just enough to get the average p2p participant to change their shared directory away from their main music repository. then with a predominance of leeches and no providers, p2p for music will collapse.
or so goes their logic.
i myself believe that people will simply migrate to a more anonymous, more secure network. or simply one in which you download no more than 20 seconds of a given song from a given source (you are legally allowed to distribute a 20 second clip).
the only thing that will measureably kill music 'piracy', is a pay service that's cheap enough and flexible enough to be more viable than the hassles one deals with to pirate music (mislabeled songs, bad rips, radio rips, low bitrates, webcast dj intro/outro's, threat of legal action, etc).
and from the sounds of it, iTunes ain't quite it. (see: locale restrictions, copy restrictions)
former adm John M Poindexter is the lovely proponent of this miscarriage of justice.
you may remember him for being convicted of 5 felonies during the Iran/Contra scandal, and for proposing everyone's favorite Total Information Awareness system.
he just -loves- to do insane things. someone should take away his $10m/yr budget before he gets something past the politicians on the hill.
the data that gets sent to a drm system will be saved, cracked and distributed to open systems. it's not an if. one could fairly easily save packets into a file stream on a modified proxy and then work on cracking the encryption; and even barring that, technical reasons have yet to bridge the analog gap (if its presented on a tube or piped to a speaker - it will be captured and reencoded.)
copy protected data -will- fail, unless the prices fall, or the features rise (or a combination) to the point that customers will look past it. (dvd's are vastly more copy-protected than vhs, and they were adopted - for very good reasons).
and even then - data will continue to be pirated. but most people won't bother, because pirating lowers the features, and increases the time, effort and hassle to the point that just buying it is a better solution.
palladium's only hope for adoption, is in possible restrictions on running unsigned code.
but ms is busier cozy-ing up to the media companies than worrying about what the customer wants.
why would you not support mono?
on
Nat Demos Dashboard
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
microsoft is finally supporting a community effort to port their technology to the open source community; if only by not suing, though most likely unwillingly.
but why would you not throw everything you have behind mono? if anything, it will make a java-style write-once, run-anywhere implimentation no longer language specific, and no-longer a mess of cross-compatibility problems.
with mono running, you could more easily make the case to business who run.Net sites and services to switch over to better linux solutions.
and here's the big one: Businesses could distribute a single code package and customers could install it on whatever system (MS or OSS) that they like.
this could easily bridge the desktop application gap. if support for linux systems is that easy, a real operating system war can begin - one based purely on technical merits, security and stability.
and c# isn't that bad: it's not too different from c++, it's more java-like, and has a more unified set of system apis (unified as in unified across.net languages). it's removal of pointer juggling is an applaudable feature for a language that doesn't cough up much speed at all compared to pure compiled c.
or should we just blindly support java, and shun all things.net - just because it has nothing to do with microsoft?
...and until they do, armchair prognostications like these will remain in the realm of scifi.
assembly lines have been automated to a large extent in the automotive industry. but does GM employ fewer workers today than it did 20 years ago?
does bank one or 5th/3rds even employ fewer tellers on average (per account holder) ?
farming is about the only industry where automation has displaced a large quantity of the workforce while dramatically increasing production. but in that case, government subsidies to incentivize against growth muddy the waters, and that leaves the example inconclusive.
this is list just one guy's guesswork - based on a premise contrary to all the available data on automation.
my frige needs an ip so they can charge me absorbitant rates to automatically populate a web-accessible shopping list when i'm out of milk, or even charge me more to have milk ordered and shipped.
any failure to deliver on a paperless office though, is solely due to bad, misdirected or understaffed IT. if your office wants it, you have it.
unless a new prognostication that 'the end is nigh, in 2005' passes as news. everyone knows it's gonna happen. just as we all know that with NAT and proxies, most of it can be safely delayed by tech companies until they have an outside fiscal force to upgrade.
and i doubt my fridge will have an IP address anytime -before- ipv6 starts to be rolled out en masse.
as with all pure tech - it needs that killer app. something needs to come out that is so fantastically great that everyone has to have it - and it needs to require ipv6. until then - at best we'll be going dual-mode.
good luck finding that app, and educating users what it is, and what it does.
micropayments aren't going to fly, unless there's a cross-vendor api that allows me to choose my own micropayment gateway and not be limited to only -their- micropayment customers. and that isn't likely unless the treasury gets involved. (you can give me a call at my mars cottage when they get around to that)
what content sites -should- do instead, is let people charge up a site-specific 'meter', with say, $5. and as they view content, you deduct micropayments from the script total. when they hit 0, you either bring the ads back for that user or prompt em for more dough.
alternately, sites could just use the street performer protocol. seems to work just fine for every worthy webcomic to date. if not enough people buy t-shirts and prints and collectibles, you close up shop and go somewhere else, or try again (perhaps in a different format).
no need for pvp or penny-arcade or homestarrunner to go to micropayments. sites less dedicated to merchandising can stick with metered subscriptions. everyone wins. (except the micropayment banks)
its just easier for everyone involved if you ask me. plus, there's no additional costs/worries/security issues that you'd get with micropayment banks charging fees, going under, getting hacked, etc, etc, etc
of course google's not perfect. nothing is. but until msn releases something that puts out higher quality hits - i think it's safe to label their article as marketroid whining.
IE will continue to be developed and extended by MS army of coders. they're just going to lock the browser major version to the OS and not supply a standalone download. if you're thinking that IE is on feature freeze, you're greatly mistaken.
aside from that, new features and standards are only added by web developers when the critical mass of the target market has access to them. I doubt any 2nd party browser can pick up critical mass to get significant developer support - let alone in the span of time between MS OS releases.
MS just isn't offering IE as a free standalone download. No doubt it's to escape legal backfire from their declaration that it's an integral part of the OS (if it really is - then you can't offer a free download as they do.)
i'm not going to dismiss the possibility that something else might eclipse IE - but i am willing to dismiss the possibility that it'll happen as a result of lack of development and extension by MS.
man... so much for colonizing mars. at this rate it sounds like we'll have our hands full with just LEO for the forseeable future.
i had no idea just how mismanaged our goals are. or how difficult the managing of our goals is.
but i guess this is our lot until we find some new means of reaching space (elevators, scramjets, slingshots, whatever) in a cheaper, more reliable and more reusable manner.
yes, copyright infringement is not the same as shoplifting. but that analogy is not a long way off. they may be covered by two different laws, but the same philosophical functions are at work: people taking something from a producer without paying for it.
as soon as you buy a CD (or tape for that matter), owning (and downloading) mp3 rips from songs on that CD is legal. so yes, it's wrong - unless you own the CD. so you can try to justify it in your case, but you are still breaking the law, albeit temporarily.
But again, you're missing the point, they're prosecuting the violation of their rights to -distribute-. they aren't coming after you, joe user, because you're downloading music.
you do not have the legal right to be a distribution point, and yet every time you log onto kazaa, you are. if you notice, they're only going after people who are sharing huge collections nearly 24/7. why? because those are the clear cut violations of distribution rights violations.
if everyone behaved as you did, i'm sure it wouldn't be an issue. but the RIAA is a law-smart organization, and they can see the writing on the walls. they need to hold onto their rights as tightly as possible, because when digital distribution really catches - they're yesterdays news.
your return policy justification is akin to vigilante justice. something i don't disagree with, but something that -is- illegal. unfortunately, the anticompetitive units that control music distribution -are- legal, so there will not likely be a store that will allow returns on music CDs (if the RIAA doesn't want to allow it that is). again, i'm not arguing right or wrong. but rather, legal and illegal.
if you're participating in file sharing, even in the responsible way that you do - you -are- breaking the law, and need to stop fooling yourself. you can still be 'right', that's fine. but you can't use that kind of an argument against law.
publishing books is a fantastic example to show how anticompetitive the RIAA is. book publishers -rarely- get up in arms about digital copies. and you -can- return books. why? because there is no RIAA parallel in print. the publishers look at cost/benefit, and unless you're pirating harry potter, they won't waste their time. (and even then they generally only go after those trying to profit on electronic copies).
yes, the RIAA is a horrible business entity. terrible. on par with the utility monopolies you find in most every town. but with the laws as they are - they are legal, and usurping their rights is not.
and if we as a society decide it's time for a change, then we can't just raise our pitchforks and 'solve' it our own way - we have to play by the rules and vote, and get some laws changed.
until then you -are- breaking the law, and it's a shame that it's illegal, but you need to stop fooling yourself. get used to the idea, get an ipod or uninstall kazaa.
even in the boom people were worried about tech outsourcing. so why is this suddenly back up on the radar? my guess is that with a down economy it's more likely that this 'news' will shock people into reading/watching/consuming.
for some reason (ethnocentricity) i doubt that tech jobs will ever be significantly outsourced overseas. yes, gone may be the days of low-hanging fruit in the tech sector, and our growth rate certainly could not be sustained - but if you think it makes sense for the average small or even medium sized company to outsource, you're nuts.
not to mention integration and consultation are the two biggest gems yet to be mined for tech professionals. And they're entirely localized problems. You can't outsource the kind of tech that walks over to your user's desk to help them understand how to get the most from their system - the kind of tech that integrates -your- phone switch with -your- mail server, in -your- office to promote -your- core business practices.
and its not only cost management, it's risk management in a down economy. If you have $10m to invest in a project, and it's kinda risky - hiring local leaves you with full-time employees, employees whose loss -will- affect the morale of everyone else at the company, who -will- be drawing medical coverage, (who probably will get severence or at least holiday pay), and who -will- require infrastructure to support.
if you're not sure a new development is going to bring you new business - it makes sense to outsource. if it fails and you outsourced, you cut your losses and move on. that easy. and while you're outsourcing, what's the difference between the shop down the road and the shop down the pacific?
oh, and that slideshow by Hunt and Thomas was crap. basically it was: reinvest in yourself to keep your job, don't lock your dev experience to a particular vendor/language/industry (duh). but we can't all be 'recognized experts' or lecturers or project managers now can we? it's more a treatise on how the gray hairs can fend off the tide of young coders than how coders can defend themselves from being restructured or outsourced.
the RIAA exists because traditionally it has been very expensive to break into the music business. now that the wall is being torn down, the RIAA is going out of its way to try to ensure its relevancy. (payola, tighter distribution contracts with artists, destroying the credibility of digital distribution, etc) it sucks - but it's all legal.
all that aside this is about theft. downloading mp3s for material you haven't paid for -is- theft. whether it -should-be- or not is debatable. but under the law, it is. bummer.
so this little arms race may be between the good intentioned hackers vs the big bad corporation - but legally it's just pirates against copyright holders.
the fault -doesnt- lie with the consumer, it lies with the pirate. if you've noticed, not even the RIAA is saying 'p2p is bad' anymore. the specific practice of illegal distribution of music is what they're fighting now.
they logistically can't (and don't even try to) sue -you- for downloading. it's not obvious from the information available within a p2p app whether or not you are downloading a song you have fair use rights to (if i own nevermind, i can legally download the mp3s for that album) - and it would be financially prohibitive to even try to figure that out.
-however-, sharing the files is absolutely illegal. the RIAA -owns- the distribution rights for signed artists, and you are infringing on their copyrights by pirating that right.
sure, maybe some day the artists will wise up - but until then, you -are- breaking the law. get used to it, get an ipod, or uninstall kazaa. check your justifications at the door.
and whether or not p2p affects CD sales is irrelevant. discussing that is like trying to justify theft from a profitable business because they're still profitable despite the theft. sure - it's a neat little communistic self-delusion - but it's still theft under our laws.
microsoft doesn't want you copying Halo to your PC for an xbox rom any more than sony wants you burning a hacked SOCOM and running that to jack with network games. none of them want you copying zelda and passing it around. so they build in encryption measures.
sony has its own methods, nintendo has its, microsoft has its own. so what?
this is standard operating procedure for consoles. lock down the inputs as much as possible (while remaining cost effective), lock down the hardware as much as is reasonable to restrict its unanticipated use as you feel comfortable with, etc.
whether or not there's too much control here is up to people to decide with their wallets.
but no-one, certainly no-one here, should be surprised at DRM on a console. sheesh.
call your representatives, amass a constituency who is educated on the issue and bring it up. VOTE out people who aren't responsive and VOTE in people who are.
heck, run for office and get the thing on the agenda.
you can't complain about litigation if you don't get involved in the process.
odds are a staggering percentage of people who read/. don't even vote. i mean, what's great vote turnout anymore? 40%?
(those who participate are exempted from my rant).
people are just as confused with -any- profession specific jargon
legal jargon auto jargon tech jargon aerospace jargon military jargon photography jargon math jargon
c'mon people - if you aren't in a particular field, the lingo is alien to you until you've had exposure to it. and if you never hear it used in -context- of course you're going to be lost.
the consumer only ever gets the high level marketing bulletpoint, and we all know how useful that is. so who's surprised by this?
what we have in the tech circle though, is marketing educating the public in a vacuum, as geeks are more reclusive than, say, auto mechanics. so the -only- think people know, is what the marketroids tell them. and as marketroids don't know anything either - it's pure fabrication.
education is difficult and expensive compared to marketing. obviously they're not going to bother with that.
from the horses mouth http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/reports. asp?Rep ort=93&Section=ReportLevel1&Field=Level1ID&ID= 400
70% of respondants reported playing games 'at least once in a while'
yeah, so everyone who picks up a controller for a quick try at nfl blitz or GTA or DOOM -OR- solitaire or a flash web game once every couple weeks is a 'gamer'.
trust me, there are still all sorts of stereotypical superdorks over here in computer gaming land. but sure, if you include casual gamers, you get a prettier picture.
i'm sure if they delved at all into the people who play for even 5-10 hours a week they'd seem some reinforcement of the stereotype.
you know something is fishy when the study shows that more women than men play games. which isn't a slam on any gamers - but more an indication that we're talking about two different types of gamers.
as gamers, we know the stereotype is the PRG nut, or FPS fanatic who sits alone in a dark room, skipping classes, likely with an elaborate online social life. but here, they're trying to sweep that away by saying that yes, people like hearts and solitaire and golden tee golf too.
maybe the study is just showing that computer gaming isn't a negative thing ( gamers study just as much as non gamers, again, remember their definition of 'gamer') - but the 'journalists' are reporting it without any understanding of games, gamers, or the study. which i guess shouldn't be a surprise really.
Slashdot Mirror
they don't -need- to get everybody.
just enough to get the average p2p participant to change their shared directory away from their main music repository. then with a predominance of leeches and no providers, p2p for music will collapse.
or so goes their logic.
i myself believe that people will simply migrate to a more anonymous, more secure network. or simply one in which you download no more than 20 seconds of a given song from a given source (you are legally allowed to distribute a 20 second clip).
the only thing that will measureably kill music 'piracy', is a pay service that's cheap enough and flexible enough to be more viable than the hassles one deals with to pirate music (mislabeled songs, bad rips, radio rips, low bitrates, webcast dj intro/outro's, threat of legal action, etc).
and from the sounds of it, iTunes ain't quite it. (see: locale restrictions, copy restrictions)
former adm John M Poindexter is the lovely proponent of this miscarriage of justice.
you may remember him for being convicted of 5 felonies during the Iran/Contra scandal, and for proposing everyone's favorite Total Information Awareness system.
he just -loves- to do insane things.
someone should take away his $10m/yr budget before he gets something past the politicians on the hill.
the data that gets sent to a drm system will be saved, cracked and distributed to open systems.
it's not an if. one could fairly easily save packets into a file stream on a modified proxy and then work on cracking the encryption; and even barring that, technical reasons have yet to bridge the analog gap (if its presented on a tube or piped to a speaker - it will be captured and reencoded.)
copy protected data -will- fail, unless the prices fall, or the features rise (or a combination) to the point that customers will look past it. (dvd's are vastly more copy-protected than vhs, and they were adopted - for very good reasons).
and even then - data will continue to be pirated. but most people won't bother, because pirating lowers the features, and increases the time, effort and hassle to the point that just buying it is a better solution.
palladium's only hope for adoption, is in possible restrictions on running unsigned code.
but ms is busier cozy-ing up to the media companies than worrying about what the customer wants.
microsoft is finally supporting a community effort to port their technology to the open source community; if only by not suing, though most likely unwillingly.
.Net sites and services to switch over to better linux solutions.
.net languages). it's removal of pointer juggling is an applaudable feature for a language that doesn't cough up much speed at all compared to pure compiled c.
.net - just because it has nothing to do with microsoft?
but why would you not throw everything you have behind mono? if anything, it will make a java-style write-once, run-anywhere implimentation no longer language specific, and no-longer a mess of cross-compatibility problems.
with mono running, you could more easily make the case to business who run
and here's the big one: Businesses could distribute a single code package and customers could install it on whatever system (MS or OSS) that they like.
this could easily bridge the desktop application gap. if support for linux systems is that easy, a real operating system war can begin - one based purely on technical merits, security and stability.
and c# isn't that bad: it's not too different from c++, it's more java-like, and has a more unified set of system apis (unified as in unified across
or should we just blindly support java, and shun all things
...and until they do, armchair prognostications like these will remain in the realm of scifi.
assembly lines have been automated to a large extent in the automotive industry. but does GM employ fewer workers today than it did 20 years ago?
does bank one or 5th/3rds even employ fewer tellers on average (per account holder) ?
farming is about the only industry where automation has displaced a large quantity of the workforce while dramatically increasing production. but in that case, government subsidies to incentivize against growth muddy the waters, and that leaves the example inconclusive.
this is list just one guy's guesswork - based on a premise contrary to all the available data on automation.
... and then do yourself a favor and leave michigan.
it really has no other redeeming content worthy of the limited attention of an overseas visitor. *really*
my frige needs an ip so they can charge me absorbitant rates to automatically populate a web-accessible shopping list when i'm out of milk, or even charge me more to have milk ordered and shipped.
any failure to deliver on a paperless office though, is solely due to bad, misdirected or understaffed IT. if your office wants it, you have it.
unless a new prognostication that 'the end is nigh, in 2005' passes as news. everyone knows it's gonna happen. just as we all know that with NAT and proxies, most of it can be safely delayed by tech companies until they have an outside fiscal force to upgrade.
and i doubt my fridge will have an IP address anytime -before- ipv6 starts to be rolled out en masse.
as with all pure tech - it needs that killer app. something needs to come out that is so fantastically great that everyone has to have it - and it needs to require ipv6. until then - at best we'll be going dual-mode.
good luck finding that app, and educating users what it is, and what it does.
micropayments aren't going to fly, unless there's a cross-vendor api that allows me to choose my own micropayment gateway and not be limited to only -their- micropayment customers. and that isn't likely unless the treasury gets involved. (you can give me a call at my mars cottage when they get around to that)
what content sites -should- do instead, is let people charge up a site-specific 'meter', with say, $5. and as they view content, you deduct micropayments from the script total. when they hit 0, you either bring the ads back for that user or prompt em for more dough.
alternately, sites could just use the street performer protocol. seems to work just fine for every worthy webcomic to date. if not enough people buy t-shirts and prints and collectibles, you close up shop and go somewhere else, or try again (perhaps in a different format).
no need for pvp or penny-arcade or homestarrunner to go to micropayments. sites less dedicated to merchandising can stick with metered subscriptions. everyone wins. (except the micropayment banks)
its just easier for everyone involved if you ask me. plus, there's no additional costs/worries/security issues that you'd get with micropayment banks charging fees, going under, getting hacked, etc, etc, etc
that wouldn't make sense at all... /boggle
of course google's not perfect. nothing is.
but until msn releases something that puts out higher quality hits - i think it's safe to label their article as marketroid whining.
let's see.... 'stealing' a copy right... you mean someone would have to do something like usurping the purchased right to distribute?
oh wait, isn't anyone who uploads copyrighted material (who doesn't own the right to distribute for that material) doing just that?
the RIAA has never sued anyone for -down-loading.
evil bastards they are - but they are sticking to the law very carefully.
and yet whenever i try to tell people in the 'woe is java because of MS' threads that java has its own problems - i get called an MS plant and troll.
i'm just a developer who's run into these kinds of things too, and java left a damn sour taste in my mouth.
it's portable ansi C for me.
IE will continue to be developed and extended by MS army of coders. they're just going to lock the browser major version to the OS and not supply a standalone download. if you're thinking that IE is on feature freeze, you're greatly mistaken.
aside from that, new features and standards are only added by web developers when the critical mass of the target market has access to them. I doubt any 2nd party browser can pick up critical mass to get significant developer support - let alone in the span of time between MS OS releases.
MS just isn't offering IE as a free standalone download. No doubt it's to escape legal backfire from their declaration that it's an integral part of the OS (if it really is - then you can't offer a free download as they do.)
i'm not going to dismiss the possibility that something else might eclipse IE - but i am willing to dismiss the possibility that it'll happen as a result of lack of development and extension by MS.
guess we outta get used to the idea of martians speaking mandarin.
man... so much for colonizing mars. at this rate it sounds like we'll have our hands full with just LEO for the forseeable future.
i had no idea just how mismanaged our goals are.
or how difficult the managing of our goals is.
but i guess this is our lot until we find some new means of reaching space (elevators, scramjets, slingshots, whatever) in a cheaper, more reliable and more reusable manner.
and how exactly is piracy different than theft?
yes, copyright infringement is not the same as shoplifting. but that analogy is not a long way off. they may be covered by two different laws, but the same philosophical functions are at work: people taking something from a producer without paying for it.
as soon as you buy a CD (or tape for that matter), owning (and downloading) mp3 rips from songs on that CD is legal. so yes, it's wrong - unless you own the CD. so you can try to justify it in your case, but you are still breaking the law, albeit temporarily.
But again, you're missing the point, they're prosecuting the violation of their rights to -distribute-. they aren't coming after you, joe user, because you're downloading music.
you do not have the legal right to be a distribution point, and yet every time you log onto kazaa, you are. if you notice, they're only going after people who are sharing huge collections nearly 24/7. why? because those are the clear cut violations of distribution rights violations.
if everyone behaved as you did, i'm sure it wouldn't be an issue. but the RIAA is a law-smart organization, and they can see the writing on the walls. they need to hold onto their rights as tightly as possible, because when digital distribution really catches - they're yesterdays news.
your return policy justification is akin to vigilante justice. something i don't disagree with, but something that -is- illegal. unfortunately, the anticompetitive units that control music distribution -are- legal, so there will not likely be a store that will allow returns on music CDs (if the RIAA doesn't want to allow it that is). again, i'm not arguing right or wrong. but rather, legal and illegal.
if you're participating in file sharing, even in the responsible way that you do - you -are- breaking the law, and need to stop fooling yourself. you can still be 'right', that's fine. but you can't use that kind of an argument against law.
publishing books is a fantastic example to show how anticompetitive the RIAA is. book publishers -rarely- get up in arms about digital copies. and you -can- return books. why? because there is no RIAA parallel in print. the publishers look at cost/benefit, and unless you're pirating harry potter, they won't waste their time. (and even then they generally only go after those trying to profit on electronic copies).
yes, the RIAA is a horrible business entity. terrible. on par with the utility monopolies you find in most every town. but with the laws as they are - they are legal, and usurping their rights is not.
and if we as a society decide it's time for a change, then we can't just raise our pitchforks and 'solve' it our own way - we have to play by the rules and vote, and get some laws changed.
until then you -are- breaking the law, and it's a shame that it's illegal, but you need to stop fooling yourself. get used to the idea, get an ipod or uninstall kazaa.
even in the boom people were worried about tech outsourcing. so why is this suddenly back up on the radar? my guess is that with a down economy it's more likely that this 'news' will shock people into reading/watching/consuming.
for some reason (ethnocentricity) i doubt that tech jobs will ever be significantly outsourced overseas. yes, gone may be the days of low-hanging fruit in the tech sector, and our growth rate certainly could not be sustained - but if you think it makes sense for the average small or even medium sized company to outsource, you're nuts.
not to mention integration and consultation are the two biggest gems yet to be mined for tech professionals. And they're entirely localized problems. You can't outsource the kind of tech that walks over to your user's desk to help them understand how to get the most from their system - the kind of tech that integrates -your- phone switch with -your- mail server, in -your- office to promote -your- core business practices.
and its not only cost management, it's risk management in a down economy. If you have $10m to invest in a project, and it's kinda risky - hiring local leaves you with full-time employees, employees whose loss -will- affect the morale of everyone else at the company, who -will- be drawing medical coverage, (who probably will get severence or at least holiday pay), and who -will- require infrastructure to support.
if you're not sure a new development is going to bring you new business - it makes sense to outsource. if it fails and you outsourced, you cut your losses and move on. that easy. and while you're outsourcing, what's the difference between the shop down the road and the shop down the pacific?
oh, and that slideshow by Hunt and Thomas was crap. basically it was: reinvest in yourself to keep your job, don't lock your dev experience to a particular vendor/language/industry (duh). but we can't all be 'recognized experts' or lecturers or project managers now can we? it's more a treatise on how the gray hairs can fend off the tide of young coders than how coders can defend themselves from being restructured or outsourced.
the RIAA exists because traditionally it has been very expensive to break into the music business.
now that the wall is being torn down, the RIAA is going out of its way to try to ensure its relevancy. (payola, tighter distribution contracts with artists, destroying the credibility of digital distribution, etc) it sucks - but it's all legal.
all that aside this is about theft. downloading mp3s for material you haven't paid for -is- theft. whether it -should-be- or not is debatable. but under the law, it is. bummer.
so this little arms race may be between the good intentioned hackers vs the big bad corporation - but legally it's just pirates against copyright holders.
the fault -doesnt- lie with the consumer, it lies with the pirate. if you've noticed, not even the RIAA is saying 'p2p is bad' anymore. the specific practice of illegal distribution of music is what they're fighting now.
they logistically can't (and don't even try to) sue -you- for downloading. it's not obvious from the information available within a p2p app whether or not you are downloading a song you have fair use rights to (if i own nevermind, i can legally download the mp3s for that album) - and it would be financially prohibitive to even try to figure that out.
-however-, sharing the files is absolutely illegal. the RIAA -owns- the distribution rights for signed artists, and you are infringing on their copyrights by pirating that right.
sure, maybe some day the artists will wise up - but until then, you -are- breaking the law. get used to it, get an ipod, or uninstall kazaa. check your justifications at the door.
and whether or not p2p affects CD sales is irrelevant. discussing that is like trying to justify theft from a profitable business because they're still profitable despite the theft. sure - it's a neat little communistic self-delusion - but it's still theft under our laws.
not really anyway.
microsoft doesn't want you copying Halo to your PC for an xbox rom any more than sony wants you burning a hacked SOCOM and running that to jack with network games. none of them want you copying zelda and passing it around. so they build in encryption measures.
sony has its own methods, nintendo has its, microsoft has its own. so what?
this is standard operating procedure for consoles. lock down the inputs as much as possible (while remaining cost effective), lock down the hardware as much as is reasonable to restrict its unanticipated use as you feel comfortable with, etc.
whether or not there's too much control here is up to people to decide with their wallets.
but no-one, certainly no-one here, should be surprised at DRM on a console. sheesh.
do they -read-
...maybe that you were just suggesting that this was an opportunity to get another rover on mars.
because after the last couple attempts, just because they launch doesn't seem to mean a guaranteed placement.
call your representatives, amass a constituency who is educated on the issue and bring it up. VOTE out people who aren't responsive and VOTE in people who are.
/. don't even vote. i mean, what's great vote turnout anymore? 40%?
heck, run for office and get the thing on the agenda.
you can't complain about litigation if you don't get involved in the process.
odds are a staggering percentage of people who read
(those who participate are exempted from my rant).
N Ireland is a slightly different problem.
Ireland wants/wanted more autonomy, more fair treatement and equal time within their homeland since time immemorial.
Al Qaeda wants us off the planet. out of the middle east in the short term, but off the planet inevitably.
It's kinda hard to reason with that.
people are just as confused with -any- profession specific jargon
legal jargon
auto jargon
tech jargon
aerospace jargon
military jargon
photography jargon
math jargon
c'mon people - if you aren't in a particular field, the lingo is alien to you until you've had exposure to it. and if you never hear it used in -context- of course you're going to be lost.
the consumer only ever gets the high level marketing bulletpoint, and we all know how useful that is. so who's surprised by this?
what we have in the tech circle though, is marketing educating the public in a vacuum, as geeks are more reclusive than, say, auto mechanics. so the -only- think people know, is what the marketroids tell them. and as marketroids don't know anything either - it's pure fabrication.
education is difficult and expensive compared to marketing. obviously they're not going to bother with that.
from the horses mouth. asp?Rep ort=93&Section=ReportLevel1&Field=Level1ID&ID= 400
http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/reports
70% of respondants reported playing games 'at least once in a while'
yeah, so everyone who picks up a controller for a quick try at nfl blitz or GTA or DOOM -OR- solitaire or a flash web game once every couple weeks is a 'gamer'.
trust me, there are still all sorts of stereotypical superdorks over here in computer gaming land. but sure, if you include casual gamers, you get a prettier picture.
i'm sure if they delved at all into the people who play for even 5-10 hours a week they'd seem some reinforcement of the stereotype.
you know something is fishy when the study shows that more women than men play games. which isn't a slam on any gamers - but more an indication that we're talking about two different types of gamers.
as gamers, we know the stereotype is the PRG nut, or FPS fanatic who sits alone in a dark room, skipping classes, likely with an elaborate online social life. but here, they're trying to sweep that away by saying that yes, people like hearts and solitaire and golden tee golf too.
maybe the study is just showing that computer gaming isn't a negative thing ( gamers study just as much as non gamers, again, remember their definition of 'gamer') - but the 'journalists' are reporting it without any understanding of games, gamers, or the study. which i guess shouldn't be a surprise really.
what shlock.