City dwellers don't have any incentive to part with a grand and a half every year for low fi (compressed) sound when the local station does better for free.
$155.40 / year is not a grand and a half. And I can tell you that NYC radio stations do not do anything better than Sirius or XM.
Yes. I agree with you for the most part. It is definitely a good thing. Its not like a jury verdict against them will bar any suits in the future, but it might make them more leery of bringing these half-assed suits. Just the idea that they could lose and give defense attorney's a guide to winning these suits could be enough to dissuade most of their fishing expeditions. Its just that the idea that a jury verdict against them will somehow mean that the RIAA can no longer sue filesharers is ludicrous. And from a legal standpoint, it won't accomplish much.
As for collateral-estoppel, I'm not sure how useful that would be. I guess if they always sued based on the same songs being shared then that would work. But after trial, they could register the songs and then bring suit against people sharing the properly registered titles after the the registration date. It would only help those who are already being sued for sharing the same exact songs prior to the registration date. But if different songs are at issue, collateral estoppel won't prevent them from arguing that they were properly registered.
As for Noerr-Pennington, I know the anti-trust aspects of the case but am not familiar with the exceptions to it, or how the RIAA is trying to use it, so I won't comment on that.
This is wrong. A District Court decision is not binding on any court. No other court is required to follow that ruling. Other court may cite any decision reached by a judge as persuasive, but its not binding. And this only occurs when there is a decision by a judge either via pre-trial rulings or a bench trial.
Juries are only used in Federal District Court. When a jury renders a verdict, there is no decision. Therefore, there is nothing to cite as precedent. On appeal to the Appeals Court for a circuit, that decision is precedent. It is binding only on other district courts in that circuit - all other courts in other circuits are not required to follow that decision. It may be used as persuasive authority outside that circuit, but no court outside the jurisdiction of the appeals court rendering the decision is required to follow it.
Trust me on this - its what I do all day, and often all night long. No one cares what a jury does. It can't be cited. Juries decide facts, not law. Very few courts care what a district court judge says in any decision of law. And unless its 5th, 7th or 2nd Circuit, no other courts will care much about what a Court of Appeals says anyway. Its why things like circuit splits exist.
A district court jury verdict won't set any precedent, let alone a huge one, since it would not be binding on any court anywhere. If the RIAA loses and it is appealed, it could set a precedent for that circuit, but that would be a long way off in any event.
You can always get litigation insurance. And you can get insurance to cover a judgment in a civil case.
However you often can't insure yourself against certain risks. Many states (insurance is regulated by states, not the federal government) prohibit insurance for punitive damages and criminal penalties on public policy grounds, the thought being that you wouldn't care whether your broke the law or not since you wouldn't have to pay for it. In addition, most insurance policies have exclusions for intentional conduct. Otherwise, for instance, a medical company could intentionally dump medical waste wherever they want and have their insurers foot the bill for cleanup and fines.
I should have been clearer when I said you can't insure against stautory fines. If I recall, it depends on the nature of the penalties.
TMLT is not a typical insurance company (and is an excellent idea, since the insureds are the insurers and therefore they have an incentive keep premium rates lower). As for the "dearth" of high risk specialties, those statistics which said that doctors are abandoning high risk specialties as a result of insruance premiums is flat out wrong.
From www.citizen.org:
"The number of ob-gyns per women of child-bearing age in the United States has grown significantly over the past decade. In 1995, there were 54.4 ob-gyns for every 100,000 women ages 15 to 44. By 2000, that number had increased to 56.6. The upward trend continues: In 2004, the ratio reached 59.2 ob-gyns per 100,000 women. The number of ob-gyns has increased even in each of the AMA's designated 'crisis states.' The increase in the number of ob-gyns has even occurred in each of those states the AMA has
labeled as in a 'medical liability crisis.'" I can't find anything at the moment on other high-risk specialties. But there hasn't been enough movement on tort reform to account for this increase.
And typically, part of the problem is the AMA.
"The predictions of a doctor shortage represent an abrupt about-face for the medical profession. For the past quarter-century, the American Medical Association and other industry groups have predicted a glut of doctors and worked to limit the number of new physicians. In 1994, the Journal of the American Medical Association predicted a surplus of 165,000 doctors by 2000."
"It didn't happen," says Harvard University medical professor David Blumenthal, author of a New England Journal of Medicinearticle on the doctor supply. "Physicians aren't driving taxis. In fact, we're all gainfully employed, earning good incomes, and new physicians are getting two, three or four job offers."
You could just as easily argue that people are getting out of high risk specialties because the market is trending towards geriatric care.
But let's keep Doctors in Mercedes and Lexuses and keep insurance company profits are record levels (10th most profitable industry last year for P & C and 12th for life) while people who are genuinely injured get screwed.
You voluntarily send data into a public network. Therefore, a court would likely find (if they haven't already) that you have no reasonable expectation of privacy.
It would be like an organization trying take photos of random people, just because "Well, I bet they will sell some drugs sooner or later - and then we'll have 'em!"... which is also legal as long as those random people have no reasonable expectation of privacy (i.e. in public), unless the amount of interference rises to the level of harassment.
Thats because tort reform is a complete scam, paid for and designed to benefit one industry - the insurance industry. Insurers are not hurt by these suits (insurers can't indemnifiy insured for statutory fines and I don't think they even have a duty to defend the insureds in these suits), so they have no interest in making an issue out of them.
Also, copyright infringement is not a tort. Its a federal staturory civil offense. So there would be no need for tort reform, just action by 269 people in D.C.
The only ones who benefit from tort reform are insurance companies. While it is true that trial lawyers, primarly PI lawyers (who are always portrayed as the "bad guys" by the insurance industry) would be hurt by tort reform the people who are actually injured would be hurt far more than the lawyers.
When the Bankruptcy Chapter 7 and 13 amendments were debated, one of the primary benefits cited by banks and the credit industry was that average American's interest rates would go down. Let me ask you - how much have yours gone down? If the insurance industry is able to limit damages, do you think premiums are going to go down? At least banks were honest enough to advocate in public and not use PACs and hide who was spearheading the intiative.
Insurance companies and corporations have completely f**ked the Workers Comp systems to their benefit throughout the country and are trying to do the same with negligence and products liability.
Sorry for the off-topic rant. (And no, I am not a PI lawyer).
Illegal tying requires tying two products from two seperate markets together. There is nothing preventing Microsoft from using its resources gained from Windows to buy its way into the Games/Console market under US law (EU law is much more strict, though I don't know the answer in that case). Of course, if Microsoft becomes a monopoly in the game console market, this practice could be seen as anticompetitive and a violation of the Sherman Act, but it still wouldn't be tying, as consoles and games are probably not in seperate markets.
There really aren't any antitrust violations going on in the games market, though. Microsoft doesn't lock anyone into developing solely for the Windows platform (as far as I know). If developers choose to release their games only for the platform with the most users, that really isn't Microsoft's fault. You can debate their OS monopoly, but here, they aren't using any anticompetitive measures to dominate the games market. Plus, from my understanding, all "Games for Windows" is is a way of ensuring that games meet specific standards, akin to what Underwriters Laboratory does (though obviously Microsoft has a much bigger interest in the products). While there is a benefit to Microsoft, it would be difficult for the DOJ, if they were so inclined, to find anticompetitive measures with this. The program appears to be completely voluntary, does not preclude anyone from developing for alternate platforms or incur negative consequences from Microsoft if they don't use Games for Windows.
You need to stop with the analogies. Why do you need a false analogy when there is a factual situation right in front of you?
There is no way to reward divisions of Sony. I suppose you can send them a thank you card, but thats about it. Money to a Sony division is money to Sony.
When Sony BMG authorized rootkits, they did it to prevent piracy. Piracy which hurts sales. Money from sales go to Sony.
And as long as you are still in this father-son business, a father doesn't have to pay bail for his son.
Plus you keep ignoring lik-sang. (and while you are at it, Bleem). Those were suits intended to protect Playstation. So even if you want to somehow blame Sony for the rootkit, but not Sony Games/Entertainment, you have to blame the Playstation division for that.
Once I can buy stock in Sony Games or Sony Entertainment without buying stock in Sony, let me know.
Every dollar that goes to SONY Entertainment, SONY Electronics, or SONY Games goes to improve SONY's bottom line. All the money that flows into all the subdivivions of Sony gets distributed based on what the Board decides, not necesarily on who sold the original product.
Arbitrary distinctions which are used solely to divide responsibility for product markets does not mean that Sony Corporate should is not responsible for actions of their divisions. They are not seperate legal entities with a parent-subsidiary relationship. Even if they were, Sony would still be responsible if they were wholly owned and operated by the parent company, which they aren't.
Why don't you check Sony's 8-K or 10-Q and see who paid for the rootkit settlement and who funded the liksang litigation?
There is only one Board of Directors for Sony. There is only one Chariman and CEO of Sony. They are responsible for every last employee from both the Games and Entertainment divisions. The responsibility is with them, whether or not they approved the actions or not.
The question isn't whether Apple has a monopoly in the cellphone market. The question is whether Apple is leveraging a hypothetical monopoly in the MP3 player market in order to enter and dominate the cellphone market. Apple's cellphone marketshare is meaningless for purposes of tying.
Actually, legal scholar, its not the Slashdot Court of Public Opinion. Its the Supreme Court and the Sherman Act.
"The offense of monopoly power under 2 of the Sherman Act has two elements: (1) the possession of monopoly power in the relevant market and (2) the willful acquisition or maintenance of that power as distinguished from growth or development as a consequence of a superior product, business acumen, or historic accident." United States v. Grinnell Corp., 384 U.S. 563, 570-71 (1966).
Even if Apple does have a monopoly, which is debatable given how they obtained the market (without anticompetitve measures in the mp3 player market) and the amount of competition in it from MAJOR players (Microsoft, Creative, Sony etc.), they are probably not doing illegal tying here. In order to engage in illegal tying, you need to have a monopoly in a defined market and tie an unrelated product to the dominant product in that market. Proving that here would be extremely difficult. The iPod sans phone is still available and the phones come in 4GB and 8GB versions, hardly enough to be the equivalent of a regular ipod, zune or other ipod. Its *possible* that if the relevant market was somehw defined as Flash based mp3 players, monopoly power could be found, but its unlikely to be defined so narrowly.
Of course it isn't. What book is? But it is written by the producer of Edward R. Murrow (Fred Friendly, played by George Clooney in Good Night and Good Luck) who went on to be a first amendment scholar, played a key role in creating PBS, and is still a Columbia journalism professor.
In fact, a central theme of the book is how both Democrats and Republicans abused the Fairness Doctrine to their own advantage many, many times. They have both had organizations similar to the PTC - where 99% of Fairness complaints came from one organization (Democrat or Republican, depending on who controlled the White House).
So... the XBox360 starts launching new services that need a hard-drive, leaving the "core" system, without a Hard-Drive out in the cold
They saved their hundred bucks. They can't start bitching about it now. Would you say "I bought a BMW X3 but the X5 has better features. I don't care that I saved money by buying the X3, BWM is screwing me"?
The PS3 with a 20GB or 60GB HD (and a User Replaceable one at that), certainly seems like a better choice.
Except that core purchasers bought the core system to save money. I don't see how paying $100-$200 more is better for core users - those who want to save money. Of course, in general, the 60GB/upgradeable drive is a much better option, though I'd take the hundreds of Xbox 360 games over an extra 40GBs.
Heck, even XBLA upping the limit to 250GB seems like a response to the PlayStationNetwork unleashing 500-600MB demos. and 150MB download games.
Castelvania wouldn't fit within their arbitrary limit. Its more of a response to that than to Sony. And the 50MB limit has never applied to demos. All the demos are at least 300MB.
I know lots of people on Slashdot seem to love bashing Sony (and the PS3), but it certainly seems like MicroSoft's XBox360 is reacting a heck of a lot to what the PS3 [can do/is doing].
How exactly?
Anyone interested in the results of the Fairness Doctrine from the first time around should check this book out. It was a bad idea then and a bad idea now.
So true. After a year Xbox 360 just gets crap like Gears of War, Lost Planet and Forza 2. And the PS2. Geez. After all the MGS and FF games and their sequels were launched within the first year of release, nothing decent was ever produced.
I think the reason being is that the Xbox and Playstation really aren't that impressive. Sure the graphics are upgraded, but that's about it. Same games all over again.
That isn't why. Upgraded graphics have driven the entire console industry for twenty years. Look at the 2600 or NES. Are modern consoles that different? Controllers, TV, cartridges. Xbox/Xbox 360 added online multiplayer its been around in a less robust form since at least the Dreamcast. The MAJOR difference between 1980s consoles and 2000s consoles are the graphics. Thats why people get new consoles. When graphics become photorealistic and upgrades don't add anything to the visual experience, you can look to something other than graphics as driving sales. I don't think that merely upgrading graphics are the problem.
The Wiimote does add something new. Its not for me, but I can understand how people who don't want to figure out controller combinations would enjoy it, or those who just want something different and fun.
Plus, it seems that Nintendo focuses their games around stories and concepts, rather than just flashy graphics the Xbox and Playstation duke it out over.
Historically, thats not what sells consoles. If that were the case, Nintendo's focus on stories and concepts would have been reflected in sales of the N64 or Gamecube, both of which were crushed by consoles with arguably better looking games.
Yes, but the summary implies that you can no longer recycle a backup tapes, when that is not the case. You can recycle tapes unless there is a reasonable anticipation of litigation or statutory requirements that define the length of time data must be retained.
Businesses aren't required to keep all data indefinately.
Slashdot Mirror
Any first year law student could also tell you Rule 11 isn't going to apply in a state court action.
City dwellers don't have any incentive to part with a grand and a half every year for low fi (compressed) sound when the local station does better for free. $155.40 / year is not a grand and a half. And I can tell you that NYC radio stations do not do anything better than Sirius or XM.
Yes. I agree with you for the most part. It is definitely a good thing. Its not like a jury verdict against them will bar any suits in the future, but it might make them more leery of bringing these half-assed suits. Just the idea that they could lose and give defense attorney's a guide to winning these suits could be enough to dissuade most of their fishing expeditions. Its just that the idea that a jury verdict against them will somehow mean that the RIAA can no longer sue filesharers is ludicrous. And from a legal standpoint, it won't accomplish much.
As for collateral-estoppel, I'm not sure how useful that would be. I guess if they always sued based on the same songs being shared then that would work. But after trial, they could register the songs and then bring suit against people sharing the properly registered titles after the the registration date. It would only help those who are already being sued for sharing the same exact songs prior to the registration date. But if different songs are at issue, collateral estoppel won't prevent them from arguing that they were properly registered.
As for Noerr-Pennington, I know the anti-trust aspects of the case but am not familiar with the exceptions to it, or how the RIAA is trying to use it, so I won't comment on that.
This is wrong. A District Court decision is not binding on any court. No other court is required to follow that ruling. Other court may cite any decision reached by a judge as persuasive, but its not binding. And this only occurs when there is a decision by a judge either via pre-trial rulings or a bench trial.
Juries are only used in Federal District Court. When a jury renders a verdict, there is no decision. Therefore, there is nothing to cite as precedent. On appeal to the Appeals Court for a circuit, that decision is precedent. It is binding only on other district courts in that circuit - all other courts in other circuits are not required to follow that decision. It may be used as persuasive authority outside that circuit, but no court outside the jurisdiction of the appeals court rendering the decision is required to follow it.
Trust me on this - its what I do all day, and often all night long. No one cares what a jury does. It can't be cited. Juries decide facts, not law. Very few courts care what a district court judge says in any decision of law. And unless its 5th, 7th or 2nd Circuit, no other courts will care much about what a Court of Appeals says anyway. Its why things like circuit splits exist.
A district court jury verdict won't set any precedent, let alone a huge one, since it would not be binding on any court anywhere. If the RIAA loses and it is appealed, it could set a precedent for that circuit, but that would be a long way off in any event.
You can always get litigation insurance. And you can get insurance to cover a judgment in a civil case.
However you often can't insure yourself against certain risks. Many states (insurance is regulated by states, not the federal government) prohibit insurance for punitive damages and criminal penalties on public policy grounds, the thought being that you wouldn't care whether your broke the law or not since you wouldn't have to pay for it. In addition, most insurance policies have exclusions for intentional conduct. Otherwise, for instance, a medical company could intentionally dump medical waste wherever they want and have their insurers foot the bill for cleanup and fines.
I should have been clearer when I said you can't insure against stautory fines. If I recall, it depends on the nature of the penalties.
TMLT is not a typical insurance company (and is an excellent idea, since the insureds are the insurers and therefore they have an incentive keep premium rates lower). As for the "dearth" of high risk specialties, those statistics which said that doctors are abandoning high risk specialties as a result of insruance premiums is flat out wrong.
From www.citizen.org:
"The number of ob-gyns per women of child-bearing age in the United States has grown significantly over the past decade. In 1995, there were 54.4 ob-gyns for every 100,000 women ages 15 to 44. By 2000, that number had increased to 56.6. The upward trend continues: In 2004, the ratio reached 59.2 ob-gyns per 100,000 women. The number of ob-gyns has increased even in each of the AMA's designated 'crisis states.' The increase in the number of ob-gyns has even occurred in each of those states the AMA has labeled as in a 'medical liability crisis.'" I can't find anything at the moment on other high-risk specialties. But there hasn't been enough movement on tort reform to account for this increase.
And typically, part of the problem is the AMA.
"The predictions of a doctor shortage represent an abrupt about-face for the medical profession. For the past quarter-century, the American Medical Association and other industry groups have predicted a glut of doctors and worked to limit the number of new physicians. In 1994, the Journal of the American Medical Association predicted a surplus of 165,000 doctors by 2000."
"It didn't happen," says Harvard University medical professor David Blumenthal, author of a New England Journal of Medicinearticle on the doctor supply. "Physicians aren't driving taxis. In fact, we're all gainfully employed, earning good incomes, and new physicians are getting two, three or four job offers."
You could just as easily argue that people are getting out of high risk specialties because the market is trending towards geriatric care.
But let's keep Doctors in Mercedes and Lexuses and keep insurance company profits are record levels (10th most profitable industry last year for P & C and 12th for life) while people who are genuinely injured get screwed.
You voluntarily send data into a public network. Therefore, a court would likely find (if they haven't already) that you have no reasonable expectation of privacy.
... which is also legal as long as those random people have no reasonable expectation of privacy (i.e. in public), unless the amount of interference rises to the level of harassment.
It would be like an organization trying take photos of random people, just because "Well, I bet they will sell some drugs sooner or later - and then we'll have 'em!"
Thats because tort reform is a complete scam, paid for and designed to benefit one industry - the insurance industry. Insurers are not hurt by these suits (insurers can't indemnifiy insured for statutory fines and I don't think they even have a duty to defend the insureds in these suits), so they have no interest in making an issue out of them.
Also, copyright infringement is not a tort. Its a federal staturory civil offense. So there would be no need for tort reform, just action by 269 people in D.C.
The only ones who benefit from tort reform are insurance companies. While it is true that trial lawyers, primarly PI lawyers (who are always portrayed as the "bad guys" by the insurance industry) would be hurt by tort reform the people who are actually injured would be hurt far more than the lawyers.
When the Bankruptcy Chapter 7 and 13 amendments were debated, one of the primary benefits cited by banks and the credit industry was that average American's interest rates would go down. Let me ask you - how much have yours gone down? If the insurance industry is able to limit damages, do you think premiums are going to go down? At least banks were honest enough to advocate in public and not use PACs and hide who was spearheading the intiative.
Insurance companies and corporations have completely f**ked the Workers Comp systems to their benefit throughout the country and are trying to do the same with negligence and products liability.
Sorry for the off-topic rant. (And no, I am not a PI lawyer).
Its legal.
Illegal tying requires tying two products from two seperate markets together. There is nothing preventing Microsoft from using its resources gained from Windows to buy its way into the Games/Console market under US law (EU law is much more strict, though I don't know the answer in that case). Of course, if Microsoft becomes a monopoly in the game console market, this practice could be seen as anticompetitive and a violation of the Sherman Act, but it still wouldn't be tying, as consoles and games are probably not in seperate markets.
There really aren't any antitrust violations going on in the games market, though. Microsoft doesn't lock anyone into developing solely for the Windows platform (as far as I know). If developers choose to release their games only for the platform with the most users, that really isn't Microsoft's fault. You can debate their OS monopoly, but here, they aren't using any anticompetitive measures to dominate the games market. Plus, from my understanding, all "Games for Windows" is is a way of ensuring that games meet specific standards, akin to what Underwriters Laboratory does (though obviously Microsoft has a much bigger interest in the products). While there is a benefit to Microsoft, it would be difficult for the DOJ, if they were so inclined, to find anticompetitive measures with this. The program appears to be completely voluntary, does not preclude anyone from developing for alternate platforms or incur negative consequences from Microsoft if they don't use Games for Windows.
You need to stop with the analogies. Why do you need a false analogy when there is a factual situation right in front of you?
There is no way to reward divisions of Sony. I suppose you can send them a thank you card, but thats about it. Money to a Sony division is money to Sony.
When Sony BMG authorized rootkits, they did it to prevent piracy. Piracy which hurts sales. Money from sales go to Sony.
And as long as you are still in this father-son business, a father doesn't have to pay bail for his son.
Plus you keep ignoring lik-sang. (and while you are at it, Bleem). Those were suits intended to protect Playstation. So even if you want to somehow blame Sony for the rootkit, but not Sony Games/Entertainment, you have to blame the Playstation division for that.
Once I can buy stock in Sony Games or Sony Entertainment without buying stock in Sony, let me know.
Every dollar that goes to SONY Entertainment, SONY Electronics, or SONY Games goes to improve SONY's bottom line. All the money that flows into all the subdivivions of Sony gets distributed based on what the Board decides, not necesarily on who sold the original product.
Arbitrary distinctions which are used solely to divide responsibility for product markets does not mean that Sony Corporate should is not responsible for actions of their divisions. They are not seperate legal entities with a parent-subsidiary relationship. Even if they were, Sony would still be responsible if they were wholly owned and operated by the parent company, which they aren't.
Why don't you check Sony's 8-K or 10-Q and see who paid for the rootkit settlement and who funded the liksang litigation?
There is only one Board of Directors for Sony. There is only one Chariman and CEO of Sony. They are responsible for every last employee from both the Games and Entertainment divisions. The responsibility is with them, whether or not they approved the actions or not.
Your friend finds he needs to "kill" 16 hours / week? That is beyond sad.
The question isn't whether Apple has a monopoly in the cellphone market. The question is whether Apple is leveraging a hypothetical monopoly in the MP3 player market in order to enter and dominate the cellphone market. Apple's cellphone marketshare is meaningless for purposes of tying.
Actually, legal scholar, its not the Slashdot Court of Public Opinion. Its the Supreme Court and the Sherman Act.
"The offense of monopoly power under 2 of the Sherman Act has two elements: (1) the possession of monopoly power in the relevant market and (2) the willful acquisition or maintenance of that power as distinguished from growth or development as a consequence of a superior product, business acumen, or historic accident." United States v. Grinnell Corp., 384 U.S. 563, 570-71 (1966).
Even if Apple does have a monopoly, which is debatable given how they obtained the market (without anticompetitve measures in the mp3 player market) and the amount of competition in it from MAJOR players (Microsoft, Creative, Sony etc.), they are probably not doing illegal tying here. In order to engage in illegal tying, you need to have a monopoly in a defined market and tie an unrelated product to the dominant product in that market. Proving that here would be extremely difficult. The iPod sans phone is still available and the phones come in 4GB and 8GB versions, hardly enough to be the equivalent of a regular ipod, zune or other ipod. Its *possible* that if the relevant market was somehw defined as Flash based mp3 players, monopoly power could be found, but its unlikely to be defined so narrowly.
Of course it isn't. What book is? But it is written by the producer of Edward R. Murrow (Fred Friendly, played by George Clooney in Good Night and Good Luck) who went on to be a first amendment scholar, played a key role in creating PBS, and is still a Columbia journalism professor.
In fact, a central theme of the book is how both Democrats and Republicans abused the Fairness Doctrine to their own advantage many, many times. They have both had organizations similar to the PTC - where 99% of Fairness complaints came from one organization (Democrat or Republican, depending on who controlled the White House).
So ... the XBox360 starts launching new services that need a hard-drive, leaving the "core" system, without a Hard-Drive out in the cold
They saved their hundred bucks. They can't start bitching about it now. Would you say "I bought a BMW X3 but the X5 has better features. I don't care that I saved money by buying the X3, BWM is screwing me"?
The PS3 with a 20GB or 60GB HD (and a User Replaceable one at that), certainly seems like a better choice.
Except that core purchasers bought the core system to save money. I don't see how paying $100-$200 more is better for core users - those who want to save money. Of course, in general, the 60GB/upgradeable drive is a much better option, though I'd take the hundreds of Xbox 360 games over an extra 40GBs.
Heck, even XBLA upping the limit to 250GB seems like a response to the PlayStationNetwork unleashing 500-600MB demos. and 150MB download games.
Castelvania wouldn't fit within their arbitrary limit. Its more of a response to that than to Sony. And the 50MB limit has never applied to demos. All the demos are at least 300MB.
I know lots of people on Slashdot seem to love bashing Sony (and the PS3), but it certainly seems like MicroSoft's XBox360 is reacting a heck of a lot to what the PS3 [can do/is doing].
How exactly?
Anyone interested in the results of the Fairness Doctrine from the first time around should check this book out. It was a bad idea then and a bad idea now.
Really? Because Call of Duty 3 is the best one on any Xbox/360 platform. The single player game is old hat, but it is excellent on XBL.
Of course nothing beats the original Day of Defeat mod for online WWII combat.
So true. After a year Xbox 360 just gets crap like Gears of War, Lost Planet and Forza 2. And the PS2. Geez. After all the MGS and FF games and their sequels were launched within the first year of release, nothing decent was ever produced.
I think the reason being is that the Xbox and Playstation really aren't that impressive. Sure the graphics are upgraded, but that's about it. Same games all over again.
That isn't why. Upgraded graphics have driven the entire console industry for twenty years. Look at the 2600 or NES. Are modern consoles that different? Controllers, TV, cartridges. Xbox/Xbox 360 added online multiplayer its been around in a less robust form since at least the Dreamcast. The MAJOR difference between 1980s consoles and 2000s consoles are the graphics. Thats why people get new consoles. When graphics become photorealistic and upgrades don't add anything to the visual experience, you can look to something other than graphics as driving sales. I don't think that merely upgrading graphics are the problem.
The Wiimote does add something new. Its not for me, but I can understand how people who don't want to figure out controller combinations would enjoy it, or those who just want something different and fun.
Plus, it seems that Nintendo focuses their games around stories and concepts, rather than just flashy graphics the Xbox and Playstation duke it out over.
Historically, thats not what sells consoles. If that were the case, Nintendo's focus on stories and concepts would have been reflected in sales of the N64 or Gamecube, both of which were crushed by consoles with arguably better looking games.
Yes, but the summary implies that you can no longer recycle a backup tapes, when that is not the case. You can recycle tapes unless there is a reasonable anticipation of litigation or statutory requirements that define the length of time data must be retained.
Businesses aren't required to keep all data indefinately.