"Imagine said teenager has downloaded her very first MP3 Britney Spears song (shudder) from Kaazaa."
This is where your hypothetical breaks down. Prosecution is expensive. The RIAA isn't going to bother with someone downloading a single song when they can spend a similar amount of effort nailing someone who is sharing multiple gigs of works that RIAA members hold the copyright on.
You're trying to create this case where the law is being disproportionately enforced against the smallest offenders. Trying to do this in a case where the law is being unenforced anyway is just absurd -- the majority of file sharing copyright infringement cases are getting ignored, so it's silly to imagine that the RIAA would be desperate enough to go after the small fish with so many larger fish swimming around.
Well, at the very least, we have the fact that McCarthy (who was considered representative of this sort of suspicion of American citizens) was formally condemned by his own Senate. Furthermore, there was the well-known Civil Rights movements of the 60's.
I'm certainly not naive enough to believe that the government isn't engaging in some questionable acts. However, citing 50 year-old anecdotes is a piss poor way of trying to establish that our government is currently doing bad things.
"The MPAA proxies would be outvoted millions to one. Since there
are millions of Kazaa users."
That's just flat-out poor logic.
For any given file, only a small percentage of the total Kazaa users will download it. Of those who download it, even fewer will rate it. There won't be millions of votes for any song on Kazaa unless someone rigs up an automated voting script.
"Presuming that there's interdependance on other PCs, then people will discover quickly that role-playing an "evil" character is no different from being an asshole."
Yes, but you're assuming the stereotypical notion of evil (similar to D&D's 'Chaotic Evil'), rather than the more interesting types of evil expressed in both Marvel comics and Star Wars.
For example, in the recent X-men movie, the bad guys weren't fighting others out of greed. Rather, they felt it was their only means of survival. Now I'll admit that they had distorted, extremist views, but they honestly did believe that what they were doing was the only way to ensure that they live, "by any means necessary".
Similarly, "evil" in Star Wars generally implies alignment with the Empire -- an organization attempting to bring law, order, and control to the galaxy via military means. At the end of the day, they merely want to make the trains run on time.
If it's any consolation, that's really a spoiler for a subplot rather than the focus of the story. While that subplot may be more important to most denizens of the Monsters, Inc. world, the actual plot of the movie revolves around two monsters dealing with a wayward little girl. You could easily remove the power generation subplot, and you'd still have the same great story (though you might have to tweak things a bit here and there).
"hence it's a gold mine for stores and businesses in the area."
I was quite skeptical about the wireless ad idea until I read the
statement quoted above. Keep in mind that some people already
expressed a desire to be able to spam local ads to wireless PDA-type
devices that're in the local area -- stuff along the lines of "Joe's
Hotdog stand is right around the corner and offering a 2-for-1
special."
So tying these ads to a free wireless service would provide a
legitimate reason for the ads (i.e. they're subsidizing the service
that the user is using rather than just spamming a user over an
existing service that the user pays for), and it provides ads that're
much more relevant and useful compared to even local television ads.
Overall, it looks like a win/win situation, if the idea can get
over the other inherent problems with Internet-based ads.
Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag.
on
"Squishy" DRM?
·
· Score: 2
"They should just work on a way and make music Opensource under the
GPL license."
And Microsoft is welcome to release Windows under an open source license. That doesn't mean they have any incentive to do so. If you want open source music, make some of your own. That's how it's worked so far with open source software, at least.
Oddly enough, even RMS hasn't done the open source equivalent of music. On his song page, he gives people free license to sing and perform the songs. He does not, however, give them license to modify the songs. Furthermore, the copyright notice at the bottom of the page only provides permission for verbatim copying. Given his passionate views on software freedom, you'd think he would've made the logical extension to other intellectual property ventures.
"You can't just pay damages and continue to violate copyright."
I believe that's not relevant. We already know that Epson is stopping the distribution. What's being discussed is whether or not the past (accidental) violation could be used to force Epson to open up the code, even if Epson wants to instead produce a new closed-source version that doesn't use any GPLed code. I don't think anyone's proposing the idea of Epson engaging in a continued, willful violation.
"Afterall, If the danish claim that they put him on the list
because of his moronic pieces in an online magazine, and that they
don't want to risk getting a mail from him, there's not much case
left.."
Except for the fact that the danish site is most likely publically advertising their list of verified open relies as a list of verified open relies, rather than a list of magazine journalists who they think are stupid.
"As for the trespassing, he asked the danish site to re-check his
mailserver."
However, the fact that it's a re-check implies that the Danish site
previously checked his mailserver without permission. I still think
it's silly for him to sue over that, but that does give him a slightly
better case.
"My TiVo was a lot less expensive and offers the same functionality
as far as video is concerned."
Doh! You beat me to the punch on pointing out that it has the same
restrictions as a TiVo.
Anyway, while a TiVo is cheaper, you're leaving out the PC functionality. If we go with the price of a comparable TiVo as being $300 (leaving out the subscription fees, though it's possible that Microsoft might include TV listings in their purchase price), that leaves an extra $1200. For a consumer PC sans monitor, that just doesn't seem that bad. Allocate some of the money toward the "integration/convenience factor", and you'll got a deal that I think some people will go for.
I think the major deciding factor will be whether or not people actually like having a PC near their TV. The price and the television capture restrictions are secondary.
"Hopefully this will make the network somewhat self-moderating
since users sharing undesirable content will not rise in network
status."
This strategy fails to take into account the fact that an RIAA mole
could easily share desireable content. For example, mp3.com has 7 free, legal tracks for
download from Linkin Park (not my choice in music, but they are quite
popular currently). There are quite a few other well-known bands with
free tracks on there. Sharing all that content, which the various
record labels have decided to share anyway, will only serve to get the
sharing user voted up.
Once the mole is voted up for carrying lots of valid files that people
are interested in, the mole begins to distribute poison. Sure, this
will cause the mole's ranking to fall somewhat, but damage will be
done in the process. Furthermore, the legit files will continue to
somewhat offset the attempts to vote the user down. Multiply this
whole situation by a number of different automated users, and you've
got an effective poisoning attack.
In short: The mole has spread files that the RIAA already wants
distributed (win for the RIAA, win for users), and the mole has spread
poison for files that the RIAA doesn't want distributed (win for the
RIAA, loss for users).
"If Clean Flicks' editing procedure isn't fair use, then a TIVO's ad-skipping feature is also not fair use."
I fail to see how this comparison holds. In the Clean Flicks case, they are editing the original in-house and then redistributing an edited product to the consumer. While TiVo doesn't have the ReplayTV's controversial ad-skip feature, such a feature still only removes the ads temporarily (the original content is available to the viewer), and that edited version is never redistributed.
That's pretty obvious, as your points are mostly addressed by the first two paragraphs of the article. Cash isn't always convenient (as people sometimes don't have enough change for the machine), the site lets you know if machines are available (as people don't want to drag their 30 pounds of laundry down there only to discover all the machines are full), and it lets you know when your laundry's done (as people generally have better things to do than sit in a laundromat and wait).
What the hell? You're the same guy who was bragging about not watching any TV in a 5-rated comment in this same story. What's the deal?
Re:Comparison to WinXP copy protection
on
CD Copy Stopper
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
"Granted, one won't be able to just "copy the disc", but cracked
ISOs can still be theoretically distributed."
Sure. But remember that copy protection doesn't have to completely prevent copying to be effective. Instead, it merely has to make the legal purchase more attractive than the copyright infriged copy, at least to some consumers.
In this case, it sounds like each and every DVD would have to be cracked by someone with a good deal of skill and possibly some special equipment. Compare that to "cracking" CDs, where you can get pre-made tools that handle all the effort of ripping CDs, encoding them as mp3s, and even naming the files to match the CD info.
The WorldForge Project (an open-source system for making MMORPGs) is being designed with the philosophy that scripting players is not only legal, but that is also a part of the intended gameplay.
"If you meant that the viewer is inferring that, well again, so what?"
Well, given that the story was a response to the misperceptions viewers might have about the story's author based on the Donahue appearance, I think that an actual misperception about the story's author by one of the viewers of the Donahue appearance is pretty damn relevent to the matter at hand.
"I don't see any presumption of childlessness here."
Third page of the article, first e-mail quote at the end. It seems at least one viewer is implying a lack of parental experience on the part of the researcher.
"All outgoing (ie requested) traffic to the RIAA would presumably
be legal."
Actually, the ISP is blocking that, too. Their rationale from the
article:
"Due to the nature of this matter and RIAA's previous history, we
feel the RIAA will abuse software vulnerabilities in a client's
browser after the browser accesses its site, potentially allowing the
RIAA to access and/or tamper with your data."
Sounds to me like the ISP is trying to make a political statement
rather than just engaging in protecting themselves.
"Who goes to RIAA.org to look at their nazi propaganda anyways?"
Well, I've seen the
RIAA member list linked quite often by people interested in
completely boycotting the RIAA...
You average music listener doesn't give a shit about the RIAA. It's
an industry group. Most people going to the site already have a firm
stance on the issue of the RIAA one way or another. Blocking the site
is just a silly token gesture that hurts the actual activists.
"Block *@*.com, *@*.net, *@*.biz, etc... A dozen more entries, and
no more SPAM!!"
That only helps the spammers. Why? Because having a recognized,
credible, semi-secure (still vulnerable to dictionary attacks)
database of opt-out email addresses provides an important weapon in
stopping spam. And dumping in wildcards for domains that you don't
even control causes the list to lose its credibility.
I, personally, hate the idea that we would need an opt-out
list. Still, if such a list were to gain as much legal force as the
telemarketing "DO NOT CALL" lists, we might actually reach the point
where spam starts to go down.
Slashdot Mirror
This is where your hypothetical breaks down. Prosecution is expensive. The RIAA isn't going to bother with someone downloading a single song when they can spend a similar amount of effort nailing someone who is sharing multiple gigs of works that RIAA members hold the copyright on.
You're trying to create this case where the law is being disproportionately enforced against the smallest offenders. Trying to do this in a case where the law is being unenforced anyway is just absurd -- the majority of file sharing copyright infringement cases are getting ignored, so it's silly to imagine that the RIAA would be desperate enough to go after the small fish with so many larger fish swimming around.
I'm certainly not naive enough to believe that the government isn't engaging in some questionable acts. However, citing 50 year-old anecdotes is a piss poor way of trying to establish that our government is currently doing bad things.
Fifty year-old anecdotes probably aren't the best way to prove your point. Those anecdotes date back to the McCarthy era.
That's just flat-out poor logic.
For any given file, only a small percentage of the total Kazaa users will download it. Of those who download it, even fewer will rate it. There won't be millions of votes for any song on Kazaa unless someone rigs up an automated voting script.
Yes, but you're assuming the stereotypical notion of evil (similar to D&D's 'Chaotic Evil'), rather than the more interesting types of evil expressed in both Marvel comics and Star Wars.
For example, in the recent X-men movie, the bad guys weren't fighting others out of greed. Rather, they felt it was their only means of survival. Now I'll admit that they had distorted, extremist views, but they honestly did believe that what they were doing was the only way to ensure that they live, "by any means necessary".
Similarly, "evil" in Star Wars generally implies alignment with the Empire -- an organization attempting to bring law, order, and control to the galaxy via military means. At the end of the day, they merely want to make the trains run on time.
Works for me. :P
If it's any consolation, that's really a spoiler for a subplot rather than the focus of the story. While that subplot may be more important to most denizens of the Monsters, Inc. world, the actual plot of the movie revolves around two monsters dealing with a wayward little girl. You could easily remove the power generation subplot, and you'd still have the same great story (though you might have to tweak things a bit here and there).
I was quite skeptical about the wireless ad idea until I read the statement quoted above. Keep in mind that some people already expressed a desire to be able to spam local ads to wireless PDA-type devices that're in the local area -- stuff along the lines of "Joe's Hotdog stand is right around the corner and offering a 2-for-1 special."
So tying these ads to a free wireless service would provide a legitimate reason for the ads (i.e. they're subsidizing the service that the user is using rather than just spamming a user over an existing service that the user pays for), and it provides ads that're much more relevant and useful compared to even local television ads. Overall, it looks like a win/win situation, if the idea can get over the other inherent problems with Internet-based ads.
And Microsoft is welcome to release Windows under an open source license. That doesn't mean they have any incentive to do so. If you want open source music, make some of your own. That's how it's worked so far with open source software, at least.
Oddly enough, even RMS hasn't done the open source equivalent of music. On his song page, he gives people free license to sing and perform the songs. He does not, however, give them license to modify the songs. Furthermore, the copyright notice at the bottom of the page only provides permission for verbatim copying. Given his passionate views on software freedom, you'd think he would've made the logical extension to other intellectual property ventures.
I believe that's not relevant. We already know that Epson is stopping the distribution. What's being discussed is whether or not the past (accidental) violation could be used to force Epson to open up the code, even if Epson wants to instead produce a new closed-source version that doesn't use any GPLed code. I don't think anyone's proposing the idea of Epson engaging in a continued, willful violation.
Except for the fact that the danish site is most likely publically advertising their list of verified open relies as a list of verified open relies, rather than a list of magazine journalists who they think are stupid.
However, the fact that it's a re-check implies that the Danish site previously checked his mailserver without permission. I still think it's silly for him to sue over that, but that does give him a slightly better case.
Considering that the article makes a passing reference to the fact that this incident happened on banthespam's first day, I suspect they're brand new.
Doh! You beat me to the punch on pointing out that it has the same restrictions as a TiVo.
Anyway, while a TiVo is cheaper, you're leaving out the PC functionality. If we go with the price of a comparable TiVo as being $300 (leaving out the subscription fees, though it's possible that Microsoft might include TV listings in their purchase price), that leaves an extra $1200. For a consumer PC sans monitor, that just doesn't seem that bad. Allocate some of the money toward the "integration/convenience factor", and you'll got a deal that I think some people will go for.
I think the major deciding factor will be whether or not people actually like having a PC near their TV. The price and the television capture restrictions are secondary.
This strategy fails to take into account the fact that an RIAA mole could easily share desireable content. For example, mp3.com has 7 free, legal tracks for download from Linkin Park (not my choice in music, but they are quite popular currently). There are quite a few other well-known bands with free tracks on there. Sharing all that content, which the various record labels have decided to share anyway, will only serve to get the sharing user voted up.
Once the mole is voted up for carrying lots of valid files that people are interested in, the mole begins to distribute poison. Sure, this will cause the mole's ranking to fall somewhat, but damage will be done in the process. Furthermore, the legit files will continue to somewhat offset the attempts to vote the user down. Multiply this whole situation by a number of different automated users, and you've got an effective poisoning attack.
In short: The mole has spread files that the RIAA already wants distributed (win for the RIAA, win for users), and the mole has spread poison for files that the RIAA doesn't want distributed (win for the RIAA, loss for users).
I fail to see how this comparison holds. In the Clean Flicks case, they are editing the original in-house and then redistributing an edited product to the consumer. While TiVo doesn't have the ReplayTV's controversial ad-skip feature, such a feature still only removes the ads temporarily (the original content is available to the viewer), and that edited version is never redistributed.
That's pretty obvious, as your points are mostly addressed by the first two paragraphs of the article. Cash isn't always convenient (as people sometimes don't have enough change for the machine), the site lets you know if machines are available (as people don't want to drag their 30 pounds of laundry down there only to discover all the machines are full), and it lets you know when your laundry's done (as people generally have better things to do than sit in a laundromat and wait).
What the hell? You're the same guy who was bragging about not watching any TV in a 5-rated comment in this same story. What's the deal?
Sure. But remember that copy protection doesn't have to completely prevent copying to be effective. Instead, it merely has to make the legal purchase more attractive than the copyright infriged copy, at least to some consumers.
In this case, it sounds like each and every DVD would have to be cracked by someone with a good deal of skill and possibly some special equipment. Compare that to "cracking" CDs, where you can get pre-made tools that handle all the effort of ripping CDs, encoding them as mp3s, and even naming the files to match the CD info.
The WorldForge Project (an open-source system for making MMORPGs) is being designed with the philosophy that scripting players is not only legal, but that is also a part of the intended gameplay.
Well, given that the story was a response to the misperceptions viewers might have about the story's author based on the Donahue appearance, I think that an actual misperception about the story's author by one of the viewers of the Donahue appearance is pretty damn relevent to the matter at hand.
Third page of the article, first e-mail quote at the end. It seems at least one viewer is implying a lack of parental experience on the part of the researcher.
Actually, the ISP is blocking that, too. Their rationale from the article:
"Due to the nature of this matter and RIAA's previous history, we feel the RIAA will abuse software vulnerabilities in a client's browser after the browser accesses its site, potentially allowing the RIAA to access and/or tamper with your data."
Sounds to me like the ISP is trying to make a political statement rather than just engaging in protecting themselves.
Well, I've seen the RIAA member list linked quite often by people interested in completely boycotting the RIAA...
You average music listener doesn't give a shit about the RIAA. It's an industry group. Most people going to the site already have a firm stance on the issue of the RIAA one way or another. Blocking the site is just a silly token gesture that hurts the actual activists.
That only helps the spammers. Why? Because having a recognized, credible, semi-secure (still vulnerable to dictionary attacks) database of opt-out email addresses provides an important weapon in stopping spam. And dumping in wildcards for domains that you don't even control causes the list to lose its credibility.
I, personally, hate the idea that we would need an opt-out list. Still, if such a list were to gain as much legal force as the telemarketing "DO NOT CALL" lists, we might actually reach the point where spam starts to go down.