First, Sony's hand was essentially forced to pull the movie. With the major theaters refusing to show the movie, it wasn't financially sound to release it to small independent theaters.
Second, I doubt that the theater chains believe that North Korea would pull off such a crime, but that doesn't stop the odd crazy American nut job from using this as an excuse to fulfill their deranged fantasies. Not only do dead movie goers stop contributing to your bottom line, the survivor's lawyers would have a field day in court with all the "You were warned!" lawsuits.
You can't "pull out" of a Kickstarter for a loss; it's not an investor relationship. Sure, you can decide to pay them, then decide not to pay them (but only if the project is ongoing), but once the Kickstarter ends, it's done: you've paid them, they get your money, and you have to trust them to deliver the goods.
... You can't put in $100, then decide later you don't want to do it and only get back $20. Kickstarter is the check and balance system that the dot.com era needed to prevent a bursting bubble.
While you and I might not see this as an investment, I suspect many people will. Yes, they may not be investing in a piece of the company, however, they are expecting to get something back for their money. (Is it possible to offer a portion of future profits through Kickstarter as a reward?) Kickstarter is a great idea, but I don't have faith that the general public will see it for what it really is, a good faith gamble that your project will come to fruition. How long before the media starts hyping it up and it gets perceived as the next big investment wave? How long before lawyers get involved and starting suing to get that $100 back when the promise isn't delivered? How long before the spammers/scammers/incompetents start loading it up with bogus projects? I may well be wrong, and truly I hope that I am, but I have to side with the overall point of the article and state that I believe this will be a short-lived fad.
I'm sorry but If I knew VMware was dealing with and supplying source code of of an ordinarily closed source product to the Chinese military I WOULD NOT PURCHASE THAT PRODUCT.
Nobody in their right mind should use something that PRC could see the source to, but they themselves could not.
What kind of xenophobic rant is that? What the hell is the Chinese military going to do to your Ubuntu distribution running in a virtual machine? I'll bet there is a lot of source code that they see that you aren't privy to. How many of those automotive computer systems are built in China/Taiwan? Plan to do a lot of horseback riding do you? I think its a far stretch to assume that just because they have seen the source code to something they are going to spend the time and manpower to turn it into some world domination thing. It would be more likely that they were given access to the source code to evaluate how secure it was.
That is exactly the sort of drivel that I would expect from Mr. Priest, who makes his living off of selling new passports! He's a business person after all, part of a corporation (International Passport Visas, Inc.) He wants you to believe that any kind of damage renders your passport useless and requires you to purchase a new one, preferably from the corporation he works for. Instead of interviewing someone who profits from peddling passports for a living, maybe the reporter should have interviewed someone from the state department.
I don't need "sound bites" or political mumbo jumbo or statistics pulled out of my arse to make my decisions. The fact of the matter is that I experienced this exact situation in 1996/1997 when I became and independant contractor and tried to buy insurance for my wife, newly adopted daughter, and myself. Because my wife was a smoker and my sister was an epelectic, I was denied time after time. I couldn't even find a solo policy to cover my daughter. In the end, I paid for all of my daughters required doctor visits out of my own pocket without the assistance of insurance and went to work for "the man" immediately after completing the contract. NOTHING in my statement was a political view on the current health care system, it was simply stating the facts in response to the assumption that health care CAN be purchased by anyone.
Um, programmers, or anyone else CAN buy health care without their employers being part of the transaction. It's probably going to cost more because when we say that employers are "part of the transaction", that means they are paying for a large part of the transaction. There is no law that says you have to let them.
Um! Have you ever tried to purchase insurance for just you and your family? Cost aside, many insurance companies will NOT insure you. Why? Because the risk is there that you will use those benefits. Insurance companies expect that a certain number of employees will NOT use their benefits and generate enough profit to outweigh the expenses of those that do. And if you have ANY pre-exsisting conditions or you've ever smoked a cigarette in your lifetime, they will just flat out deny you any coverage no matter what the cost, as a matter of policy. If you do find some obscure insurance company that will cover you, you can bet your life (not just figuratively speaking) that it will cost you an amount much much more than an employee and his/her employer's contribution for that policy.
I agree with you 100 percent, well almost. Forcing Verizon to do anything that isn't in their corporations best interest is morally wrong. Because we all know that large corporation are only looking out for what is best for the consumer! If you get a "free" phone from Verizon for your aging mother so that she can stay in contact with you more easily, well then you SHOULD have to pay the early termination fee of $350.00 for that $29.99 piece of electronics when she passes away on the 21st month of your contract. And while we are at it, let us remove those other pesky regulations that the goverment has placed upon these large corporations. Let us remove the one where they are required to pay a minimum wage to their employees. We all know that this is just costing us jobs. Hell, my cousin Bruce could be making as much as 50 cents an hour AND have a job if it wasn't for that pesky goverment interference. Shame on you Mr. President (Because we all know that he REALLY makes all the laws, the Congress and Senate are just for show.) Let's remove the regulation that says Verizon must provide access to their lines from other competitors as well. I don't want no stinking Sprint customer to be able to call me. (You and your aging mother are using the SAME provider, aren't you?)
My point is that a truly and totally free market is a farce. There has to be a balancing act performed to keep the market truly competitive and profitable. Unfortunately, one groups idea of fair and balanced differs from another groups idea of fair and balanced. That is why we need regulation. Maybe this particular case isn't one that requires regulation. Maybe this particular case works as it currently is implemented. Obviously not everyone believes that, especially the person who DIDN'T get a DROID and then for whatever reason had to cancel their contract two months early.
Oh and one more thing. Maybe forcing PEOPLE to do something is morally wrong, but corporations are NOT people. People generally have to live with their actions, a corporation can merely disolve itself and start up as a completely different corporation. It is a lot more difficult for a person to simply disolve their identity and reappear under a completely new one free of all legal and moral obligations of their past actions. If the US goverment is going to provide corporations with that type of benefit then they do have a MORAL responsibility to make sure they don't abuse it.
Eh, I have a real problem with prosecuting the people for "making available." Prosecuting people that share their music for having enabled copyright infrigement is essentially like prosecuting people for leaving their doors unlocked and having enabled burglary.
Except Tenenbaum was not making his OWN property available, it belonged to someone else. A closer analogy would be more like...
"Prosecuting people for picking their neighbor's locks and having enabled THEM to be burgled."
I stand corrected. First Sale is not a 'right' although up until recently it was a general expectation of the consumer. I guess my point was that the knowledge contained within the IP could in essence be 'locked' away from the public forever if a legal means of passing that knowledge onto someone else is not made possible. And that 'locking' away of knowledge doesn't have to come from some 'evil or greedy' corporation. It may happen simply because it was no longer profitable to maintain the locks or they were just forgotten. Very few ideas are truly original, most are formed from previous exposure to others. Imagine if we allowed those previous ideas to be locked up and forgotten, never to be recovered again.
>>> I'm not seeing any difference between "digital rights management" and the MicroProse C=64 disks I used to buy which used digital errors to block copying. It seems they both achieve the same goal: Stop copying and also block the user from uploading the Microprose game to a friend.
Well I am sorry, but I clearly see a difference.
"Copy Protection" did not prevent you from performing any of the following actions...
1. It did not prevent you from using your software on a portable unit. (SX-64)
2. It did not prevent you from using your software on a newer, upgraded model. (C=128) (Although this could be debated if the protection scheme turned out to be incompatible with the newer hardware. In those cases, the publisher, inevitably released patches or new versions that were compatible if the market conditions were acceptable.)
3. It did not prevent you from using your software on a replacement unit. (New C=64 machine purchased to replace broken C=64 machine)
4. It did not prevent you from taking your software over to a friends house and playing it with your friend. (If it was multi-player. At least you didn't have to cart your C=64 around with you to show off your new purchase.)
5. It did not prevent your from donating or re-selling that software to someone else after you no longer had a use for it. (Right of First Sale.)
6. It did not prevent you from using the software if you just happened to forget the password, forget the login account, or otherwise fail to validate the myriad other ways that are now used to ensure that the person attempting to use the software in indeed the original purchaser.
All of these issues are and have been generally applied to consumer purchases in the past. No one places DRM type restrictions on my purchase of an automobile, house, or TV set. Yet "Digital Rights Management" seeks to prevent the consumer from doing any one of the above.
In summary, "Copy Protection" prevented you from making unauthorized "copies" of the software. "DRM" is designed to prevent you from making unauthorized "uses" of that same software. However, letting a corporation who's ultimate motive is monetary profit (Nothing wrong with that) decide what is a legal and authorized "use" (Everything wrong with that) goes against the entire grain and intent of Copyright laws. Copyright laws were enacted to create a fair and balanced benefit between the author AND the public welfare! If we allow corporations to restrict how knowledge can be used (and that IS what intellectual property is, knowledge.) then we restrict everyone's, including our own, future development and welfare.
However,
If you purchase a piece of hardware that cleary has a defective design, (i.e. the fuel tanks on the Ford Pinto, an Xbox 360 that doesn't properly disperse heat causing it to die prematurely with the red ring of death) you could and should expect the manufacturer to correct the situation. Just because the inability to play back music on my Zune isn't life threatening doesn't make it OK for merchants to pawn defective equipment off onto an unsuspecting public. Furthermore, this is a defect that has ALWAYS been there, just not discovered until now. It is not a part that wore out over time. The Zune was defective from day one. This assumes that the bug was present in earlier versions of the firmware. If it was not, then does that mean that Ford can come 'force' me to upgrade my pickup with a part that will soon render it unusable? This is essentially what Microsoft does in order for you to make use of their online DRM protected music distribution. Microsoft was just lucky in that it only caused a temporary single day incapacitation of their product. What kind of outrage would there have been if this had turned out to be a permanent 'Zunicide'?
Perhaps you yourself should have 'continued' to check YOUR facts. From t-Mobile's "View Data Plan Terms" section 2. Protective Measures:
"To provide a good experience for the majority of our customers and minimize capacity issues and degradation in network performance, we may take measures including temporarily reducing data throughput for a subset of customers who use a disproportionate amount of bandwidth; if your total usage exceeds 10GB (amount is subject to change; please periodically check T-Mobile.com for updates) during a billing cycle, we may reduce your data speed for the remainder of that billing cycle. We may also suspend, terminate, or restrict your data session, Plan, or service if you use your Data Plan in a manner that interferes with other customers' service, our ability to allocate network capacity among customers, or that otherwise may degrade service quality for other customers."
As with many other providers, "unlimited == limited". Advertising a specific bandwidth speed as unlimited and then cutting that speed to aproximately the same rate as an old 9600 baud modem, is effectively the same as 'limiting' your usage.
How can you blindly file lawsuits against people you know nothing about?
Because the United States Congress, Senate, and Executive Office have made it possible with the ill-thought-out DMCA law. If you want to stop RIAA from taking this kind of action, get the law repealed or at least changed. (Easier said than done, I know. But it's the only way we will ever be able to stop the lunacy!) Giving corporations the power to make laws and enforce them without any kind of balance is just plain ludicrous! As long as lawmakers bestow upon RIAA the power to do this, they will.
I see this as a new oppurtunity to market a 3rd party application that will read those older formats and convert them to the newer ones. Then M$ can see how popular the software is, buy the company up, and include it as a new feature for Office 2010!!!
Good point, however, this is still an inconvenience, an invasion of privacy, an economic burden on the airlines, and ultimately on the travelers. What proof is there that any of these "good intentions" actually prevent terrorism? Is it because we haven't had any incidents since 9/11/2001? Well guess what? We had an incident before that in Oklahoma on 4/19/1995, we implemented all kinds of new security checks and methods dealing with potential bomb making materials and rental trucks. Wow, we all felt much better and safer after those were implemented. Sure, it was a little inconvenient for some farmers and truck rental places, but, hell, we paid the price, knowing that we would all be much safer. Besides, I wasn't a farmer and I didn't need to rent a truck anytime soon. Oh wait, the terrorists then thought of a new way to attack us. And you know what? They'll think of another way as long as they have a desire or a reason to do so. If we lock all the doors and windows, they'll come in through the chimney. So why do we go to such extreme measures? To make us all feel better? To scare us into relinquishing more of our civil rights and liberties? To give more power to those who crave it? Seems to me Bin Laden was correct, the world is an entirely different place now. Evidently he has succeeded. You'll have to excuse me now, I have to go apply for my travel papers.
Does anyone here ever read these patents before posting how stupid they supposedly are? Reading the patent clearly shows that they are not applying for a patent on predicting text alone, but rather on an input method used by most PDA's and visual keyboards. In addition to displaying possible words, it HIGHLIGHTS the keys on the visual keyboard or displays the input strokes required to generate the next character that it thinks you want to select. Visual Studio never lit up characters on my keyboard, it never even displayed a visual keyboard on my screen. I'm all for patent reform and striking down obvious techniques, but in this case, while IANAL, on its face value it looks pretty legitmate to me.
(Not entirely sure that its all that much more useful than the standard predictive text stuff that I've already seen or used, but that is not the point.)
IANAL but I'm not sure you could call this entrapment. If the client does not actually attempt to download copyrighted material, but simply seeks out material on the computer, then the person has already committed the crime. All the MPAA is attempting to do is get your computer to snitch you out. However, for those who have friends and family that are not of a./ level, they may very well believe this to be legitimate. I just spent hours cleaning up a system that was loaded with trojans and viruses. Amongst the software installed was LimeWire Pro. When I confronted my friend about it, informing him of the risks of trading copyrighted material with these P2P applications, he informed me that he had purchased LimeWire Pro so it must be legitmate. (LimeWire wasn't the 'cause' of his problems, but some of the content that he traded with it was.)
The trouble with all of these cases and business models is that not every consumer out there is aware of these issues. Many grew up making mix tapes for their friends, not fully aware of copyright laws. Mostly due to the fact that most people associated the copyright with the physical media on which it was purchased. It wasn't easily distributed on the mass scale that is possible today. We can't go around jailing Grandma and Uncle Bill because they thought that they were getting a great deal on some old music. We can't lock up Mommy because little sister found a neat way to fill up her little MP3 player. We shouldn't even being allowing these businesses to bully these people into giving up their life savings. It doesn't benefit society at all to do so. It only benefits a few of the elite, who do not need it.
So both sides need to reach a common ground, one that is beneficial to the artists/corporations and to society as a whole. Business needs to look at new models, and society needs to learn to respect the rights of the owners. Trading a mix tape with a friend doesn't have near the impact as trading it with 5 million internet users. If a solution isn't found soon, we will have to build more prisons to hold those filthy MP3ers. (I can see it now... "What are you in for?" "Dude, I was trading Def Leopard songs, don't #$&*^ with me!") We'd also have to create welfare housing for all those that had their retirement dwindeled away by legal fees. Or maybe we should forget about the prisons and welfare housing and just shoot them. (Oh wait, then we would need more landfills. I wonder if you could convert people to the material used to create CDs? Soylent Blues???)
And if the RIAA mistakenly applies an IP address to you, its OK with you for law enforcement to break down your door and seize all of your computer equipment and software without ever charging you for a crime? We do that now when we suspect illegal drugs. Soon US law enforcement will do so because Microsoft 'suspects' that you are using a 'bogus' copy of Windows.
"What are you in for?" "I downloaded Puff the Magic Dragon MP3 off the internet. Stay away from me mother @#^*@. I'm a bad ass."
"It is true that this method would mean that the goverment decides who gets the money from this. However, isn't that what's happening now? The government right now is the arbiter of who gets copyright, and thus who gets to benefit from the system."
How is this statement true? In my country, the United States, I am granted a copyright the moment I create something. I may have to use the government's court system to defend that copyright, but the court's role, and therefore the government's role, is only to determine whether or not I was the original creator. Even if I create something that the popular government does not approve of, I am still granted an immediate copyright on that work.
The only other role that I can possibly think of would be that of overseeing copyright registration. But my government cannot deny me the registration process simply because it does not approve of my work. And the registration process is supplied as a convenient method of proving my content's original creation date.
Copyrights should not be abolished. However, their owners should not be granted extension after extension thereby preventing those works from entering the public domain, simply because their owner's have amassed such a fortune that they can purchase our elected officials and entice them to do so. It is the duty of our Congress (here in the US, at least) to balance the system so that the owners receive fair compensation and the public eventually reaps the benefits of those creative minds. If Congress continues to side with corporate greed, at the cost of society's progress, we can expect to see such great future literary works as Terminator 753, Rocky XXXIV, and Stuart Little Retires!
If there isn't, maybe we should start one. And by the way, submit a patent request for the use of a website to assist in prior art searches for patents!
And what part of his statement leads you to believe that he doesn't EARN his 5 figures? Just because someone works for the government and enjoys the job security, doesn't mean they get a free ride. They are still required to perform the work they were hired to do, and failure to do so can, and most likely will, result in termination. They just have the added benefit of not getting screwed over or exploited because someone needed to justify their multi-million dollar salary and bonuses.
The American dream is not to be a perpetual employee for Circuit City, but that being a hard, loyal, and responsible worker will result in you receiving just compensation for your efforts. What Circuit City did here was to terminate a class of employees based on how much they made, not how much they were worth. If Circuit City, and other corporations, are allowed to profit from this line of thought, then what hope is there for the common lay person (read: most of us) of ever succeeding in life, let alone surviving. Do we really want to send the message that of the 6.6 billion people on this planet, only the selfish, uncaring, and cold-hearted will survive? This act of cowardice on the part of Circuit City reveals that the TRUE incompetance lies within upper management. Instead of performing their responsibilities and weeding out those that were NOT pulling their weight, they chose a shotgun approach, hoping that this course of action would solve all of their corporate ills. It will not!
So in hopes of protecting all of our current and future employment opportunities, I will play my very small part and not patronize Circuit City. I can only hope that others see the real dangers in this madness and take it upon themselves to do the same.
There are numerous reasons why people can have bad credit. Identity theft, unexpected medical expenses, taxes, natural disasters, even corporate bankruptcies. You see, if a corporation files bankruptcy, it can just 'commit suicide' and cease to exist. Its principals, who are often the ones responsible for running it into the ground, simply start a 'new life' and a new corporation with the assets that they manipulated out of the old corporation. Unfotunately, individuals, can't just simply cease to exist and then re-emerge as a new entity. Its quite hypocritical for a corporation who's principals are basically immune from the effects of financial mismanagement can discriminate against those that are not (i.e. the employee).
Perhaps its time to write your congressman and get this practice outlawed. There once was a time in the USA where the lawmakers actually served and looked out for the public. I can remember when the practice of using lie detectors during the employment screening process was outlawed, except for cases where the job warranted it. A credit check may be in order for a CFO or even a bank teller, but is it really necessary for the person who asks "Would you like fries with that?"
Slashdot Mirror
First, Sony's hand was essentially forced to pull the movie. With the major theaters refusing to show the movie, it wasn't financially sound to release it to small independent theaters.
Second, I doubt that the theater chains believe that North Korea would pull off such a crime, but that doesn't stop the odd crazy American nut job from using this as an excuse to fulfill their deranged fantasies. Not only do dead movie goers stop contributing to your bottom line, the survivor's lawyers would have a field day in court with all the "You were warned!" lawsuits.
You can't "pull out" of a Kickstarter for a loss; it's not an investor relationship. Sure, you can decide to pay them, then decide not to pay them (but only if the project is ongoing), but once the Kickstarter ends, it's done: you've paid them, they get your money, and you have to trust them to deliver the goods.
... You can't put in $100, then decide later you don't want to do it and only get back $20. Kickstarter is the check and balance system that the dot.com era needed to prevent a bursting bubble.
While you and I might not see this as an investment, I suspect many people will. Yes, they may not be investing in a piece of the company, however, they are expecting to get something back for their money. (Is it possible to offer a portion of future profits through Kickstarter as a reward?) Kickstarter is a great idea, but I don't have faith that the general public will see it for what it really is, a good faith gamble that your project will come to fruition. How long before the media starts hyping it up and it gets perceived as the next big investment wave? How long before lawyers get involved and starting suing to get that $100 back when the promise isn't delivered? How long before the spammers/scammers/incompetents start loading it up with bogus projects? I may well be wrong, and truly I hope that I am, but I have to side with the overall point of the article and state that I believe this will be a short-lived fad.
I'm sorry but If I knew VMware was dealing with and supplying source code of of an ordinarily closed source product to the Chinese military I WOULD NOT PURCHASE THAT PRODUCT.
Nobody in their right mind should use something that PRC could see the source to, but they themselves could not.
What kind of xenophobic rant is that? What the hell is the Chinese military going to do to your Ubuntu distribution running in a virtual machine? I'll bet there is a lot of source code that they see that you aren't privy to. How many of those automotive computer systems are built in China/Taiwan? Plan to do a lot of horseback riding do you? I think its a far stretch to assume that just because they have seen the source code to something they are going to spend the time and manpower to turn it into some world domination thing. It would be more likely that they were given access to the source code to evaluate how secure it was.
That is exactly the sort of drivel that I would expect from Mr. Priest, who makes his living off of selling new passports! He's a business person after all, part of a corporation (International Passport Visas, Inc.) He wants you to believe that any kind of damage renders your passport useless and requires you to purchase a new one, preferably from the corporation he works for. Instead of interviewing someone who profits from peddling passports for a living, maybe the reporter should have interviewed someone from the state department.
Correction "assumption that health INSURANCE CAN be purchased by anyone." (Should have caught that in the initial preview - argghhh!)
I don't need "sound bites" or political mumbo jumbo or statistics pulled out of my arse to make my decisions. The fact of the matter is that I experienced this exact situation in 1996/1997 when I became and independant contractor and tried to buy insurance for my wife, newly adopted daughter, and myself. Because my wife was a smoker and my sister was an epelectic, I was denied time after time. I couldn't even find a solo policy to cover my daughter. In the end, I paid for all of my daughters required doctor visits out of my own pocket without the assistance of insurance and went to work for "the man" immediately after completing the contract. NOTHING in my statement was a political view on the current health care system, it was simply stating the facts in response to the assumption that health care CAN be purchased by anyone.
Um, programmers, or anyone else CAN buy health care without their employers being part of the transaction. It's probably going to cost more because when we say that employers are "part of the transaction", that means they are paying for a large part of the transaction. There is no law that says you have to let them.
Um! Have you ever tried to purchase insurance for just you and your family? Cost aside, many insurance companies will NOT insure you. Why? Because the risk is there that you will use those benefits. Insurance companies expect that a certain number of employees will NOT use their benefits and generate enough profit to outweigh the expenses of those that do. And if you have ANY pre-exsisting conditions or you've ever smoked a cigarette in your lifetime, they will just flat out deny you any coverage no matter what the cost, as a matter of policy. If you do find some obscure insurance company that will cover you, you can bet your life (not just figuratively speaking) that it will cost you an amount much much more than an employee and his/her employer's contribution for that policy.
I can't believe you interpreted sarcasm as literal.
I agree with you 100 percent, well almost. Forcing Verizon to do anything that isn't in their corporations best interest is morally wrong. Because we all know that large corporation are only looking out for what is best for the consumer! If you get a "free" phone from Verizon for your aging mother so that she can stay in contact with you more easily, well then you SHOULD have to pay the early termination fee of $350.00 for that $29.99 piece of electronics when she passes away on the 21st month of your contract. And while we are at it, let us remove those other pesky regulations that the goverment has placed upon these large corporations. Let us remove the one where they are required to pay a minimum wage to their employees. We all know that this is just costing us jobs. Hell, my cousin Bruce could be making as much as 50 cents an hour AND have a job if it wasn't for that pesky goverment interference. Shame on you Mr. President (Because we all know that he REALLY makes all the laws, the Congress and Senate are just for show.) Let's remove the regulation that says Verizon must provide access to their lines from other competitors as well. I don't want no stinking Sprint customer to be able to call me. (You and your aging mother are using the SAME provider, aren't you?)
My point is that a truly and totally free market is a farce. There has to be a balancing act performed to keep the market truly competitive and profitable. Unfortunately, one groups idea of fair and balanced differs from another groups idea of fair and balanced. That is why we need regulation. Maybe this particular case isn't one that requires regulation. Maybe this particular case works as it currently is implemented. Obviously not everyone believes that, especially the person who DIDN'T get a DROID and then for whatever reason had to cancel their contract two months early.
Oh and one more thing. Maybe forcing PEOPLE to do something is morally wrong, but corporations are NOT people. People generally have to live with their actions, a corporation can merely disolve itself and start up as a completely different corporation. It is a lot more difficult for a person to simply disolve their identity and reappear under a completely new one free of all legal and moral obligations of their past actions. If the US goverment is going to provide corporations with that type of benefit then they do have a MORAL responsibility to make sure they don't abuse it.
Eh, I have a real problem with prosecuting the people for "making available." Prosecuting people that share their music for having enabled copyright infrigement is essentially like prosecuting people for leaving their doors unlocked and having enabled burglary.
Except Tenenbaum was not making his OWN property available, it belonged to someone else. A closer analogy would be more like...
"Prosecuting people for picking their neighbor's locks and having enabled THEM to be burgled."
I stand corrected. First Sale is not a 'right' although up until recently it was a general expectation of the consumer. I guess my point was that the knowledge contained within the IP could in essence be 'locked' away from the public forever if a legal means of passing that knowledge onto someone else is not made possible. And that 'locking' away of knowledge doesn't have to come from some 'evil or greedy' corporation. It may happen simply because it was no longer profitable to maintain the locks or they were just forgotten. Very few ideas are truly original, most are formed from previous exposure to others. Imagine if we allowed those previous ideas to be locked up and forgotten, never to be recovered again.
>>> I'm not seeing any difference between "digital rights management" and the MicroProse C=64 disks I used to buy which used digital errors to block copying. It seems they both achieve the same goal: Stop copying and also block the user from uploading the Microprose game to a friend.
Well I am sorry, but I clearly see a difference.
"Copy Protection" did not prevent you from performing any of the following actions...
1. It did not prevent you from using your software on a portable unit. (SX-64)
2. It did not prevent you from using your software on a newer, upgraded model. (C=128) (Although this could be debated if the protection scheme turned out to be incompatible with the newer hardware. In those cases, the publisher, inevitably released patches or new versions that were compatible if the market conditions were acceptable.)
3. It did not prevent you from using your software on a replacement unit. (New C=64 machine purchased to replace broken C=64 machine)
4. It did not prevent you from taking your software over to a friends house and playing it with your friend. (If it was multi-player. At least you didn't have to cart your C=64 around with you to show off your new purchase.)
5. It did not prevent your from donating or re-selling that software to someone else after you no longer had a use for it. (Right of First Sale.)
6. It did not prevent you from using the software if you just happened to forget the password, forget the login account, or otherwise fail to validate the myriad other ways that are now used to ensure that the person attempting to use the software in indeed the original purchaser.
All of these issues are and have been generally applied to consumer purchases in the past. No one places DRM type restrictions on my purchase of an automobile, house, or TV set. Yet "Digital Rights Management" seeks to prevent the consumer from doing any one of the above.
In summary, "Copy Protection" prevented you from making unauthorized "copies" of the software. "DRM" is designed to prevent you from making unauthorized "uses" of that same software. However, letting a corporation who's ultimate motive is monetary profit (Nothing wrong with that) decide what is a legal and authorized "use" (Everything wrong with that) goes against the entire grain and intent of Copyright laws. Copyright laws were enacted to create a fair and balanced benefit between the author AND the public welfare! If we allow corporations to restrict how knowledge can be used (and that IS what intellectual property is, knowledge.) then we restrict everyone's, including our own, future development and welfare.
However,
If you purchase a piece of hardware that cleary has a defective design, (i.e. the fuel tanks on the Ford Pinto, an Xbox 360 that doesn't properly disperse heat causing it to die prematurely with the red ring of death) you could and should expect the manufacturer to correct the situation. Just because the inability to play back music on my Zune isn't life threatening doesn't make it OK for merchants to pawn defective equipment off onto an unsuspecting public. Furthermore, this is a defect that has ALWAYS been there, just not discovered until now. It is not a part that wore out over time. The Zune was defective from day one. This assumes that the bug was present in earlier versions of the firmware. If it was not, then does that mean that Ford can come 'force' me to upgrade my pickup with a part that will soon render it unusable? This is essentially what Microsoft does in order for you to make use of their online DRM protected music distribution. Microsoft was just lucky in that it only caused a temporary single day incapacitation of their product. What kind of outrage would there have been if this had turned out to be a permanent 'Zunicide'?
Perhaps you yourself should have 'continued' to check YOUR facts. From t-Mobile's "View Data Plan Terms" section 2. Protective Measures:
"To provide a good experience for the majority of our customers and minimize capacity issues and degradation in network performance, we may take measures including temporarily reducing data throughput for a subset of customers who use a disproportionate amount of bandwidth; if your total usage exceeds 10GB (amount is subject to change; please periodically check T-Mobile.com for updates) during a billing cycle, we may reduce your data speed for the remainder of that billing cycle. We may also suspend, terminate, or restrict your data session, Plan, or service if you use your Data Plan in a manner that interferes with other customers' service, our ability to allocate network capacity among customers, or that otherwise may degrade service quality for other customers."
As with many other providers, "unlimited == limited". Advertising a specific bandwidth speed as unlimited and then cutting that speed to aproximately the same rate as an old 9600 baud modem, is effectively the same as 'limiting' your usage.
How can you blindly file lawsuits against people you know nothing about?
Because the United States Congress, Senate, and Executive Office have made it possible with the ill-thought-out DMCA law. If you want to stop RIAA from taking this kind of action, get the law repealed or at least changed. (Easier said than done, I know. But it's the only way we will ever be able to stop the lunacy!) Giving corporations the power to make laws and enforce them without any kind of balance is just plain ludicrous! As long as lawmakers bestow upon RIAA the power to do this, they will.
I see this as a new oppurtunity to market a 3rd party application that will read those older formats and convert them to the newer ones. Then M$ can see how popular the software is, buy the company up, and include it as a new feature for Office 2010!!!
Good point, however, this is still an inconvenience, an invasion of privacy, an economic burden on the airlines, and ultimately on the travelers. What proof is there that any of these "good intentions" actually prevent terrorism? Is it because we haven't had any incidents since 9/11/2001? Well guess what? We had an incident before that in Oklahoma on 4/19/1995, we implemented all kinds of new security checks and methods dealing with potential bomb making materials and rental trucks. Wow, we all felt much better and safer after those were implemented. Sure, it was a little inconvenient for some farmers and truck rental places, but, hell, we paid the price, knowing that we would all be much safer. Besides, I wasn't a farmer and I didn't need to rent a truck anytime soon. Oh wait, the terrorists then thought of a new way to attack us. And you know what? They'll think of another way as long as they have a desire or a reason to do so. If we lock all the doors and windows, they'll come in through the chimney. So why do we go to such extreme measures? To make us all feel better? To scare us into relinquishing more of our civil rights and liberties? To give more power to those who crave it? Seems to me Bin Laden was correct, the world is an entirely different place now. Evidently he has succeeded. You'll have to excuse me now, I have to go apply for my travel papers.
Does anyone here ever read these patents before posting how stupid they supposedly are? Reading the patent clearly shows that they are not applying for a patent on predicting text alone, but rather on an input method used by most PDA's and visual keyboards. In addition to displaying possible words, it HIGHLIGHTS the keys on the visual keyboard or displays the input strokes required to generate the next character that it thinks you want to select. Visual Studio never lit up characters on my keyboard, it never even displayed a visual keyboard on my screen. I'm all for patent reform and striking down obvious techniques, but in this case, while IANAL, on its face value it looks pretty legitmate to me.
(Not entirely sure that its all that much more useful than the standard predictive text stuff that I've already seen or used, but that is not the point.)
IANAL but I'm not sure you could call this entrapment. If the client does not actually attempt to download copyrighted material, but simply seeks out material on the computer, then the person has already committed the crime. All the MPAA is attempting to do is get your computer to snitch you out. However, for those who have friends and family that are not of a ./ level, they may very well believe this to be legitimate. I just spent hours cleaning up a system that was loaded with trojans and viruses. Amongst the software installed was LimeWire Pro. When I confronted my friend about it, informing him of the risks of trading copyrighted material with these P2P applications, he informed me that he had purchased LimeWire Pro so it must be legitmate. (LimeWire wasn't the 'cause' of his problems, but some of the content that he traded with it was.)
The trouble with all of these cases and business models is that not every consumer out there is aware of these issues. Many grew up making mix tapes for their friends, not fully aware of copyright laws. Mostly due to the fact that most people associated the copyright with the physical media on which it was purchased. It wasn't easily distributed on the mass scale that is possible today. We can't go around jailing Grandma and Uncle Bill because they thought that they were getting a great deal on some old music. We can't lock up Mommy because little sister found a neat way to fill up her little MP3 player. We shouldn't even being allowing these businesses to bully these people into giving up their life savings. It doesn't benefit society at all to do so. It only benefits a few of the elite, who do not need it.
So both sides need to reach a common ground, one that is beneficial to the artists/corporations and to society as a whole. Business needs to look at new models, and society needs to learn to respect the rights of the owners. Trading a mix tape with a friend doesn't have near the impact as trading it with 5 million internet users. If a solution isn't found soon, we will have to build more prisons to hold those filthy MP3ers. (I can see it now... "What are you in for?" "Dude, I was trading Def Leopard songs, don't #$&*^ with me!") We'd also have to create welfare housing for all those that had their retirement dwindeled away by legal fees. Or maybe we should forget about the prisons and welfare housing and just shoot them. (Oh wait, then we would need more landfills. I wonder if you could convert people to the material used to create CDs? Soylent Blues???)
And if the RIAA mistakenly applies an IP address to you, its OK with you for law enforcement to break down your door and seize all of your computer equipment and software without ever charging you for a crime? We do that now when we suspect illegal drugs. Soon US law enforcement will do so because Microsoft 'suspects' that you are using a 'bogus' copy of Windows.
"What are you in for?"
"I downloaded Puff the Magic Dragon MP3 off the internet. Stay away from me mother @#^*@. I'm a bad ass."
"It is true that this method would mean that the goverment decides who gets the money from this. However, isn't that what's happening now? The government right now is the arbiter of who gets copyright, and thus who gets to benefit from the system."
How is this statement true? In my country, the United States, I am granted a copyright the moment I create something. I may have to use the government's court system to defend that copyright, but the court's role, and therefore the government's role, is only to determine whether or not I was the original creator. Even if I create something that the popular government does not approve of, I am still granted an immediate copyright on that work.
The only other role that I can possibly think of would be that of overseeing copyright registration. But my government cannot deny me the registration process simply because it does not approve of my work. And the registration process is supplied as a convenient method of proving my content's original creation date.
Copyrights should not be abolished. However, their owners should not be granted extension after extension thereby preventing those works from entering the public domain, simply because their owner's have amassed such a fortune that they can purchase our elected officials and entice them to do so. It is the duty of our Congress (here in the US, at least) to balance the system so that the owners receive fair compensation and the public eventually reaps the benefits of those creative minds. If Congress continues to side with corporate greed, at the cost of society's progress, we can expect to see such great future literary works as Terminator 753, Rocky XXXIV, and Stuart Little Retires!
If there isn't, maybe we should start one. And by the way, submit a patent request for the use of a website to assist in prior art searches for patents!
With internet radio gone, VOIP gone, just think of all that bandwidth that will now be available for WoW!
And what part of his statement leads you to believe that he doesn't EARN his 5 figures? Just because someone works for the government and enjoys the job security, doesn't mean they get a free ride. They are still required to perform the work they were hired to do, and failure to do so can, and most likely will, result in termination. They just have the added benefit of not getting screwed over or exploited because someone needed to justify their multi-million dollar salary and bonuses.
The American dream is not to be a perpetual employee for Circuit City, but that being a hard, loyal, and responsible worker will result in you receiving just compensation for your efforts. What Circuit City did here was to terminate a class of employees based on how much they made, not how much they were worth. If Circuit City, and other corporations, are allowed to profit from this line of thought, then what hope is there for the common lay person (read: most of us) of ever succeeding in life, let alone surviving. Do we really want to send the message that of the 6.6 billion people on this planet, only the selfish, uncaring, and cold-hearted will survive? This act of cowardice on the part of Circuit City reveals that the TRUE incompetance lies within upper management. Instead of performing their responsibilities and weeding out those that were NOT pulling their weight, they chose a shotgun approach, hoping that this course of action would solve all of their corporate ills. It will not!
So in hopes of protecting all of our current and future employment opportunities, I will play my very small part and not patronize Circuit City. I can only hope that others see the real dangers in this madness and take it upon themselves to do the same.
There are numerous reasons why people can have bad credit. Identity theft, unexpected medical expenses, taxes, natural disasters, even corporate bankruptcies. You see, if a corporation files bankruptcy, it can just 'commit suicide' and cease to exist. Its principals, who are often the ones responsible for running it into the ground, simply start a 'new life' and a new corporation with the assets that they manipulated out of the old corporation. Unfotunately, individuals, can't just simply cease to exist and then re-emerge as a new entity. Its quite hypocritical for a corporation who's principals are basically immune from the effects of financial mismanagement can discriminate against those that are not (i.e. the employee).
Perhaps its time to write your congressman and get this practice outlawed. There once was a time in the USA where the lawmakers actually served and looked out for the public. I can remember when the practice of using lie detectors during the employment screening process was outlawed, except for cases where the job warranted it. A credit check may be in order for a CFO or even a bank teller, but is it really necessary for the person who asks "Would you like fries with that?"