Yes, stringent enforcement is bad, but so is blatant infringement. Companies should allow some latitude with infringing properties of their works, and some basic trading between friends. However, I also believe, both as a creator and a reseller of intellectual property, that placing your 300 CD Collection on Kazaa is going way too far as well.
Copyright should always be a balance. Promotion should be allowed, but only on an intimate level with people you know, not the entire world, unless the creator or publisher says it's all right. Region codes on DVDs, encryptions, copy prevention methods, etc., are all just profits and ineffective in what they're named to do.
I love libraries, borrow from friends and let them borrow from me, and will take DVDs over to parties so we can watch movies. Some publishers, studios and organizations will call me a pirate, but I would like to think that I'm a consumer and a citizen of the USA who prefers to share what he rightfully paid for with those who would also enjoy it.
The Beltway Snipers were terrorists. They intentionally caused panic and terror, and made sure that there were absolutely no patterns to their killing, before making demands.
Had they been serial killers, they wouldn't have been so random and so brazen in their slaughter.
But hey, this is/.... I suppose that the Unabomber was just a white-collar serial killer?
The parents is what people should be saying here. Respect others as you would have them respect you, regardless of how evil/vile they are. MS may be a convicted monopoly and leveraging computer and software companies, but trading their copyrighted code illegally is not justified.
Did you know that most authors, including Zahn, Clarke and Sawyer, earn probably 5-8% royalties on sales of their books?
Unless they sell a great number (for SF books, this is usually into the six figures, and most SF books, except for franchises like Star Trek and Star Wars, sell between 20,000 and 50,000), that number stays low on paperbacks.
So that $8 paperback you bought only earns the author, who did nearly all the work on that book, about $.50. Talk about a travesty!
Or, frankly, that's just how the industry works. Artist/author makes a creative work, sends to the label/publisher, who has a team design the jewel case & liner notes/jacket or covers, before marketing the work if they do at all, then selling in volume to big distributors, who sell to smaller distributors or major chains, who have to ship them to the individual stores, who have to put them on the shelves or online for the consumer to purchase.
Each one of those steps needs to make its profit, the last of the chain needing to be the biggest cut (between 40-60% off retail). In the end, the cuts trickle back to very little leftover for the artist or the author.
And that's how it's always been. CDs can be bought online and the record labels circumvented. However, most authors still enjoy being in print, so eBooks aren't going to change that industry yet.
MAME is great for people who have computers and don't mind bending the laws regarding the ROMs for MAME. I have an Aero Fighters, Ms. Pac Man, Street Fighter III, Mr. Do, etc., so I play the ROMs of those games when I'm bored.
However, the common person, who may have a computer, may not know about MAME, or really know how to get those ROMs even so. Arcade games are still nostalgic, and probably a fun way to share what he or she grew up with, with the kids.
People who read/. don't need arcade machines, really. Joe Smith and his family may have a few quarters at the ice cream parlor and the kids are just begging to play a video game while they're out. That's where you earn your money from routing arcade machines, people like that.
Arcade monitors are different than computer monitors. Arcade monitors are more alike cathode ray televisions than anything. However, with the picture tube, there is a computer board where the power wiring and the output wiring from the PCB goes. This, and no real protection from the tube (people have died working on arcade machines without even working on the monitor, silly people), makes it a really strange standard.
Monitors also go from the 13"/19" ones, to 21, 25, 27, 29, 31, 40 and 50" screens, depending on the cabinet and type of game. You can order nealy any size monitor or type you want from arcade parts dealers.
And no, as far as I'm aware, you cannot put a computer monitor's tube into an arcade monitor chassis and make it work.
Yes, you can convert a 2nd Mix to an 8th Mix, for example. The problem is that a conversion kit costs between $500 and $1000 for the marquee, stickers and game software. The machines themselves barely go down in value when a new mix comes out, so you're still looking at a hefty sum of money to get even an empty machine.
CoinOpExpress, which sells many used systems (but the import fees are killer since they're in southeast Asia), has a DDR original for $1530 and an 8th Mix Extreme for $4995, both used. They weigh over 400kg, so tack on over $1000 just to ship to a seaport, and if you don't live close enough, probably $400+ easily to have a freight company take it to your door.
Here, retail on these machines if you pick them up are $10,000+, if you can find them. Most places know they're popular and jack that price up.
Best way is to get one that's completely broken from eBay close enough to yourself, and fix it up, then get a conversion kit to the newest mix. If you can muster a good deal and do the work yourself with minimal purchase of parts, you could get away with a working DDR two player for $1500.
I route arcade machines (place them out in locations to be played) and repair and convert them.
There are two major costs of these machines. Monitors and PCBs. A standard arcade game uses a 19" monitor (cabaret, the smaller uprights, tend to use 13" monitors). These 19" monitors brand new range from $200 to $500, and used ones need to be in good condition to be useful, so they're not much cheaper.
The PCBs, mostly the entire game, except for some of the interchangeable systems such as the NeoGeo MVS and the Naomi Systems, are quite expensive. Although these are mostly based on how new they are and how popular they are, if you're lucky you'll find a PCB for a game that may bring in quarters for about $50 on eBay. For a game like Tekken Tag Tournament, you'll be spending $250-$350.
Then there's the cabinets. You need solid enough wood to hold the monitor in the upper part of the machine and make sure people can't easily access its guts. At least $75-$100 to build your own from scratch, and at least that much to buy a decent cabinet to convert to a proper machine.
The controls are relatively cheap. Buttons are about $1-$2 each, $3-$10 for the joysticks, $25-$40 for the trackballs, etc. Since these are universal, buying in bulk if you do what I do is a way to save money without anticipating which games you'll have in the future.
Okay, that's out of the way. For me, I'll spend between $300 and $1500 to purchase parts or fix-me-ups and rebuild them into fully working and restored games. To make it worth my while, I have to assume that I'll make that money back in under nine months, or I feel it'll be a costly venture. This is just my estimate, since I'm the only one who works on these machines, I have a much lower overhead.
When you route a machine, instead of having them in your own location, the standard of the industry is split. That is, for every two quarters you get in a machine, one goes to the location and one goes to you. They pay for the electricity and just make sure that the machines aren't abused, and I keep them working and buy more machines. In the end, I have a higher cost, but I also choose where machines go more than the locations and can always sell them if I need the space or money.
Yes, arcades will be unprofitable these days for one specific reason, and that is what I described above. To drag people into an arcade, you need to make sure they want to go there. When I route machines, people are going to the location mostly for the location first, and if they have spare change, or a need to play, they'll plunk quarters into the coin slots. For an arcade, they're going to the arcade mostly to play the games, so you need to make sure you have some games for those players.
The investment to insure you have enough of the big machines or new machines, like DDR or SNK vs. Capcom, is extremely high. A DDR will set you back $15,000 easily for a two player machine with a new mix inside. Plus the space for this will drag your rent upwards. When I route, I just need to make sure there's enough clearance at the location, where they pay the rent.
Then, if you have too many people coming just to play games at an arcade, you need to make sure you have enough copies of the popular games. If you have one DDR, one SNK, one Ms. Pac-Man, one Galaga and, let's say, one air hockey table, along with several other less-played machines, people will be waiting around to play the popular games, and may just leave and not come back. Therefore, many copies of these are very necessary, higher costs. For me, having one DDR, one SNK, one Ms. Pac-Man and one Galaga in a location will be perfectly fine, as there won't be as many people playing at once, and people will return to the location for the location anyways.
In conclusion, arcades are a dying breed. They need to find a new angle to survive, such as what sportscard retailers did when sportscards were bombing (they got into Magic: the Gathering and other games), or what comic shops did when the comics indust
When I went to night school for a couple semesters of Japanese, the textbook for the full course was available for like $70, all 350 pages or so of it. However, there were three types you could get, two of which were higher in price. The cassette- and CD-included ones. The school only had the CD-based ones when I went, four CDs that had the pronounciations for some of the work in the book, but added $15 to the cost of the book, new.
Seeing as how the book was in its second edition, and the CDs have been used in schools across North America for years, it's surprising that the cost to publish (probably only about $7 for the hardback, $2-$3 for the CDs) could be marked up, unless the profits are made to benefit the schools (and probably some "payola" to the teachers who use the books for the classes).
Going to this article, I found an animated advertisement right near the top leading to this page, all saying how Linux costs companies 11% more by a study, and clicking on it could get you the facts.
Of course, the details are on Microsoft's page, advertising their Windows Server software, so anyone who believes the numbers outright isn't fit to buy software for their company.
I worked temp at an old family-run business who sold lumber and building parts to contractors, in the office area of their headquarters. The public store was on the first floor and the office held the second floor. Nothing else was in the building.
They had to have air conditioning working well on the sales floor and data entry (where I worked) because the windows were never opened. I inquired about this, and my manager without skipping a beat said with a serious face, "They're nailed shut so people won't jump."
I should have taken the warning sign as a hint that this job was going nowhere fast.
The class-action lawsuit holding Best Buy and MSN accused of fraud for scanning MSN discs for people paying by debit or credit card and saying it's just for inventory reasons, and then six months later MSN would bill them, saying that the free period had ended, whether or not they used the access . ..
That MSN really is one of the most expensive dialup services in the country, and does not have the most extensive dialup number ranges. Add to this poor lines in major cities (never could get Chicago or Philly lines to stay connected longer than eight minutes), and that there are far better alternatives (Netzero/Juno, etc.) . ..
That in many areas, $25 is the same price as most cable systems are offering for an introductory offer. Get faster connections without having to tie up or get another phone line? Why would you stick with dialup?
Just another failed business model for MS that was too late to be viable.
For those who aren't aware, Twilight Singers are Greg Dulli's new band, who used to head up The Afghan Whigs. His voice is one of the greater voices of the modern rock era without being annoying.
It's hard to hear either of those bands on the air, so I'm glad there's a station playing TS on the net and the air.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, stringent enforcement is bad, but so is blatant infringement. Companies should allow some latitude with infringing properties of their works, and some basic trading between friends. However, I also believe, both as a creator and a reseller of intellectual property, that placing your 300 CD Collection on Kazaa is going way too far as well.
Copyright should always be a balance. Promotion should be allowed, but only on an intimate level with people you know, not the entire world, unless the creator or publisher says it's all right. Region codes on DVDs, encryptions, copy prevention methods, etc., are all just profits and ineffective in what they're named to do.
I love libraries, borrow from friends and let them borrow from me, and will take DVDs over to parties so we can watch movies. Some publishers, studios and organizations will call me a pirate, but I would like to think that I'm a consumer and a citizen of the USA who prefers to share what he rightfully paid for with those who would also enjoy it.
Just my opinion and observations.
How is this informative?
/.... I suppose that the Unabomber was just a white-collar serial killer?
The Beltway Snipers were terrorists. They intentionally caused panic and terror, and made sure that there were absolutely no patterns to their killing, before making demands.
Had they been serial killers, they wouldn't have been so random and so brazen in their slaughter.
But hey, this is
But will Apple pay for its crimes?
I don't get it. The guy illegally traded music on a college network, got sued, lost.
We should be giving him money because he was a moron? Or am I missing something?
How is this insightful?
Slashdot/OSDN carries ads for Microsoft, and many Microsoft developers and users use this site.
How can you say Slashdot is a culture hating something that pretty much keeps the server going with ad revenue and users posting?
The parents is what people should be saying here. Respect others as you would have them respect you, regardless of how evil/vile they are. MS may be a convicted monopoly and leveraging computer and software companies, but trading their copyrighted code illegally is not justified.
Don't go to their level. Be better.
This is slashdot.
You can break the law if it's disobedience against Microsoft, RIAA labels, Disney or any other mean big business.
But you can't break the law when it comes to GPL code.
Mod it flamebait, whatever, but look at the trends of moderations here anyways.
A more interesting tidbit.
Did you know that most authors, including Zahn, Clarke and Sawyer, earn probably 5-8% royalties on sales of their books?
Unless they sell a great number (for SF books, this is usually into the six figures, and most SF books, except for franchises like Star Trek and Star Wars, sell between 20,000 and 50,000), that number stays low on paperbacks.
So that $8 paperback you bought only earns the author, who did nearly all the work on that book, about $.50. Talk about a travesty!
Or, frankly, that's just how the industry works. Artist/author makes a creative work, sends to the label/publisher, who has a team design the jewel case & liner notes/jacket or covers, before marketing the work if they do at all, then selling in volume to big distributors, who sell to smaller distributors or major chains, who have to ship them to the individual stores, who have to put them on the shelves or online for the consumer to purchase.
Each one of those steps needs to make its profit, the last of the chain needing to be the biggest cut (between 40-60% off retail). In the end, the cuts trickle back to very little leftover for the artist or the author.
And that's how it's always been. CDs can be bought online and the record labels circumvented. However, most authors still enjoy being in print, so eBooks aren't going to change that industry yet.
The most offensive, yet funny, thing that Linus said was that SCO was smoking crack.
How about:
pathological liars
Not funny enough?
MAME is great for people who have computers and don't mind bending the laws regarding the ROMs for MAME. I have an Aero Fighters, Ms. Pac Man, Street Fighter III, Mr. Do, etc., so I play the ROMs of those games when I'm bored.
/. don't need arcade machines, really. Joe Smith and his family may have a few quarters at the ice cream parlor and the kids are just begging to play a video game while they're out. That's where you earn your money from routing arcade machines, people like that.
However, the common person, who may have a computer, may not know about MAME, or really know how to get those ROMs even so. Arcade games are still nostalgic, and probably a fun way to share what he or she grew up with, with the kids.
People who read
Arcade monitors are different than computer monitors. Arcade monitors are more alike cathode ray televisions than anything. However, with the picture tube, there is a computer board where the power wiring and the output wiring from the PCB goes. This, and no real protection from the tube (people have died working on arcade machines without even working on the monitor, silly people), makes it a really strange standard.
Monitors also go from the 13"/19" ones, to 21, 25, 27, 29, 31, 40 and 50" screens, depending on the cabinet and type of game. You can order nealy any size monitor or type you want from arcade parts dealers.
And no, as far as I'm aware, you cannot put a computer monitor's tube into an arcade monitor chassis and make it work.
Yes, you can convert a 2nd Mix to an 8th Mix, for example. The problem is that a conversion kit costs between $500 and $1000 for the marquee, stickers and game software. The machines themselves barely go down in value when a new mix comes out, so you're still looking at a hefty sum of money to get even an empty machine.
CoinOpExpress, which sells many used systems (but the import fees are killer since they're in southeast Asia), has a DDR original for $1530 and an 8th Mix Extreme for $4995, both used. They weigh over 400kg, so tack on over $1000 just to ship to a seaport, and if you don't live close enough, probably $400+ easily to have a freight company take it to your door.
Here, retail on these machines if you pick them up are $10,000+, if you can find them. Most places know they're popular and jack that price up.
Best way is to get one that's completely broken from eBay close enough to yourself, and fix it up, then get a conversion kit to the newest mix. If you can muster a good deal and do the work yourself with minimal purchase of parts, you could get away with a working DDR two player for $1500.
I route arcade machines (place them out in locations to be played) and repair and convert them.
There are two major costs of these machines. Monitors and PCBs. A standard arcade game uses a 19" monitor (cabaret, the smaller uprights, tend to use 13" monitors). These 19" monitors brand new range from $200 to $500, and used ones need to be in good condition to be useful, so they're not much cheaper.
The PCBs, mostly the entire game, except for some of the interchangeable systems such as the NeoGeo MVS and the Naomi Systems, are quite expensive. Although these are mostly based on how new they are and how popular they are, if you're lucky you'll find a PCB for a game that may bring in quarters for about $50 on eBay. For a game like Tekken Tag Tournament, you'll be spending $250-$350.
Then there's the cabinets. You need solid enough wood to hold the monitor in the upper part of the machine and make sure people can't easily access its guts. At least $75-$100 to build your own from scratch, and at least that much to buy a decent cabinet to convert to a proper machine.
The controls are relatively cheap. Buttons are about $1-$2 each, $3-$10 for the joysticks, $25-$40 for the trackballs, etc. Since these are universal, buying in bulk if you do what I do is a way to save money without anticipating which games you'll have in the future.
Okay, that's out of the way. For me, I'll spend between $300 and $1500 to purchase parts or fix-me-ups and rebuild them into fully working and restored games. To make it worth my while, I have to assume that I'll make that money back in under nine months, or I feel it'll be a costly venture. This is just my estimate, since I'm the only one who works on these machines, I have a much lower overhead.
When you route a machine, instead of having them in your own location, the standard of the industry is split. That is, for every two quarters you get in a machine, one goes to the location and one goes to you. They pay for the electricity and just make sure that the machines aren't abused, and I keep them working and buy more machines. In the end, I have a higher cost, but I also choose where machines go more than the locations and can always sell them if I need the space or money.
Yes, arcades will be unprofitable these days for one specific reason, and that is what I described above. To drag people into an arcade, you need to make sure they want to go there. When I route machines, people are going to the location mostly for the location first, and if they have spare change, or a need to play, they'll plunk quarters into the coin slots. For an arcade, they're going to the arcade mostly to play the games, so you need to make sure you have some games for those players.
The investment to insure you have enough of the big machines or new machines, like DDR or SNK vs. Capcom, is extremely high. A DDR will set you back $15,000 easily for a two player machine with a new mix inside. Plus the space for this will drag your rent upwards. When I route, I just need to make sure there's enough clearance at the location, where they pay the rent.
Then, if you have too many people coming just to play games at an arcade, you need to make sure you have enough copies of the popular games. If you have one DDR, one SNK, one Ms. Pac-Man, one Galaga and, let's say, one air hockey table, along with several other less-played machines, people will be waiting around to play the popular games, and may just leave and not come back. Therefore, many copies of these are very necessary, higher costs. For me, having one DDR, one SNK, one Ms. Pac-Man and one Galaga in a location will be perfectly fine, as there won't be as many people playing at once, and people will return to the location for the location anyways.
In conclusion, arcades are a dying breed. They need to find a new angle to survive, such as what sportscard retailers did when sportscards were bombing (they got into Magic: the Gathering and other games), or what comic shops did when the comics indust
Isn't that litigious bastards?
Sorry, but it still amazes me how even /. does not seem to apply simple spellchecks.
Separate the contraction to see whether you're using the proper term.
It's Feb. 1st everyone... and all of you who have been reading Slashdot know that today MyDoom.A begins it's attack...
It is February 1st everyone -- check, good
and all of you who have been reading Slashdot know that today MyDoom.A begins it is attack -- doesn't check, not good
I don't expect anally-perfect grammar, but at least its/it's should have that check done, either by the submitter or the editor posting the story.
When I went to night school for a couple semesters of Japanese, the textbook for the full course was available for like $70, all 350 pages or so of it. However, there were three types you could get, two of which were higher in price. The cassette- and CD-included ones. The school only had the CD-based ones when I went, four CDs that had the pronounciations for some of the work in the book, but added $15 to the cost of the book, new.
Seeing as how the book was in its second edition, and the CDs have been used in schools across North America for years, it's surprising that the cost to publish (probably only about $7 for the hardback, $2-$3 for the CDs) could be marked up, unless the profits are made to benefit the schools (and probably some "payola" to the teachers who use the books for the classes).
Going to this article, I found an animated advertisement right near the top leading to this page, all saying how Linux costs companies 11% more by a study, and clicking on it could get you the facts.
Of course, the details are on Microsoft's page, advertising their Windows Server software, so anyone who believes the numbers outright isn't fit to buy software for their company.
You're applying for a patent in India?
So when will SCO be lobbying God to stop all these bad things? Seems like the next logical step in that fantasy world Darl lives in.
I worked temp at an old family-run business who sold lumber and building parts to contractors, in the office area of their headquarters. The public store was on the first floor and the office held the second floor. Nothing else was in the building.
They had to have air conditioning working well on the sales floor and data entry (where I worked) because the windows were never opened. I inquired about this, and my manager without skipping a beat said with a serious face, "They're nailed shut so people won't jump."
I should have taken the warning sign as a hint that this job was going nowhere fast.
Some schools in the US use "E" to remark an Excused class; that is, the student did not pass the course but is excused of his grade.
The class-action lawsuit holding Best Buy and MSN accused of fraud for scanning MSN discs for people paying by debit or credit card and saying it's just for inventory reasons, and then six months later MSN would bill them, saying that the free period had ended, whether or not they used the access . . .
.
That MSN really is one of the most expensive dialup services in the country, and does not have the most extensive dialup number ranges. Add to this poor lines in major cities (never could get Chicago or Philly lines to stay connected longer than eight minutes), and that there are far better alternatives (Netzero/Juno, etc.) . .
That in many areas, $25 is the same price as most cable systems are offering for an introductory offer. Get faster connections without having to tie up or get another phone line? Why would you stick with dialup?
Just another failed business model for MS that was too late to be viable.
You do realize that the treasury department provided details on this already for retailers and casinos to give to employees?
Your argument falls flat, sorry.
For those who aren't aware, Twilight Singers are Greg Dulli's new band, who used to head up The Afghan Whigs. His voice is one of the greater voices of the modern rock era without being annoying.
It's hard to hear either of those bands on the air, so I'm glad there's a station playing TS on the net and the air.