose-agnostic. It is these two things that make highways so damned useful.
What's funny about the "Information Superhighway" metaphor is that most people used it (and cracked on it) without really understanding it, but it had the core of the Internet's promise contained in it. To say that the Internet's value was only contained in silly dot-com only businesses is to say that the entire point of the interstate highway system was to create motels and Cracker Barrels. But that isn't true- the value of the highways is realized when you want to go visit your friend in Philadelphia, but you live in Baltimore. It's realized when you have to truck a shipment of goods to another city. You could take ten million tiny little toll roads through a million little municipalities, but that would take forever and be a pain in the ass. No one benefits from that, just like no one benefits from a fragmented, incompatible, gate(s?)-infested Internet. These folks don't want an Internet, they want 65 different Fidonet-alikes. Well, that's not infrastructure.
The true value of the Internet is when it makes us all more capable, universally. If all goes well, it will become so universal we forget it's even there. That is the promise that TCP/IP has been thus far fulfilling. But if it doesn't go well, it will be as bad a loss as if the interstate highway system had been junked.
I don't mind businesses deciding they want their own casino (with hookers, etc.) but I don't want to pay for it.
Chances are, given the way things are working out now, I'll have to.
Socialization of costs and privatization of profit is a macro-level expression of a kid eating a candy bar, then throwing the wrapper on the street because he doesn't want to find a trash can. It expresses the same level of maturity.
Well, most businesses didn't want to pay for it before. So why does everyone think businesses want to pay for it now?
Those that need it can get leased lines and armed guards and attack dogs with laser fangs and nuclear molar juice in case of capture. People have been doing this for years, and it is in fact quite profitable.
You can't socialize the cost of a network like that. Unless you plan to give it back to society, which is against the religion of these folks.
I'm used to starting up a fresh windows machine and having absolutely no capability. I have to go through the install dance for every single thing I need to do.
Linux just has it all... no wandering around, having to slowly regain the capability to do silly, simple things like opening zip files. It's all there. I've been exploring what capabilities I have right here on the Mandrake install CDs, and it surprises me every time. For most of the time that I need something, pretty much every single time the program to do it has been right there in the package list.
I'm enjoying Linux more each time I use my machine.
I wonder if someone's clock is set wrong by a few months... it's August 2 not April 1.
That having been said, I don't really think TuxRacer is enough of a game to really sell... especially on Windows, where there are so many admittedly superior alternatives.
Oh well, I don't grow these tomatoes, I just throw them.
We're *all* in the wrong industry. Why aren't we all out there trying to sell useless snake oil to recording and movie studios? It's been established that they want this snake oil like no one else, and will bite at nearly anything. They're desperate. This stratagem would accomplish two things.
1) Give a few of us a life of levantine luxury, as deluded media executives lavish the lucky charlatans with cash.
2) Fill the field of secure music with so much balderdash that eventually some company will tire of the money hemorrhage, be a "daring cost-cutting pioneer" and go back to what's simple and works. Then, no one will respect this stuff ever again, which would undoubtedly be a win for everyone involved.
Sounds like a plan to me.
The war on music is a lot like the war on drugs- it's ultimately pointless, painful mainly to individuals, and is, just like any war, essentially a big black hole to throw money into. They are both propped up by shrill, head-in-the-sand moralizing, and like all crusades of their ilk, will hopefully go the way of Prohibition.
If we're lucky.
Ach. First they want us to copy, then they don't.
Why, pray tell, does Sony make a big deal about MD recorders being "great for Internet music", and then go about making their own CDs uncopyable?
I thought the whole point of such things was compilation listening, or listening in places where CDs shouldn't go (such as long trips in China.) Both these purposes are foxed by this mindless garbage. Never mind the fact, too, that people are spending piles of money on MP3 based hardware... beautiful. Just beautiful.
Perhaps the manufacturers of MP3 hardware ought to get together and create "recording adapters" that get around this sort of scheme, just so people can use the equipment they've bought. Will it be illegal under DMCA? Not at all! It will be big hardware makers working against other big hardware makers. The only time law would come into play is if there was a money inequality.