Except you could probably just pour urea crystals into a cesspool and get largely the same effect, without the expense of the bags.
A single bag is 2-3 cents. Assuming you only use it for feces, you're going to use at least one of these a day. A village of 100 people is going to go through $3 a day in these, and on that kind of money you could feed six of them.
I'm not saying this is a bad idea, only that it appears to be an overengineered one.
Right, so you and 9,999,999 other people will go to the local camping store and ask for water purification tablets, and they'll run out with 9,999,000 people left.
Umm, did you look at the pictures of this new "tablet/netbook"? Always Innovating has a nice-looking detachable screen, agreed, but the WaveFace is something... completely different.
The screen covers both the top and bottom halves of the clamshell, and it's one continuous flexible screen. If you want to use it as a tablet, you lay it out flat then lift out the keyboard, resulting in a tablet that's more than double the size of Always Innovating's offering (which is, after all, just a netbook you can unplug the screen from).
The WaveFace, on the downside, looks like it'll be incredibly fragile, and there's not as much room for storage, battery, and, well, you know, useful bits. But it is extraordinarily different.
Their other item is a flexible long-narrow screen that is like a stretched-out iPhone, but it can be wrapped around your wrist to use like a watch, or rolled out flat to use like an iPod Touch, or folded in half to use like a phone. Again, looks fragile to the point of silly, but Asus certainly can't be accused of being boring.
IF and when that happens, I'll be on the front lines with you, Brother.
However, this isn't what this group is looking for. If you routinely take 80% or more of entire articles, copy them, and put them on your own web site, you really are profiting from something that isn't yours to profit from.
If, on the other hand, you are routinely taking excerpts from sites, typing up your own thoughts, and posting a link to the articles you are using as source material, there really isn't anything to worry about from this specific group.
I'm not saying that abuses of DMCA copyright takedowns do not happen, or that this consortium represents all that is good and holy and bright. But this movement is UNDERenforcing rights they actually have.
The excessive length and reach of copyright, the draconian silliness of DRM, the constant abuse of DMCA, the erosion of personal backup rights, I'm with you on all of that. We need to shorten copyright back to 20 years or less. We need to reinstitute real fair-use provisions.
This isn't eroding any of that. This is going after the real abusers. The ones that the rest of the IP industry is always citing in their ongoing quest to erode our rights.
I read the article, but I have a very different take on what's going on.
I do not pay Comcast a penny that I expect to be sent along to Disney for ABC, or anyone else for NBC, CBS, FOX, WB, or any of the "broadcast" media. I am not, in fact, paying them for content. The content is freely available to my rooftop antenna should I choose to get it that way.
I am paying them for taking a clear signal from ABC, CBS, NBC, et al and interpreting it into an analog signal that is then sent over miles of expensive coaxial cable and fed into my house. That way, I get a clear signal that always works with my analog gear, rather than depending on my old rooftop antenna and a digital signal conversion box.
If ABC decides that Comcast needs to pay $0.50 for every month I have access to that signal, and NBC and CBS and the others all do it, I'm looking at another $5 tacked on to my cable bill, because Comcast is charging me for maintenance and upkeep of coax cable and a distribution system, and a profit. If their costs go up, so will their prices.
I always have the alternative of rerunning the coax to my rooftop antenna and using a digital conversion box, and get ABC et al for free. I choose not to do that because Comcast makes it more convenient for me to receive ABC, a service which I gladly pay for, and from which Comcast makes a profit.
Comcast is a trucking company, in charge of distribution. They don't owe ABC any more money than they owe Slashdot for creating the Internet content I am now consuming.
If they are RSS syndicating their content, that constitutes a legitimate use of their work. The 100% copy is done with the permission of the author. You are allowed to read that all you want.
If YOU are RSS syndicating complete articles that someone else wrote, this is not a legitimate use of their work. You could, however, RSS syndicate 79.9% of each and every one of their articles and put a link to the original article for your readers to read the other 20.1%. Common courtesy would actually dictate that you post a few paragraphs only, then link back to the source for the rest of the article. Credit where credit is due.
Seriously, if you are routinely using complete articles written by someone else, and you aren't compensating them for that use, you are violating copyright.
He posted the article, cited it as the original article (knowing there was a proper citation link above), and posted less than 80% of it. This is a completely legitimate use of the article as per Attributor's new rules. Two or three more words from the article would have made it an "80% rule" bust, but would still have been OK as long as he didn't make a habit of it. It's repeated use of more than 80% of source article text that Attributor wants to go after.
Most discussion boards already limit direct citation to a paragraph or two, or approximately 20% of the article.
So Attributor's 80% limit is making a clear statement that they are really only interested in pursuing people who make a routine habit of copying entire articles. And if the bulk of your content is coming from copying 100% of someone else's original news articles, you aren't exactly someone I want to waste my righteous indignation defending.
I have to ask.. what kind of small internet publisher do you think would be hurt, and why?
If the article is yours, then you can post 100% of it and claim it as your own. No one disputes this. This coalition is not going after work they don't own, and if they do you have valid grounds to sue them 'till it hurts.
If the article belongs to someone else, and you as a publisher are routinely taking more than 80% of someone else's articles and using them to generate your own revenue, you really need to reconsider your business model.
Unless I'm fundamentally misunderstanding what this new coalition is about to do, I see it as a reasoned and even somewhat generous response to a real problem. We're not talking about Slashdot citations or RSS summaries, because those rarely contain the entire article. We're talking about wholesale copying of entire articles off the sites that paid to have them written.
80% is a reasonable starting point. If they start lowering it, we'll have to express our righteous indignation then. Fair use, when interpreted, is generally considered a LOT lower than routinely cutting-and-pasting 80% of articles, so they have a long way to lower it before we can honestly call our indignation righteous.
Seriously, this really isn't a "slippery slope" situation. It seems to be a well-thought-out and sane set of guidelines. If anything, they are being a bit generous for now, and they can still tighten this quite a bit without coming close to busting "fair use" or even "reasonable use".
Basically they are saying, "if you routinely use 80%+ of our articles as your own content, we're asking you to stop. We won't sue you for any past uses, we just want to make it clear that this isn't cool any more."
A fair usage (not the lack of quotes, I am not talking about a legal doctrine) would be to use about 20% of the source article (properly attributed) with a link back to the original article. Give credit where it's due (and cite your sources). Then add your own thoughts, or don't. But don't take whole-cloth articles and post them on your own site with your own ads.
Every discussion board I've ever participated in has pretty much recommended some really close variant to this anyway. It usually reads something like "cite a paragraph or two at most and have a link to the source article plainly visible nearby".
I love how everyone bashes DRM without thinking of the consequences of not using any. Pirating is far too widespread.
You do realize, I hope, that DRM also doesn't stop piracy, and the only thing DRM offers to the paying customer is envy that the pirates are enjoying a better playing experience than we are.
Pirates blame the developers for using DRM,
Pirates blame no one, they just pirate the game. They laugh at DRM. They break it within days of its release, and do their thing. Their thing is wrong. It is not prevented in any way by DRM.
the quality of the game is reduced for actual customers
Agreed.
yet the pirates are the one to blame.
I'd agree, except for the absolute and utter proof that DRM has no effect on large-scale or even for the most part casual piracy. DRM prevents someone who does not want to break the law from breaking the law, but in general the people who are affected by DRM are the ones who want to pay for what we use. DRM is a sign on the door of a house saying "ON VACATION FOR A MONTH, LOCK BROKEN, PLEASE DON'T ROB ME". The honest people wouldn't have anyway, and the thieves aren't hampered by it.
The only thing DRM prevents is backups by people who have paid for their copies and don't want to break the law, or "home piracy" (someone buys one copy and wants to use it on multiple computers, etc).
Stop trying to spin the argument, pirates.
Simple facts. No spin. I have purchased each and every game I've ever played. I also quickly developed the habit of downloading the pirated version of the game to actually play it, because I've had games fail because my DVD drive was too old or too new (Ubisoft, I'm looking straight at you), or because of conflicting DRM schemes that break each other. I've also been reluctant to take my $50-75 original CDs that may not be backed up to a LAN party where they are subject to damage.
The ONLY reason I used to pay for games is because I feel it's important to compensate the studios for their hard work and efforts. But I pirate copies of them afterward because I want to be able to use what I paid for, and I can't afford to keep swapping DVD drives out because one game doesn't like the presence of one drive, and the other game doesn't like the presence of the only drive the one game will run on, or the installation of a game puts on SecuROM that fucks up my drive for running another DRM scheme, or any one of a number of problems I have run into. I've had to completely reload XP twice (and reactivate that) just to undo the damage done by DRM schemes.
After a while, I just got sick of it. I stopped buying games. I don't pirate them, either. I just don't play any more. It's not fun any more, when something that is intended to entertain requires that I turn pirate or risk the operation of the rest of my computer. I don't even play the $750 in games I have purchased any more.
Re:Also use "Ghostery" to block stuff
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Window Pain
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· Score: 1
Yeah, I checked it out. Kinda neat, but NoScript seems to duplicate the functionality. Ghostery does have a list of "known" sites, which is kind of nice.
If Disney/ABC pulls the signal, replace it with a simple message
"ABC gives away this programming for free over the air, but wants to charge us to pass it along to you. Call ABC now at 1-800-whatever and tell them you can't see their ads right now."
Heck, if the pat-ourselves-on-the-back-this-month awards are that big a deal, I'd pull ABC now, to give them time to back down.
The broadcasters make their money on ads. I pay $11 a month to my cable company to get broadcast TV only, but that is basically for wire maintenance so I don't have to put an antenna up on my roof, convert all my gear to digital, throw out my ReplayTV because it lacks a digital tuner, etc. If they darkened ABC (which I'm not on CableVision, but if they pulled this with Crapcast), I'd just stop watching ABC programming.
If ABC gets these fees, then they will be passed on to me, and at that point I want a way to have the channel removed so Crapcast doesn't have to pay the fee so they can't pass it along to me.
Unfortunately, what that means is that someone will have to develop a centralized update system, maintain it, and all of the software development houses that currently roll their own are going to have to learn how to do updates in a common, standardized format and protocol.
In the Linux world, apt and rpm do a bang-up job of this, but that's because it's part and parcel of the operating system, so you either have stuff installed manually by geeks only, or you put up a repository and call it a day.
In the Windows world, Microsoft is the only one who could feasibly accomplish such a task, and I don't see them interested in updating anything but their own software through Microsoft Update anytime soon.
I like it. A lot. One small refinement. If you were worried about familial doucebaggery, you might even remove the specific job title of the person doing it, and fill out the explanation a tad.
"The cause of the problem is the Production Director accessing files on designers' computers instead of copying them to his own. The hard drives on designer computers are not designed to accommodate two users accessing the files at once."
becomes
"This problem occurs when two people need data at the same time on a specific designer workstation. One user is working at the workstation, and another will need to change a file that is located there, so the second user makes the changes remotely. The workstations simply aren't set up to handle that kind of usage, and it slows the workstation down considerably. We could upgrade the workstations at a cost of $X per station. We could also add a central file server where we can all share common project work, but that will cost $X. There is also a free way to reduce the impact of this - simply asking everyone to make local copies of everything they are working on."
Then you haven't blamed the kid for anything, merely pointed out that a practice that occurs within the office is having an impact, and that impact can be mitigated. No one, especially Dad, needs to know that Junior is the only one doing it, so you have given Junior a way to mend his ways without confrontation.
Re:Firefox + NoScript + Adblock Plus + FlashBlocke
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Window Pain
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· Score: 2, Insightful
The state of the industry is "broken". I'd argue fundamentally.
We depend on blacklists maintained by people we don't know but want our money to protect us from other people we don't know who want our money. We run crappy software (I'm looking at you, Symantec, but McAfee isn't far from my view) that slows down our computers and occasionally crashes then in an attempt to keep crappy software from slowing down our computers and occasionally crashing them. We freak out when Google knows our home address, then enter our unlisted phone numbers onto online forums.
The major player in the software industry has encouraged piss-poor security practices for so long that we assume those practices are the expected user experience, so as soon as they finally mend their ways people bypass it anyway because they don't know what it all means. When we start telling people that there are bad people out there and they should install locks on their electronic doors, there's a shitstorm about how hard it all is (if you can't replace the locks on your doors, you hire someone to do it for you. Same with computers, find a computer literate buddy and open the creaky old wallet and buy 'em a 6-pack fercrissake, most of us will spend a good chunk of the day with you for nothing more than a 6-pack and heartfelt thanks - a decent denomination gift certificate to a good local restaurant would also be an excellent choice, or a decent bottle of wine, or offer some services from your area of expertise in return).
Windows XP can be made to be secure, but a lot of the software that runs on it doesn't like it that way. Windows Vista or Seven are better choices for that, but you have to learn how they are trying to protect you, and work with them. Linux will protect you by default and makes it harder for you to mess it up. Linux can be complicated, but generally only during installation. Once there, it is as as easy to use as Windows. It's a tad different, expect to spend about a day getting used to where things are. You'll have many of the same problems when you go from XP to Seven, though, and Linux is free. There are hordes of people around you that will gladly install it for you or help you out. If you spend most of your time doing email and the web, chances are you won't even notice the difference. It's not for everyone, of course. But you may not need to buy new hardware or spend any money at all to make that crusty trusty old Windows XP machine run faster. In some cases, a LOT faster. So you might save some serious money while you're at it.
You can't run all of your Windows software on Linux (though a lot can run just fine), and if you're a gamer forget it and stick with Windows. However, if you need Windows, at least let someone have a look at it and install a few of the FREE tools that can help protect you.
Firefox is slightly different from IE, but you will hardly notice. Figure a 15-30 minute learning curve. And it does some pretty cool stuff. Windows or Linux, it's just a good idea.
NoScript requires that you intervene whenever you feel you can trust a web site and give that site permission to run stuff. It's a pain, sure, but so is putting on your seatbelt or checking your brakes from time to time. After about a week, it becomes a habit, and all the sites you frequent are whitelisted anyway. "Hey, this site doesn't look right, did any scripts get blocked - and is getting the site to look perfect worth the risk of unblocking them?"
Too many of us have been too complacent about security for too long. The computer is an appliance, but we also keep really important data on it and other people want that data, and we need to start acting accordingly.
Re:Firefox + NoScript + Adblock Plus + FlashBlocke
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Window Pain
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· Score: 1
What are these "flash ads" of which you speak?
Oh, yeah, "Flashblock". That must be those little grey boxes that I have to click on to play them, unless NoScript or AdBlock ate them first.
Occasionally, I see coworkers surfing the web on IE (we are company-bound to IE6, by the way). I look at their screens with all the boppity and the poppity and the flashity and I just wonder, how in THE HELL can they absorb any information at the web sites they are at with all those things sliding all over the place and everything moving and yelling LOOK AT ME!
The only way I like my popovers is for breakfast, with ice cream like the food Gods intended. Popunders sounds like something you do while sitting on the toilet that requires a courtesy flush.
By and large, patches are a good thing, unless and until they prevent you from getting work done on the machine. Then they become a pain.
I was constantly frustrated and annoyed by the simple fact that Windows lacks a centralized update system that is open for everyone to use. It's got automated updating, sure, but it's a series of individual solutions per vendor and everyone solves the problem in different ways. And either there's an always-running app in the background (of which I had 15-20 at any given time, which gobbles up memory and occasionally CPU), or the software checks for updates when I start it up (the very least convenient time I want to update a bit of software is WHEN I'M STARTING IT - I opened Acroreader because I wanted to read a file, and now is not a good time to ask me if I want to wait ten minutes while my hard drive whirs getting the new shiny version installed. PS: As soon as I'm done reading the document, I'm going to shut down Acroread and not think about the update any more until you ask me at the least convenient time again, and I'll ignore it. Again).
Then, of course, there's Patch Tuesday. You never quite know what fresh hell awaits on Patch Tuesday, but it almost always includes a reboot.
Google: Bring out yer dead. [IE8 puts IE6 on the cart] IE8: Here's one. Google: That'll be ninepence. IE6: I'm not dead. Google: What? IE8: Nothing. There's your ninepence. IE6: I'm not dead. Google: 'Ere, he says he's not dead. IE8: Yes he is. IE6: I'm not. Google: He isn't. IE8: Well, he will be soon, he's very ill. IE6: I'm getting better. IE8: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment. Google: Well, I can't take him like that. It's against regulations. IE6: I don't want to go on the cart. IE8: Oh, don't be such a baby. Google: I can't take him. IE6: I feel fine. IE8: Oh, do me a favor. Google: I can't. IE8: Well, can you hang around for a couple of minutes? He won't be long. Google: I promised I'd be at the Torvalds'. They've lost nine today. IE8: Well, when's your next round? Google: Thursday. IE6: I think I'll go watching some YouTube videos. IE8: You're not fooling anyone, you know. [turns to Google]Isn't there anything you could do? IE6: I feel happy. I feel happy. [Google glances up and down the street furtively, then silences IE6 with his a whack of his club] IE8: Ah, thank you very much. Google: Not at all. See you on Thursday. IE8: Right.
I did acknowledge that Childs may (or may not, we don't know) have been in violation of the "keep system passwords in the centralized database" rule, and there should certainly be ramifications for that.
I would argue that two years in jail on five million dollars' bail might be a wee bit excessive for that violation.
But, I'm sorry, there are valid reasons to keep important passwords within a relatively small circle of trusted employees. If my company CIO walked me into an office with a bunch of people and asked me to disclose a vital core system password, I would at least respectfully request that he turn off the speakerphone so I knew who I was disclosing the password to.
If the request for the password was made in a surprise meeting with people VERY high up in the organization where I received the somewhat surprising news that I was about to be transferred to another division, the surprise and stress of that situation might possibly set off an adrenal response that might make my request sound, shall we say, "somewhat terse".
And I like to think I have pretty good social skills.
If they wanted Mr. Childs to disclose the passwords, why drag him into a room as a total surprise with a number of people high up in the food chain, start a speakerphone call, then tell him he was about to be shat upon?
They literally couldn't have orchestrated a better way to get a negative response out of someone, except maybe by torturing family members.
So you had a fleeting thought of arming robots with weapons and letting the kinds of people who cheat at Counterstrike control those weapons? I think the neighborhood cats would probably be safe, except there would be no one around to feed them and they'd go all feral and eat the bodies of their owners.
When the COO, your direct boss, and a rep from Human Resources are there
Right in the middle of the "don't" list in the City's policy (which is freely available on the web) was "DO NOT DISCLOSE PASSWORDS TO YOUR BOSS".
So, right there, he cannot disclose it and uphold the policy that he was told to uphold.
According to 4 articles I've read on the subject, he was invited to this "surprise" meeting and there was an active speakerphone with people on the other end.
Right at the top of the "don't" list was "DO NOT DISCLOSE PASSWORDS OVER THE TELEPHONE"
Again, we have a case where he could not disclose the passwords without violating policy.
I agree that he was probably in violation of the "keep your passwords in the global database" policy, and there should certainly be some ramifications for that if true.
But not disclosing the core passwords at that meeting was not an act of defiance or arrogance, although that may have been the basis for the act. Whether wittingly or unwittingly, he was acting precisely in accordance with the policy he was hired to uphold.
I'm not saying he invoked that policy out of a deep sense of honor, it was probably out of a sense of preservation.
That policy is there specifically in many companies to keep managers from doing things that their employees can be blamed for. If Childs had given up the passwords in a meeting to undisclosed recipients, any one of them could have damaged the system, and he could be blamed for it.
My boss and I get along really well. However, if my boss called me in to his office and told me to tell him my password, my answer would be "no". If he wants access to my user profile, he can go through Security and have the password changed, at which point there is a log entry that he requested that it be changed, and I lose access to my profile.
Then, if something is done using my profile, there is a security record that I was not in control of that profile at that time.
I'm not saying Childs acted in exceptionally good faith, but "I don't think you're cleared for that" is a proper response if people who are not cleared for that are present, or if strangers are listening in and you don't even know who they are.
Slashdot Mirror
Except you could probably just pour urea crystals into a cesspool and get largely the same effect, without the expense of the bags.
A single bag is 2-3 cents. Assuming you only use it for feces, you're going to use at least one of these a day. A village of 100 people is going to go through $3 a day in these, and on that kind of money you could feed six of them.
I'm not saying this is a bad idea, only that it appears to be an overengineered one.
Right, so you and 9,999,999 other people will go to the local camping store and ask for water purification tablets, and they'll run out with 9,999,000 people left.
The underlined letters unscramble to "NA0A HATE NET DRM", which would be phonetically pronounced as "Now I hate net DRM".
One possibility, anyway.
a goal he maintains with an elaborate daily ritual that rejuvenates his body and triggers his creative process
He should apply for a process patent on that ritual.
Umm, did you look at the pictures of this new "tablet/netbook"? Always Innovating has a nice-looking detachable screen, agreed, but the WaveFace is something... completely different.
The screen covers both the top and bottom halves of the clamshell, and it's one continuous flexible screen. If you want to use it as a tablet, you lay it out flat then lift out the keyboard, resulting in a tablet that's more than double the size of Always Innovating's offering (which is, after all, just a netbook you can unplug the screen from).
The WaveFace, on the downside, looks like it'll be incredibly fragile, and there's not as much room for storage, battery, and, well, you know, useful bits. But it is extraordinarily different.
Their other item is a flexible long-narrow screen that is like a stretched-out iPhone, but it can be wrapped around your wrist to use like a watch, or rolled out flat to use like an iPod Touch, or folded in half to use like a phone. Again, looks fragile to the point of silly, but Asus certainly can't be accused of being boring.
IF and when that happens, I'll be on the front lines with you, Brother.
However, this isn't what this group is looking for. If you routinely take 80% or more of entire articles, copy them, and put them on your own web site, you really are profiting from something that isn't yours to profit from.
If, on the other hand, you are routinely taking excerpts from sites, typing up your own thoughts, and posting a link to the articles you are using as source material, there really isn't anything to worry about from this specific group.
I'm not saying that abuses of DMCA copyright takedowns do not happen, or that this consortium represents all that is good and holy and bright. But this movement is UNDERenforcing rights they actually have.
The excessive length and reach of copyright, the draconian silliness of DRM, the constant abuse of DMCA, the erosion of personal backup rights, I'm with you on all of that. We need to shorten copyright back to 20 years or less. We need to reinstitute real fair-use provisions.
This isn't eroding any of that. This is going after the real abusers. The ones that the rest of the IP industry is always citing in their ongoing quest to erode our rights.
I read the article, but I have a very different take on what's going on.
I do not pay Comcast a penny that I expect to be sent along to Disney for ABC, or anyone else for NBC, CBS, FOX, WB, or any of the "broadcast" media. I am not, in fact, paying them for content. The content is freely available to my rooftop antenna should I choose to get it that way.
I am paying them for taking a clear signal from ABC, CBS, NBC, et al and interpreting it into an analog signal that is then sent over miles of expensive coaxial cable and fed into my house. That way, I get a clear signal that always works with my analog gear, rather than depending on my old rooftop antenna and a digital signal conversion box.
If ABC decides that Comcast needs to pay $0.50 for every month I have access to that signal, and NBC and CBS and the others all do it, I'm looking at another $5 tacked on to my cable bill, because Comcast is charging me for maintenance and upkeep of coax cable and a distribution system, and a profit. If their costs go up, so will their prices.
I always have the alternative of rerunning the coax to my rooftop antenna and using a digital conversion box, and get ABC et al for free. I choose not to do that because Comcast makes it more convenient for me to receive ABC, a service which I gladly pay for, and from which Comcast makes a profit.
Comcast is a trucking company, in charge of distribution. They don't owe ABC any more money than they owe Slashdot for creating the Internet content I am now consuming.
Huh?
If they are RSS syndicating their content, that constitutes a legitimate use of their work. The 100% copy is done with the permission of the author. You are allowed to read that all you want.
If YOU are RSS syndicating complete articles that someone else wrote, this is not a legitimate use of their work. You could, however, RSS syndicate 79.9% of each and every one of their articles and put a link to the original article for your readers to read the other 20.1%. Common courtesy would actually dictate that you post a few paragraphs only, then link back to the source for the rest of the article. Credit where credit is due.
Seriously, if you are routinely using complete articles written by someone else, and you aren't compensating them for that use, you are violating copyright.
No one.
He posted the article, cited it as the original article (knowing there was a proper citation link above), and posted less than 80% of it. This is a completely legitimate use of the article as per Attributor's new rules. Two or three more words from the article would have made it an "80% rule" bust, but would still have been OK as long as he didn't make a habit of it. It's repeated use of more than 80% of source article text that Attributor wants to go after.
Most discussion boards already limit direct citation to a paragraph or two, or approximately 20% of the article.
So Attributor's 80% limit is making a clear statement that they are really only interested in pursuing people who make a routine habit of copying entire articles. And if the bulk of your content is coming from copying 100% of someone else's original news articles, you aren't exactly someone I want to waste my righteous indignation defending.
I have to ask.. what kind of small internet publisher do you think would be hurt, and why?
If the article is yours, then you can post 100% of it and claim it as your own. No one disputes this. This coalition is not going after work they don't own, and if they do you have valid grounds to sue them 'till it hurts.
If the article belongs to someone else, and you as a publisher are routinely taking more than 80% of someone else's articles and using them to generate your own revenue, you really need to reconsider your business model.
Unless I'm fundamentally misunderstanding what this new coalition is about to do, I see it as a reasoned and even somewhat generous response to a real problem. We're not talking about Slashdot citations or RSS summaries, because those rarely contain the entire article. We're talking about wholesale copying of entire articles off the sites that paid to have them written.
80% is a reasonable starting point. If they start lowering it, we'll have to express our righteous indignation then. Fair use, when interpreted, is generally considered a LOT lower than routinely cutting-and-pasting 80% of articles, so they have a long way to lower it before we can honestly call our indignation righteous.
Seriously, this really isn't a "slippery slope" situation. It seems to be a well-thought-out and sane set of guidelines. If anything, they are being a bit generous for now, and they can still tighten this quite a bit without coming close to busting "fair use" or even "reasonable use".
Basically they are saying, "if you routinely use 80%+ of our articles as your own content, we're asking you to stop. We won't sue you for any past uses, we just want to make it clear that this isn't cool any more."
A fair usage (not the lack of quotes, I am not talking about a legal doctrine) would be to use about 20% of the source article (properly attributed) with a link back to the original article. Give credit where it's due (and cite your sources). Then add your own thoughts, or don't. But don't take whole-cloth articles and post them on your own site with your own ads.
Every discussion board I've ever participated in has pretty much recommended some really close variant to this anyway. It usually reads something like "cite a paragraph or two at most and have a link to the source article plainly visible nearby".
I love how everyone bashes DRM without thinking of the consequences of not using any. Pirating is far too widespread.
You do realize, I hope, that DRM also doesn't stop piracy, and the only thing DRM offers to the paying customer is envy that the pirates are enjoying a better playing experience than we are.
Pirates blame the developers for using DRM,
Pirates blame no one, they just pirate the game. They laugh at DRM. They break it within days of its release, and do their thing. Their thing is wrong. It is not prevented in any way by DRM.
the quality of the game is reduced for actual customers
Agreed.
yet the pirates are the one to blame.
I'd agree, except for the absolute and utter proof that DRM has no effect on large-scale or even for the most part casual piracy. DRM prevents someone who does not want to break the law from breaking the law, but in general the people who are affected by DRM are the ones who want to pay for what we use. DRM is a sign on the door of a house saying "ON VACATION FOR A MONTH, LOCK BROKEN, PLEASE DON'T ROB ME". The honest people wouldn't have anyway, and the thieves aren't hampered by it.
The only thing DRM prevents is backups by people who have paid for their copies and don't want to break the law, or "home piracy" (someone buys one copy and wants to use it on multiple computers, etc).
Stop trying to spin the argument, pirates.
Simple facts. No spin. I have purchased each and every game I've ever played. I also quickly developed the habit of downloading the pirated version of the game to actually play it, because I've had games fail because my DVD drive was too old or too new (Ubisoft, I'm looking straight at you), or because of conflicting DRM schemes that break each other. I've also been reluctant to take my $50-75 original CDs that may not be backed up to a LAN party where they are subject to damage.
The ONLY reason I used to pay for games is because I feel it's important to compensate the studios for their hard work and efforts. But I pirate copies of them afterward because I want to be able to use what I paid for, and I can't afford to keep swapping DVD drives out because one game doesn't like the presence of one drive, and the other game doesn't like the presence of the only drive the one game will run on, or the installation of a game puts on SecuROM that fucks up my drive for running another DRM scheme, or any one of a number of problems I have run into. I've had to completely reload XP twice (and reactivate that) just to undo the damage done by DRM schemes.
After a while, I just got sick of it. I stopped buying games. I don't pirate them, either. I just don't play any more. It's not fun any more, when something that is intended to entertain requires that I turn pirate or risk the operation of the rest of my computer. I don't even play the $750 in games I have purchased any more.
Yeah, I checked it out. Kinda neat, but NoScript seems to duplicate the functionality. Ghostery does have a list of "known" sites, which is kind of nice.
If Disney/ABC pulls the signal, replace it with a simple message
"ABC gives away this programming for free over the air, but wants to charge us to pass it along to you. Call ABC now at 1-800-whatever and tell them you can't see their ads right now."
Heck, if the pat-ourselves-on-the-back-this-month awards are that big a deal, I'd pull ABC now, to give them time to back down.
The broadcasters make their money on ads. I pay $11 a month to my cable company to get broadcast TV only, but that is basically for wire maintenance so I don't have to put an antenna up on my roof, convert all my gear to digital, throw out my ReplayTV because it lacks a digital tuner, etc. If they darkened ABC (which I'm not on CableVision, but if they pulled this with Crapcast), I'd just stop watching ABC programming.
If ABC gets these fees, then they will be passed on to me, and at that point I want a way to have the channel removed so Crapcast doesn't have to pay the fee so they can't pass it along to me.
Unfortunately, what that means is that someone will have to develop a centralized update system, maintain it, and all of the software development houses that currently roll their own are going to have to learn how to do updates in a common, standardized format and protocol.
In the Linux world, apt and rpm do a bang-up job of this, but that's because it's part and parcel of the operating system, so you either have stuff installed manually by geeks only, or you put up a repository and call it a day.
In the Windows world, Microsoft is the only one who could feasibly accomplish such a task, and I don't see them interested in updating anything but their own software through Microsoft Update anytime soon.
I like it. A lot. One small refinement. If you were worried about familial doucebaggery, you might even remove the specific job title of the person doing it, and fill out the explanation a tad.
"The cause of the problem is the Production Director accessing files on designers' computers instead of copying them to his own. The hard drives on designer computers are not designed to accommodate two users accessing the files at once."
becomes
"This problem occurs when two people need data at the same time on a specific designer workstation. One user is working at the workstation, and another will need to change a file that is located there, so the second user makes the changes remotely. The workstations simply aren't set up to handle that kind of usage, and it slows the workstation down considerably. We could upgrade the workstations at a cost of $X per station. We could also add a central file server where we can all share common project work, but that will cost $X. There is also a free way to reduce the impact of this - simply asking everyone to make local copies of everything they are working on."
Then you haven't blamed the kid for anything, merely pointed out that a practice that occurs within the office is having an impact, and that impact can be mitigated. No one, especially Dad, needs to know that Junior is the only one doing it, so you have given Junior a way to mend his ways without confrontation.
The state of the industry is "broken". I'd argue fundamentally.
We depend on blacklists maintained by people we don't know but want our money to protect us from other people we don't know who want our money. We run crappy software (I'm looking at you, Symantec, but McAfee isn't far from my view) that slows down our computers and occasionally crashes then in an attempt to keep crappy software from slowing down our computers and occasionally crashing them. We freak out when Google knows our home address, then enter our unlisted phone numbers onto online forums.
The major player in the software industry has encouraged piss-poor security practices for so long that we assume those practices are the expected user experience, so as soon as they finally mend their ways people bypass it anyway because they don't know what it all means. When we start telling people that there are bad people out there and they should install locks on their electronic doors, there's a shitstorm about how hard it all is (if you can't replace the locks on your doors, you hire someone to do it for you. Same with computers, find a computer literate buddy and open the creaky old wallet and buy 'em a 6-pack fercrissake, most of us will spend a good chunk of the day with you for nothing more than a 6-pack and heartfelt thanks - a decent denomination gift certificate to a good local restaurant would also be an excellent choice, or a decent bottle of wine, or offer some services from your area of expertise in return).
Windows XP can be made to be secure, but a lot of the software that runs on it doesn't like it that way. Windows Vista or Seven are better choices for that, but you have to learn how they are trying to protect you, and work with them. Linux will protect you by default and makes it harder for you to mess it up. Linux can be complicated, but generally only during installation. Once there, it is as as easy to use as Windows. It's a tad different, expect to spend about a day getting used to where things are. You'll have many of the same problems when you go from XP to Seven, though, and Linux is free. There are hordes of people around you that will gladly install it for you or help you out. If you spend most of your time doing email and the web, chances are you won't even notice the difference. It's not for everyone, of course. But you may not need to buy new hardware or spend any money at all to make that crusty trusty old Windows XP machine run faster. In some cases, a LOT faster. So you might save some serious money while you're at it.
You can't run all of your Windows software on Linux (though a lot can run just fine), and if you're a gamer forget it and stick with Windows. However, if you need Windows, at least let someone have a look at it and install a few of the FREE tools that can help protect you.
Firefox is slightly different from IE, but you will hardly notice. Figure a 15-30 minute learning curve. And it does some pretty cool stuff. Windows or Linux, it's just a good idea.
NoScript requires that you intervene whenever you feel you can trust a web site and give that site permission to run stuff. It's a pain, sure, but so is putting on your seatbelt or checking your brakes from time to time. After about a week, it becomes a habit, and all the sites you frequent are whitelisted anyway. "Hey, this site doesn't look right, did any scripts get blocked - and is getting the site to look perfect worth the risk of unblocking them?"
Too many of us have been too complacent about security for too long. The computer is an appliance, but we also keep really important data on it and other people want that data, and we need to start acting accordingly.
What are these "flash ads" of which you speak?
Oh, yeah, "Flashblock". That must be those little grey boxes that I have to click on to play them, unless NoScript or AdBlock ate them first.
Occasionally, I see coworkers surfing the web on IE (we are company-bound to IE6, by the way). I look at their screens with all the boppity and the poppity and the flashity and I just wonder, how in THE HELL can they absorb any information at the web sites they are at with all those things sliding all over the place and everything moving and yelling LOOK AT ME!
The only way I like my popovers is for breakfast, with ice cream like the food Gods intended. Popunders sounds like something you do while sitting on the toilet that requires a courtesy flush.
By and large, patches are a good thing, unless and until they prevent you from getting work done on the machine. Then they become a pain.
I was constantly frustrated and annoyed by the simple fact that Windows lacks a centralized update system that is open for everyone to use. It's got automated updating, sure, but it's a series of individual solutions per vendor and everyone solves the problem in different ways. And either there's an always-running app in the background (of which I had 15-20 at any given time, which gobbles up memory and occasionally CPU), or the software checks for updates when I start it up (the very least convenient time I want to update a bit of software is WHEN I'M STARTING IT - I opened Acroreader because I wanted to read a file, and now is not a good time to ask me if I want to wait ten minutes while my hard drive whirs getting the new shiny version installed. PS: As soon as I'm done reading the document, I'm going to shut down Acroread and not think about the update any more until you ask me at the least convenient time again, and I'll ignore it. Again).
Then, of course, there's Patch Tuesday. You never quite know what fresh hell awaits on Patch Tuesday, but it almost always includes a reboot.
Truly, I have been outdone (tips hat). Well done, maestro.
Google: Bring out yer dead.
[IE8 puts IE6 on the cart]
IE8: Here's one.
Google: That'll be ninepence.
IE6: I'm not dead.
Google: What?
IE8: Nothing. There's your ninepence.
IE6: I'm not dead.
Google: 'Ere, he says he's not dead.
IE8: Yes he is.
IE6: I'm not.
Google: He isn't.
IE8: Well, he will be soon, he's very ill.
IE6: I'm getting better.
IE8: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment.
Google: Well, I can't take him like that. It's against regulations.
IE6: I don't want to go on the cart.
IE8: Oh, don't be such a baby.
Google: I can't take him.
IE6: I feel fine.
IE8: Oh, do me a favor.
Google: I can't.
IE8: Well, can you hang around for a couple of minutes? He won't be long.
Google: I promised I'd be at the Torvalds'. They've lost nine today.
IE8: Well, when's your next round?
Google: Thursday.
IE6: I think I'll go watching some YouTube videos.
IE8: You're not fooling anyone, you know. [turns to Google]Isn't there anything you could do?
IE6: I feel happy. I feel happy.
[Google glances up and down the street furtively, then silences IE6 with his a whack of his club]
IE8: Ah, thank you very much.
Google: Not at all. See you on Thursday.
IE8: Right.
I did acknowledge that Childs may (or may not, we don't know) have been in violation of the "keep system passwords in the centralized database" rule, and there should certainly be ramifications for that.
I would argue that two years in jail on five million dollars' bail might be a wee bit excessive for that violation.
But, I'm sorry, there are valid reasons to keep important passwords within a relatively small circle of trusted employees. If my company CIO walked me into an office with a bunch of people and asked me to disclose a vital core system password, I would at least respectfully request that he turn off the speakerphone so I knew who I was disclosing the password to.
If the request for the password was made in a surprise meeting with people VERY high up in the organization where I received the somewhat surprising news that I was about to be transferred to another division, the surprise and stress of that situation might possibly set off an adrenal response that might make my request sound, shall we say, "somewhat terse".
And I like to think I have pretty good social skills.
If they wanted Mr. Childs to disclose the passwords, why drag him into a room as a total surprise with a number of people high up in the food chain, start a speakerphone call, then tell him he was about to be shat upon?
They literally couldn't have orchestrated a better way to get a negative response out of someone, except maybe by torturing family members.
Sure, the resulting synthesized voice has to be sent as an MMS message, though, due to delays in speech recognition. Oh, wait...
So you had a fleeting thought of arming robots with weapons and letting the kinds of people who cheat at Counterstrike control those weapons? I think the neighborhood cats would probably be safe, except there would be no one around to feed them and they'd go all feral and eat the bodies of their owners.
When the COO, your direct boss, and a rep from Human Resources are there
Right in the middle of the "don't" list in the City's policy (which is freely available on the web) was "DO NOT DISCLOSE PASSWORDS TO YOUR BOSS".
So, right there, he cannot disclose it and uphold the policy that he was told to uphold.
According to 4 articles I've read on the subject, he was invited to this "surprise" meeting and there was an active speakerphone with people on the other end.
Right at the top of the "don't" list was "DO NOT DISCLOSE PASSWORDS OVER THE TELEPHONE"
Again, we have a case where he could not disclose the passwords without violating policy.
I agree that he was probably in violation of the "keep your passwords in the global database" policy, and there should certainly be some ramifications for that if true.
But not disclosing the core passwords at that meeting was not an act of defiance or arrogance, although that may have been the basis for the act. Whether wittingly or unwittingly, he was acting precisely in accordance with the policy he was hired to uphold.
I'm not saying he invoked that policy out of a deep sense of honor, it was probably out of a sense of preservation.
That policy is there specifically in many companies to keep managers from doing things that their employees can be blamed for. If Childs had given up the passwords in a meeting to undisclosed recipients, any one of them could have damaged the system, and he could be blamed for it.
My boss and I get along really well. However, if my boss called me in to his office and told me to tell him my password, my answer would be "no". If he wants access to my user profile, he can go through Security and have the password changed, at which point there is a log entry that he requested that it be changed, and I lose access to my profile.
Then, if something is done using my profile, there is a security record that I was not in control of that profile at that time.
I'm not saying Childs acted in exceptionally good faith, but "I don't think you're cleared for that" is a proper response if people who are not cleared for that are present, or if strangers are listening in and you don't even know who they are.