Fair points, but short of technological innovations, they will never get the public to comply on these points. I guess there's just no real compromise for the content producers (since shortening copyright terms just means reducing their power without really getting anything in return.
And any new system is subject to retroactive foolishness. Even copylefted works could be retroactively made copyrighted if someone paid the government enough money.
Thanks for clearing all of that up. Sounds like a great system now, but sadly, probably something we will never see in practice.
As to the assassination bit, yes, right now a copyright term (in the US) is dependant upon the lift of the author, but the copyright remains with his estate for something ridiculous like 40 years (or is it longer?) after his death. This makes it far less useful to assassinate a person just to get his works dumped into the public domain.
But even if we ignore that, you can be sure that _someone_ will take the pictures (landowners, tourism industry, scouts, heck, I'd pay to map my hometown if it were a gray blob on a global map), and that as long as the information is shared, it becomes only a problem of aggregation (something that opensource has proven is most eminently possible).
If the cost is high enough, you can't be assured of this. That's the point. So pretend it costs more, and boom--valuable data that will never be acquired by anyone because of the cost involved.
Some of the best suggestions I've seen are directed levies/benefits; for example for books, free up reproduction so anyone could reproduce them (with the caveat that they have to register the number of copies of the work they reproduce). Put a direct tax of, say, 50% of sales price on any sales (and/or advertizing derived revenue) of such works. Pay the derived revenues to the authors (possibly with a max payout per work over a period, to allow maximizing the number of authors able to make a living off writing, while encouraging continued writing). With competition restored in the reproduction and distribution sectors we'd get cheaper books, _and_ more money to the authors, _and_ more innovative forms (on-demand printing of _any_ book you want, any desireable format, etc).
This certainly changes the distribution model, effectively eliminating the middleman (the people the MPAA, BSA, and RIAA represent). But this only deals with issues where the information is sold. What about the current majority of current copyright infringements where the information is freely given away?
The monopoly right gives you no guarantee of money back for your invested time
Of course not. Nothing short of government-funded innovation will ever guarantee money back for your invested time. But at least if your product is worth a damn, you can rest assured that if you didn't make any money off of it, it was probably your failure to promote the product.
Largely, legal reductions in fair use. Right now, a large part of the 'test' for fair use is whether or not the copying is commercial in nature. Most personal copying (i.e. making a copy of a CD to keep at work while keeping the original at home) is thought to be fair use, though I'm not sure that it's ever been tested in court. Of course, these restrictions are largely ceremonial, as these types of controls are not currently enforceable. But I'd give up my [assumed] right to copy my CDs if, 10 years later, the CD fell into the public domain and I could copy it with wild abandon.
Mind you, I'm coming from a US-centric perspective, so in other countries, it may be that restrictions should be lessened to be what I would consider 'reasonable'.
I think those are great ideas, except number 5. I really don't see a good reason to limit the price that the work can be sold for, particularly a copylefted work (where the market truly will decide whether that price is reasonable). I'm also not wild about copylefted works being copyleft for the life of the author (honestly, that could just make someone a target for assassination--I know it sounds crazy, but it's true.)
"I'd be really ecstatic if there were stricter controls even than we have now--as long as the length of copyright was reduced drastically and keys were escrowed with the government and released at the end of the copyright term."
Well, I would say that you are not thinking straight or that the punishments in your country are no where near as bad as they are in mine. How does 4 or 5 years in a reputedly very nasty jail for each non-genuine CD or DVD in your posession sound? (By that I mean even ones that you may have purchesed in good faith and been ripped off in the purchase because you were sold a bogus disk.)
Well, I said stricter controls, not stricter punishments, but yes, here in America, pretty much only big-time, commercial violators are imprisoned. Otherwise, it's all handled in civil courts.
I've long argued that this is entirely unreasonable and what's most broken about the legal system when it comes to IP law. It's not how the world works today but I believe that there should be control over the profits/fruits of the IP created but not of the IP itself. The entire IP system is meant to guarantee innovation isn't stiffled. Instead companies focus on guaranteeing their profits even if that means killing off innovation.
It's hard to say. Certainly there would be more innovation if anyone was allowed to use the data of these images willy-nilly, but would the images themselves ever have existed?
Say I want to map out my hometown using aerial geography. That's a fairly large undertaking, requiring a plane, probably multiple camera, and almost certainly multiple passes over the area. If I'm expected pay for the costs of acquiring those photos, but I can't expect to even break even (because someone can take my data and release it for free), then I have less incentive to spend the money required to acquire the data. We don't get innovation on the use of this data until such time as the data is acquired, and that can be a costly venture.
In the case of books, it's even darker. The only material value a fiction book has is in the paper it's printed on (or the cost of bandwidth, if I release it online). Other than that, any initial investment comes strictly at an opportunity cost (my time). The entire value of the book is wrapped up in its IP, because copies have a trivial cost (compare to 200 years ago, when printing books had a significant cost). To me, this means that intellectual property laws are even more important today, though they should be significantly reduced in temporal length. The ease of duplication means that there is virtually no replication cost, and very little distribution costs (given electronic sales). Any sale can be virtually pure profit, meaning the time to make up the opportunity cost of creating the work is reduced.
For movies and music which typically have an up front, material cost, things change a bit, but still largely hold true. I'd guess (pulling the number out of my--well, you know) that 90% of the money that a film will earn is generated within the first 10 years, certainly within the first 20. Before duplication and distribution were so easy, a lot of the earnings would be eaten up in materials. Without those costs, again, it's much easier to make up the initial investment and turn a nice profit in a shorter period of time.
I'd be really ecstatic if there were stricter controls even than we have now--as long as the length of copyright was reduced drastically and keys were escrowed with the government and released at the end of the copyright term.
Worse, it will probably work fine for the first year, even if it's against the license. Then in a year they'll release an update which breaks virtualization in Home, forcing everyone who bought it to run in virtualization to either upgrade to Ultimate or stop using Windows in Parallels. Or run an unpatched version.
It will be a while before FM disappears entirely, their first priority is getting analogue TV off the air. Why is it the government is forcing this? I don't know, it should be up to the market to decide.
Actually, that's a really interesting question. We have similar regulations going in place here in the US, although they've pushed back the deadlines time and time again. I can't fathom what stake the government has in this.
Except that some people try to claim that DeCSS (the tool) is illegal to create, distribute, or possess. So does this new ruling mean that DeCSS is legal for a professor to create (if he only uses it within the domain described here), possess (with similar restrictions) and possibly even distribute (to other professors for the same purposes)? Or does it mean that the tool itself is legal (as it should be) the the use thereof is not, with the professor exception? Given that the people in the world capable of creating a tool like DeCSS are extremely slim, it seems that if my former proposition is true, then this ruling is pretty much worthless.
The problem all along with the DMCA has been the exercise of fair use. I should be able to back up my DVDs, but I can't because I can't get my hands on the tools to do so--they are (allegedly) illegal.
Note: I am not a lawyer, and the below is not legal advice. All that said, the fact is, tools like DeCSS are legal under the DMCA, due to an oft-neglected clause in sec. 1201 (the section which would otherwise make the tool illegal): `(c) OTHER RIGHTS, ETC., NOT AFFECTED- (1) Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title.
In other words, nothing in this section affects my fair use rights. That includes tools whose primary purpose is breaking copyright protection (since my fair use rights allow me to do so in certain circumstances). So what it boils down to is that the LoC ruling is worthless except as PR.
Well, I've seen people on the right just whip out terms like bias without further explanation all the time. Honestly, what does saying something has a "liberal slant" add to the argument? It's really used as just a bad word to call someone or something disguised as an argument.
Why don't you understand this? My argument was that the statement was biased! I shouldn't have thrown in my opinions on the cop at all, I guess, because you can't seem to differentiate the two.
I went off-topic and complained about a biased summary of the video. I then mentioned what I thought of the video because, hey, I thought the discussion might be interesting.
If the facts are in error, point them out.
I honestly can't figure out if you're trolling me or not. I did point out the errors. I gave an almost sentence-by-sentence description of the video that showed far and away that the OP's summary was abbreviated to the point of (in my opinion) bias! That was the point of my post, though I unfortunately had other bits in there which seemed to confuse the issue.
So again, I explained why I thought it was biased (more than Fox News does), and I cited the facts upon which I based that opinion (unlike Fox News does). I guess my crime here was using the word "liberal" which is apparently seen as a bad word or an ad hominim attack, though I think it is descriptive of the type of bias that I saw in the post (as opposed to someone claiming that "the officer provided the woman with every opportunity to comply and gosh, was using the taser only as a last resort after hundreds of attempts to get her cooperation"--something I'm not claiming, by the way--which would be a conservative bias in the case of this video).
Guess I shouldn't hold my breath while waiting for an apology for the Fox News comment, even though I think I've shown how different we are. From now on, I'll just try to remember that "liberal" is a bad word.
(That's a joke, by the way. Hope it didn't offend.)
We're obviously going to disagree on most of this, but I have to take issue with the following:
Interesting. So anything that you disagree with is "slant and bias".
No. Hyperbole leads to slant and bias. That "nifty new toy" comment, the "yells and fires" coment... I can accept that we have differing ideas about what should have been done in this situation (and contrary to what you probably think, I would have liked to see the officer use more diplomacy than force, but let's face it, neither of us was in his shoes at the time, seeing what he was seeing, noting her demeanor and physical actions). And you'll note my questioning what the proper use of a taser is, and what other options might have been available to deal with this woman. I'm certainly open to discussion on the issue (which is, in fact, what we're doing).
But I hate when people skew the issue. I hate it when liberals do it, when republicans do it, when I agree with the opinion, and when I disagree with the opinion. I hate it precisely because it is used to sway opinions without looking at the facts--because it tends to appeal to the emotional rather than the logical. For example, I'm in favor of reasonable tracking and limitations on gun ownership. I'm also in favor of restricting certain substances such as cocaine and meth (basically drugs which have been shown to have lasting affects on the brain which can easily lead to violent behavior.) But I can't stand the "think of the children" bullshit because it sways public opinion by appealing to emotion (and biological urges--protecting children) while ignoring the logical.
That's an awfully nice way to defend your opinions against anything that varies with what you believe.
Can you show me where I defneded an opinion using that argument? Honestly, can you? I even stated unequivicolly that the original poster was creating a bias, regardless of the justification of the officer.
Honestly, I can't figure out how "that's biased!" is even a defense. At best it's a way to dismiss a claim, but I actually countered your claims with my own ideas in addition to proclaiming my dislike for bias. I asked for clarifications on taser policy and for opinions on alternate ways to handle the situation. I'm not screaming that you're a fucking idiot or that you're wrong wrong wrong, and I'm not even saying that I disagree without presenting my own ideas as to why and inviting further discussion.
Honestly, I'm really quite offended that I was compared to Fox News in this case, because I was trying to have an actual discussion on the issue, which doesn't seem to be the way they handle things.
The entire point of my post was that the situation as described varied wildly from what I saw in the video. My opinions on the justification aside, the OP did post a biased description. It wasn't, "Yell, zap!" as the OP suggested, it was "Lawful order, lawful order, lawful order, lawful order, lawful order, zap." (I may have missed a few lawful orders--I didn't count while typing this).
That's the bias. That's the slant. Regardless of whether or not the officer was justified, not having a level-head when describing the information creates FUD.
Describe the situation as presented, or be ready to be called out for extreme hyperbole, if not outright falsification.
--- Beyond this point lies my opinions on the subject at hand rather than my expression of annoyance at the incorrect retelling of the events of the video--try not to confuse the two, please--
For the record, I'm more of a moderate than anything. I think the liberals and the conservatives that we see on TV are wacky-crazy. I'm very concerned with civil rights, but in my opinion, that's largely a thing to be sorted out by the courts. That is, a police officer gives you a lawful order, you obey (note the very important word "lawful" there--if this officer had been demanding sexual acts and then tased upon refusal, that would be a completely different matter). If you feel that the officer is wrong in giving that order, you call him on it in court.
Officers are given power for a reason, and I saw no reason for this woman to disobey the direct orders. I saw no extenuating circumstances or reason for the woman to ignore the lawful orders (not that you could see much, but she certainly never said, "Officer, I can't obey because of X reason"). She was talking on the phone, never addressed the officer at all other than to demand that he not touch her and to "explain" that she was making a call. What would you like the officer to do in that situation? Sit there and wait? After a multi-mile long chase and someone acting very strange (let's face it, it's strange to disobey direct orders while relaying those orders to someone on the other end of a phone), I'd be really nervous about what the hell is going on.
--- Now I'll address some points you made --- again, let's try not to confuse the various issues ---
And did she reach for a gun? Any sudden movements? It sounds pretty clear she was on the phone with someone (and probbably distracted by talking on the phone). It's quite obvious the cop decided to taze her because she wasn't following orders, not because he thought she had a weapon, was becoming violent, etc.
Couldn't tell from the video, honestly. She could have reached in a console or under the seat, or behind her for all I could see. I would be curious to know what the police manuals in variou states have to say about the use of a taser, though--last I checked, if she'd been reaching for a weapon or become violent, it would have been quite acceptable for the officer to draw his actual gun and actually shoot her (they're allowed to do that if their life is in danger, you know). So under what circumstances is the taser itself acceptable when a gun is not?
The "get off the phone" "get off the phone" period to actual tazing is about 15 seconds.
After a long chase, from what I understand. And he first tells her to get off the phone and step out of the car right at the beginning of the video. At 15 seconds, he draws his taser (which should have been her clue to maybe get off the phone and start paying attention to the cop). At 21 seconds he threatens to taze her. At 32 seconds, he shoots her.
Now it's pretty petty to talk about a matter of 15 seconds (double your estimate), but he gave her plenty of time, assuming she showed no indication of getting off of the phone and stepping out of the car.
Also, notice how this idiot cop doesn't tell her she's under arrest. He just YELLS at her to get out of the car, then fires.
First he orders her to step out of the vehicle and then to put the phone down. Then he tells her to put the phone down again. Then he opens the door and grabs her, which she resists. She starts screaming. (Note: so far, the officer has not yelled).
The policeman draws his gun and orders her out of the car. At this point, he has raised his voice and might be considered to be 'yelling' (after several lawful attempts to get her to step out of the car). He tells her twice more to get out of the car, and says that he will taze her if she does not comply. Once more (3) he tells her to get out of the car. She refuses, he tazes.
That covers the first 40 seconds of the video. Can you see how that is different from your account? Can you see how you've created a bias in readers who don't go look at the video? This is exactly what radio talk show journalists do, it's exactly what Microsoft does, it's exactly the orwellian doublespeak that people rant about so much on Slashdot, only this time it's got a liberal slant instead of a commercial one. Regardless of the reasonablity of using the taser on this woman (and after resisting several lawful orders while being in a car where weapons can be easily hidden, I'm not sure the initial taze was unjustified), you have created a bias before anyone even clicks your link by implying that the officer didn't even give her a chance to exit the vehicle, or that he only asked her once and waited (who knows how long) before playing with his toy.
Try to look at things objectively, even when they're very emotional. Try to be rational. Knee-jerk reactions are a pretty big problem these days, and it's up to everyone to remain calm and level-headed when examining a situation like this.
It would be nice if they could have trusted that he would just walk out, but if a person is going to pull a gun, they want a little distance between himself and a target. Concealed carry class teaches you that drawing your weapon on someone who is something like 15-20 yards away is highly ineffective as they will be able to rush you before you fully draw, aim, and fire. Escorting a suspect or tresspasser out of the building is completely appropriate simply to ensure the safety of the public in the area and of the officers.
This was a situation with a lot of unknowns. The police get a call that someone refuses to follow a lawful order to leave the premises. They arrive and give a lawful order to leave the premises, then begin to escort him out as is not only legal under the law, but a reasonable practice. The suspect began to get violent (passive resistance is one thing, but shrugging off the police is a physical act towards them). They don't know if he has a gun, bomb, etc. They don't know why this person has refused to leave the building when ordered to multiple times.
Re:How did they get the book out so fast
on
CSS Cookbook
·
· Score: 1
Ditto for Opera9.
I think the issue is that there were substantial, backwards-broken changes to IE7's implementation of CSS. Firefox and Opera were pretty close to correct from the beginning, so web developers don't have to code directly for those versions of those browsers (as much--I'm sure tiny differences exist).
And that's not even considering that IE has a much greater marketshare than the rest of the browsers, meaning any book which is going to talk about web development really has to discuss getting it right in that browser.
As far as the smaller market for the Wii I think that is a little false. Comparing to the number of PS3s being released compared to the potential Wiis plus the fact that everyone is Wii crazy right now I think that the selling of them will be far greater than the PS3.
There will be more PS3s released. The PS2 has pretty good market penetration, and there were shortages at launch there, too. Same with the 360 (there are now over 6million sold, according to CNET). http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.php?tid=11 067 shows that the Gamecube consistently undersold the PS2 and Xbox, despite launching later than those consoles (though the XBox only launched about 4 days earlier in the US). Unless I'm misremembering, the Gamecube wasn't plagued by quite the shortage problems that the PS2 was, and I have no idea about the XBox numbers at launch. Nevertheless, this shows that launch statistics may not correlate to overall success of the platform.
The problem I see is that this generation is unfolding much like the previous one, except that Nintendo has taken steps to significantly differentiate its console from the rest. It could be that this will prove to be a fantastic move, or it could be that it divides the market and causes Nintendo to lose out. Sheer numbers won't tell the tale, though, as I've shown.
You're only talking about launch numbers, though. The Playstation has a huge fanbase of loyal fans and a good number of fairly exclusive and wildly popular franchises (Final Fantasy XIII, Metal Gear Solid 4 are two examples--although there have been FF and MGS games for other systems, the latest sequels have been Sony-only, I believe).
The Wii will probably be quite popular, but if developers can't sell it early, support might die off as fans stop buying crappy games.
"Add the new controls" is part of the problem, though. We saw from the Nintendo DS that taking old games and slapping on a touch-screen element just feels shoddy and forced. You really have to design the game with that control scheme in mind (or be really brilliant with HCI--something I doubt most game programmers are) to have something that works. I can't tell you how many times I cursed game developers who use the touch screen stupidly when the standard D-pad would have worked much, much better.
When talking about why developers will love it, you forgot: 1) a separate (and wholly unconventional) control style must be developed for multiplatform games 2) lower quality textures for multiplatform games 3) smaller potential markets if you develop solely for the Wii.
One thing we saw in the last console generation was massive cross-platform development. Most of the most successful games appeared on at least two of the three consoles, and sometimes on the PC as well. We saw developers basically shooting for the lowest common denominator (the Gamecube) with maybe a few graphical enhancements for the other platforms (though this wasn't the norm, it did happen on the most popular and anticipated games). Even many "exclusive" games were only exclusive for a short time, and eventually appeared on other platforms (Resident Evil 4, for example).
With Nintendo branching off and 'improving' their console in a different direction from the rest of the players, this is bound to change. The lowest common denominator is simply too low and has a different control scheme from the other players. Yes, Wii is innovative. Yes, it has the potential to turn the gaming industry upside down. But it also has the potential to flop horribly due to a lack of titles, since targetting the PS3/Xbox360/PC is probably going to be much easier than targetting the PS3/Xbox360/PC/Wii. If adding the Wii and Wii-specific features doesn't make sense financially, it won't happen, leaving the Wii in a draught of titles. If companies do develop for all 4 platforms, it's likely that the control scheme on the Wii will be a joke, tacked on simply to make use of the controller, or even simply ignored and requiring a "classic" controller to play, making Wii only slightly better than a Gamecube (given its only slightly better CPU and graphics).
I'm really pulling for the Wii, but I'm being realistic at the same time. There's a very good chance that it will flop. I hope not, as I plan for it to be my only next-gen console. Just try not to buy into the hype too much.
Irrelevant. I asked where Microsoft said they were moving to yearly licensing, and why I can't run their older stuff, not "why is open source better than proprietary."
It's perfectly possible to run Windows 98 safely for legacy applications.
That's absurd, and only applicable if a company needs to a) connect those computers to the internet and b) can't do it behind a router of some sort. I'm not claiming it's a great solution, but it's there. Microsoft doesn't prevent anyone from running these old versions of their OS, and it is quite possible to do so without exposing yourself to viruses.
Can you point me to a place that shows that MS is moving to yearly licenses? Also, point me to a clause that says I can't continue running an older version of their software? Thanks in advance.
Slashdot Mirror
Fair points, but short of technological innovations, they will never get the public to comply on these points. I guess there's just no real compromise for the content producers (since shortening copyright terms just means reducing their power without really getting anything in return.
And any new system is subject to retroactive foolishness. Even copylefted works could be retroactively made copyrighted if someone paid the government enough money.
Thanks for clearing all of that up. Sounds like a great system now, but sadly, probably something we will never see in practice.
As to the assassination bit, yes, right now a copyright term (in the US) is dependant upon the lift of the author, but the copyright remains with his estate for something ridiculous like 40 years (or is it longer?) after his death. This makes it far less useful to assassinate a person just to get his works dumped into the public domain.
But even if we ignore that, you can be sure that _someone_ will take the pictures (landowners, tourism industry, scouts, heck, I'd pay to map my hometown if it were a gray blob on a global map), and that as long as the information is shared, it becomes only a problem of aggregation (something that opensource has proven is most eminently possible).
If the cost is high enough, you can't be assured of this. That's the point. So pretend it costs more, and boom--valuable data that will never be acquired by anyone because of the cost involved.
Some of the best suggestions I've seen are directed levies/benefits; for example for books, free up reproduction so anyone could reproduce them (with the caveat that they have to register the number of copies of the work they reproduce). Put a direct tax of, say, 50% of sales price on any sales (and/or advertizing derived revenue) of such works. Pay the derived revenues to the authors (possibly with a max payout per work over a period, to allow maximizing the number of authors able to make a living off writing, while encouraging continued writing). With competition restored in the reproduction and distribution sectors we'd get cheaper books, _and_ more money to the authors, _and_ more innovative forms (on-demand printing of _any_ book you want, any desireable format, etc).
This certainly changes the distribution model, effectively eliminating the middleman (the people the MPAA, BSA, and RIAA represent). But this only deals with issues where the information is sold. What about the current majority of current copyright infringements where the information is freely given away?
The monopoly right gives you no guarantee of money back for your invested time
Of course not. Nothing short of government-funded innovation will ever guarantee money back for your invested time. But at least if your product is worth a damn, you can rest assured that if you didn't make any money off of it, it was probably your failure to promote the product.
Largely, legal reductions in fair use. Right now, a large part of the 'test' for fair use is whether or not the copying is commercial in nature. Most personal copying (i.e. making a copy of a CD to keep at work while keeping the original at home) is thought to be fair use, though I'm not sure that it's ever been tested in court. Of course, these restrictions are largely ceremonial, as these types of controls are not currently enforceable. But I'd give up my [assumed] right to copy my CDs if, 10 years later, the CD fell into the public domain and I could copy it with wild abandon.
Mind you, I'm coming from a US-centric perspective, so in other countries, it may be that restrictions should be lessened to be what I would consider 'reasonable'.
Forgot to add my comments on that link:
I think those are great ideas, except number 5. I really don't see a good reason to limit the price that the work can be sold for, particularly a copylefted work (where the market truly will decide whether that price is reasonable). I'm also not wild about copylefted works being copyleft for the life of the author (honestly, that could just make someone a target for assassination--I know it sounds crazy, but it's true.)
"I'd be really ecstatic if there were stricter controls even than we have now--as long as the length of copyright was reduced drastically and keys were escrowed with the government and released at the end of the copyright term."
Well, I would say that you are not thinking straight or that the punishments in your country are no where near as bad as they are in mine. How does 4 or 5 years in a reputedly very nasty jail for each non-genuine CD or DVD in your posession sound? (By that I mean even ones that you may have purchesed in good faith and been ripped off in the purchase because you were sold a bogus disk.)
Well, I said stricter controls, not stricter punishments, but yes, here in America, pretty much only big-time, commercial violators are imprisoned. Otherwise, it's all handled in civil courts.
I've long argued that this is entirely unreasonable and what's most broken about the legal system when it comes to IP law. It's not how the world works today but I believe that there should be control over the profits/fruits of the IP created but not of the IP itself. The entire IP system is meant to guarantee innovation isn't stiffled. Instead companies focus on guaranteeing their profits even if that means killing off innovation.
It's hard to say. Certainly there would be more innovation if anyone was allowed to use the data of these images willy-nilly, but would the images themselves ever have existed?
Say I want to map out my hometown using aerial geography. That's a fairly large undertaking, requiring a plane, probably multiple camera, and almost certainly multiple passes over the area. If I'm expected pay for the costs of acquiring those photos, but I can't expect to even break even (because someone can take my data and release it for free), then I have less incentive to spend the money required to acquire the data. We don't get innovation on the use of this data until such time as the data is acquired, and that can be a costly venture.
In the case of books, it's even darker. The only material value a fiction book has is in the paper it's printed on (or the cost of bandwidth, if I release it online). Other than that, any initial investment comes strictly at an opportunity cost (my time). The entire value of the book is wrapped up in its IP, because copies have a trivial cost (compare to 200 years ago, when printing books had a significant cost). To me, this means that intellectual property laws are even more important today, though they should be significantly reduced in temporal length. The ease of duplication means that there is virtually no replication cost, and very little distribution costs (given electronic sales). Any sale can be virtually pure profit, meaning the time to make up the opportunity cost of creating the work is reduced.
For movies and music which typically have an up front, material cost, things change a bit, but still largely hold true. I'd guess (pulling the number out of my--well, you know) that 90% of the money that a film will earn is generated within the first 10 years, certainly within the first 20. Before duplication and distribution were so easy, a lot of the earnings would be eaten up in materials. Without those costs, again, it's much easier to make up the initial investment and turn a nice profit in a shorter period of time.
I'd be really ecstatic if there were stricter controls even than we have now--as long as the length of copyright was reduced drastically and keys were escrowed with the government and released at the end of the copyright term.
No, the reason to think that it MAY be dangerous is because it uses EM waves, which some studies show increases your risk of cancer.
Worse, it will probably work fine for the first year, even if it's against the license. Then in a year they'll release an update which breaks virtualization in Home, forcing everyone who bought it to run in virtualization to either upgrade to Ultimate or stop using Windows in Parallels. Or run an unpatched version.
It will be a while before FM disappears entirely, their first priority is getting analogue TV off the air. Why is it the government is forcing this? I don't know, it should be up to the market to decide.
Actually, that's a really interesting question. We have similar regulations going in place here in the US, although they've pushed back the deadlines time and time again. I can't fathom what stake the government has in this.
Except that some people try to claim that DeCSS (the tool) is illegal to create, distribute, or possess. So does this new ruling mean that DeCSS is legal for a professor to create (if he only uses it within the domain described here), possess (with similar restrictions) and possibly even distribute (to other professors for the same purposes)? Or does it mean that the tool itself is legal (as it should be) the the use thereof is not, with the professor exception? Given that the people in the world capable of creating a tool like DeCSS are extremely slim, it seems that if my former proposition is true, then this ruling is pretty much worthless.
The problem all along with the DMCA has been the exercise of fair use. I should be able to back up my DVDs, but I can't because I can't get my hands on the tools to do so--they are (allegedly) illegal.
Note: I am not a lawyer, and the below is not legal advice.
All that said, the fact is, tools like DeCSS are legal under the DMCA, due to an oft-neglected clause in sec. 1201 (the section which would otherwise make the tool illegal):
`(c) OTHER RIGHTS, ETC., NOT AFFECTED- (1) Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title.
In other words, nothing in this section affects my fair use rights. That includes tools whose primary purpose is breaking copyright protection (since my fair use rights allow me to do so in certain circumstances). So what it boils down to is that the LoC ruling is worthless except as PR.
Well, I've seen people on the right just whip out terms like bias without further explanation all the time. Honestly, what does saying something has a "liberal slant" add to the argument? It's really used as just a bad word to call someone or something disguised as an argument.
Why don't you understand this? My argument was that the statement was biased! I shouldn't have thrown in my opinions on the cop at all, I guess, because you can't seem to differentiate the two.
I went off-topic and complained about a biased summary of the video. I then mentioned what I thought of the video because, hey, I thought the discussion might be interesting.
If the facts are in error, point them out.
I honestly can't figure out if you're trolling me or not. I did point out the errors. I gave an almost sentence-by-sentence description of the video that showed far and away that the OP's summary was abbreviated to the point of (in my opinion) bias! That was the point of my post, though I unfortunately had other bits in there which seemed to confuse the issue.
So again, I explained why I thought it was biased (more than Fox News does), and I cited the facts upon which I based that opinion (unlike Fox News does). I guess my crime here was using the word "liberal" which is apparently seen as a bad word or an ad hominim attack, though I think it is descriptive of the type of bias that I saw in the post (as opposed to someone claiming that "the officer provided the woman with every opportunity to comply and gosh, was using the taser only as a last resort after hundreds of attempts to get her cooperation"--something I'm not claiming, by the way--which would be a conservative bias in the case of this video).
Guess I shouldn't hold my breath while waiting for an apology for the Fox News comment, even though I think I've shown how different we are. From now on, I'll just try to remember that "liberal" is a bad word.
(That's a joke, by the way. Hope it didn't offend.)
We're obviously going to disagree on most of this, but I have to take issue with the following:
Interesting. So anything that you disagree with is "slant and bias".
No. Hyperbole leads to slant and bias. That "nifty new toy" comment, the "yells and fires" coment... I can accept that we have differing ideas about what should have been done in this situation (and contrary to what you probably think, I would have liked to see the officer use more diplomacy than force, but let's face it, neither of us was in his shoes at the time, seeing what he was seeing, noting her demeanor and physical actions). And you'll note my questioning what the proper use of a taser is, and what other options might have been available to deal with this woman. I'm certainly open to discussion on the issue (which is, in fact, what we're doing).
But I hate when people skew the issue. I hate it when liberals do it, when republicans do it, when I agree with the opinion, and when I disagree with the opinion. I hate it precisely because it is used to sway opinions without looking at the facts--because it tends to appeal to the emotional rather than the logical. For example, I'm in favor of reasonable tracking and limitations on gun ownership. I'm also in favor of restricting certain substances such as cocaine and meth (basically drugs which have been shown to have lasting affects on the brain which can easily lead to violent behavior.) But I can't stand the "think of the children" bullshit because it sways public opinion by appealing to emotion (and biological urges--protecting children) while ignoring the logical.
That's an awfully nice way to defend your opinions against anything that varies with what you believe.
Can you show me where I defneded an opinion using that argument? Honestly, can you? I even stated unequivicolly that the original poster was creating a bias, regardless of the justification of the officer.
Honestly, I can't figure out how "that's biased!" is even a defense. At best it's a way to dismiss a claim, but I actually countered your claims with my own ideas in addition to proclaiming my dislike for bias. I asked for clarifications on taser policy and for opinions on alternate ways to handle the situation. I'm not screaming that you're a fucking idiot or that you're wrong wrong wrong, and I'm not even saying that I disagree without presenting my own ideas as to why and inviting further discussion.
Honestly, I'm really quite offended that I was compared to Fox News in this case, because I was trying to have an actual discussion on the issue, which doesn't seem to be the way they handle things.
And what the hell is wrong with you?
The entire point of my post was that the situation as described varied wildly from what I saw in the video. My opinions on the justification aside, the OP did post a biased description. It wasn't, "Yell, zap!" as the OP suggested, it was "Lawful order, lawful order, lawful order, lawful order, lawful order, zap." (I may have missed a few lawful orders--I didn't count while typing this).
That's the bias. That's the slant. Regardless of whether or not the officer was justified, not having a level-head when describing the information creates FUD.
Describe the situation as presented, or be ready to be called out for extreme hyperbole, if not outright falsification.
--- Beyond this point lies my opinions on the subject at hand rather than my expression of annoyance at the incorrect retelling of the events of the video--try not to confuse the two, please--
For the record, I'm more of a moderate than anything. I think the liberals and the conservatives that we see on TV are wacky-crazy. I'm very concerned with civil rights, but in my opinion, that's largely a thing to be sorted out by the courts. That is, a police officer gives you a lawful order, you obey (note the very important word "lawful" there--if this officer had been demanding sexual acts and then tased upon refusal, that would be a completely different matter). If you feel that the officer is wrong in giving that order, you call him on it in court.
Officers are given power for a reason, and I saw no reason for this woman to disobey the direct orders. I saw no extenuating circumstances or reason for the woman to ignore the lawful orders (not that you could see much, but she certainly never said, "Officer, I can't obey because of X reason"). She was talking on the phone, never addressed the officer at all other than to demand that he not touch her and to "explain" that she was making a call. What would you like the officer to do in that situation? Sit there and wait? After a multi-mile long chase and someone acting very strange (let's face it, it's strange to disobey direct orders while relaying those orders to someone on the other end of a phone), I'd be really nervous about what the hell is going on.
--- Now I'll address some points you made --- again, let's try not to confuse the various issues ---
And did she reach for a gun? Any sudden movements? It sounds pretty clear she was on the phone with someone (and probbably distracted by talking on the phone). It's quite obvious the cop decided to taze her because she wasn't following orders, not because he thought she had a weapon, was becoming violent, etc.
Couldn't tell from the video, honestly. She could have reached in a console or under the seat, or behind her for all I could see. I would be curious to know what the police manuals in variou states have to say about the use of a taser, though--last I checked, if she'd been reaching for a weapon or become violent, it would have been quite acceptable for the officer to draw his actual gun and actually shoot her (they're allowed to do that if their life is in danger, you know). So under what circumstances is the taser itself acceptable when a gun is not?
The "get off the phone" "get off the phone" period to actual tazing is about 15 seconds.
After a long chase, from what I understand. And he first tells her to get off the phone and step out of the car right at the beginning of the video. At 15 seconds, he draws his taser (which should have been her clue to maybe get off the phone and start paying attention to the cop). At 21 seconds he threatens to taze her. At 32 seconds, he shoots her.
Now it's pretty petty to talk about a matter of 15 seconds (double your estimate), but he gave her plenty of time, assuming she showed no indication of getting off of the phone and stepping out of the car.
So police brutality is now a "liberal slant"?
See, there's more slant.
I said that the descript
You put quite the slant/bias on this post:
Also, notice how this idiot cop doesn't tell her she's under arrest. He just YELLS at her to get out of the car, then fires.
First he orders her to step out of the vehicle and then to put the phone down. Then he tells her to put the phone down again. Then he opens the door and grabs her, which she resists. She starts screaming. (Note: so far, the officer has not yelled).
The policeman draws his gun and orders her out of the car. At this point, he has raised his voice and might be considered to be 'yelling' (after several lawful attempts to get her to step out of the car). He tells her twice more to get out of the car, and says that he will taze her if she does not comply. Once more (3) he tells her to get out of the car. She refuses, he tazes.
That covers the first 40 seconds of the video. Can you see how that is different from your account? Can you see how you've created a bias in readers who don't go look at the video? This is exactly what radio talk show journalists do, it's exactly what Microsoft does, it's exactly the orwellian doublespeak that people rant about so much on Slashdot, only this time it's got a liberal slant instead of a commercial one. Regardless of the reasonablity of using the taser on this woman (and after resisting several lawful orders while being in a car where weapons can be easily hidden, I'm not sure the initial taze was unjustified), you have created a bias before anyone even clicks your link by implying that the officer didn't even give her a chance to exit the vehicle, or that he only asked her once and waited (who knows how long) before playing with his toy.
Try to look at things objectively, even when they're very emotional. Try to be rational. Knee-jerk reactions are a pretty big problem these days, and it's up to everyone to remain calm and level-headed when examining a situation like this.
The word you are looking for is 'lose'.
A nut is loose, and if it loosens all the way, you may lose it.
It would be nice if they could have trusted that he would just walk out, but if a person is going to pull a gun, they want a little distance between himself and a target. Concealed carry class teaches you that drawing your weapon on someone who is something like 15-20 yards away is highly ineffective as they will be able to rush you before you fully draw, aim, and fire. Escorting a suspect or tresspasser out of the building is completely appropriate simply to ensure the safety of the public in the area and of the officers.
This was a situation with a lot of unknowns. The police get a call that someone refuses to follow a lawful order to leave the premises. They arrive and give a lawful order to leave the premises, then begin to escort him out as is not only legal under the law, but a reasonable practice. The suspect began to get violent (passive resistance is one thing, but shrugging off the police is a physical act towards them). They don't know if he has a gun, bomb, etc. They don't know why this person has refused to leave the building when ordered to multiple times.
Ditto for Opera9.
I think the issue is that there were substantial, backwards-broken changes to IE7's implementation of CSS. Firefox and Opera were pretty close to correct from the beginning, so web developers don't have to code directly for those versions of those browsers (as much--I'm sure tiny differences exist).
And that's not even considering that IE has a much greater marketshare than the rest of the browsers, meaning any book which is going to talk about web development really has to discuss getting it right in that browser.
As far as the smaller market for the Wii I think that is a little false. Comparing to the number of PS3s being released compared to the potential Wiis plus the fact that everyone is Wii crazy right now I think that the selling of them will be far greater than the PS3.
1 067 shows that the Gamecube consistently undersold the PS2 and Xbox, despite launching later than those consoles (though the XBox only launched about 4 days earlier in the US). Unless I'm misremembering, the Gamecube wasn't plagued by quite the shortage problems that the PS2 was, and I have no idea about the XBox numbers at launch. Nevertheless, this shows that launch statistics may not correlate to overall success of the platform.
There will be more PS3s released. The PS2 has pretty good market penetration, and there were shortages at launch there, too. Same with the 360 (there are now over 6million sold, according to CNET). http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.php?tid=1
The problem I see is that this generation is unfolding much like the previous one, except that Nintendo has taken steps to significantly differentiate its console from the rest. It could be that this will prove to be a fantastic move, or it could be that it divides the market and causes Nintendo to lose out. Sheer numbers won't tell the tale, though, as I've shown.
You're only talking about launch numbers, though. The Playstation has a huge fanbase of loyal fans and a good number of fairly exclusive and wildly popular franchises (Final Fantasy XIII, Metal Gear Solid 4 are two examples--although there have been FF and MGS games for other systems, the latest sequels have been Sony-only, I believe).
The Wii will probably be quite popular, but if developers can't sell it early, support might die off as fans stop buying crappy games.
"Add the new controls" is part of the problem, though. We saw from the Nintendo DS that taking old games and slapping on a touch-screen element just feels shoddy and forced. You really have to design the game with that control scheme in mind (or be really brilliant with HCI--something I doubt most game programmers are) to have something that works. I can't tell you how many times I cursed game developers who use the touch screen stupidly when the standard D-pad would have worked much, much better.
When talking about why developers will love it, you forgot:
1) a separate (and wholly unconventional) control style must be developed for multiplatform games
2) lower quality textures for multiplatform games
3) smaller potential markets if you develop solely for the Wii.
One thing we saw in the last console generation was massive cross-platform development. Most of the most successful games appeared on at least two of the three consoles, and sometimes on the PC as well. We saw developers basically shooting for the lowest common denominator (the Gamecube) with maybe a few graphical enhancements for the other platforms (though this wasn't the norm, it did happen on the most popular and anticipated games). Even many "exclusive" games were only exclusive for a short time, and eventually appeared on other platforms (Resident Evil 4, for example).
With Nintendo branching off and 'improving' their console in a different direction from the rest of the players, this is bound to change. The lowest common denominator is simply too low and has a different control scheme from the other players. Yes, Wii is innovative. Yes, it has the potential to turn the gaming industry upside down. But it also has the potential to flop horribly due to a lack of titles, since targetting the PS3/Xbox360/PC is probably going to be much easier than targetting the PS3/Xbox360/PC/Wii. If adding the Wii and Wii-specific features doesn't make sense financially, it won't happen, leaving the Wii in a draught of titles. If companies do develop for all 4 platforms, it's likely that the control scheme on the Wii will be a joke, tacked on simply to make use of the controller, or even simply ignored and requiring a "classic" controller to play, making Wii only slightly better than a Gamecube (given its only slightly better CPU and graphics).
I'm really pulling for the Wii, but I'm being realistic at the same time. There's a very good chance that it will flop. I hope not, as I plan for it to be my only next-gen console. Just try not to buy into the hype too much.
Irrelevant. I asked where Microsoft said they were moving to yearly licensing, and why I can't run their older stuff, not "why is open source better than proprietary."
It's perfectly possible to run Windows 98 safely for legacy applications.
That's absurd, and only applicable if a company needs to a) connect those computers to the internet and b) can't do it behind a router of some sort. I'm not claiming it's a great solution, but it's there. Microsoft doesn't prevent anyone from running these old versions of their OS, and it is quite possible to do so without exposing yourself to viruses.
Can you point me to a place that shows that MS is moving to yearly licenses? Also, point me to a clause that says I can't continue running an older version of their software? Thanks in advance.