"Or you could just use RHN/up2date and spend $50."
You're telling me that RHN/up2date supports Redhat 5.2? That was the entire point -- that Redhat no longer supports version 5.2 of the distribution. You either have to upgrade to a more recent version, or you have to backport the patches yourself. Saying that I can use RHN/up2date for this problem is like saying I can use Windows Update to get around the fact that Microsoft is dropping support for Windows 98.
"I don't remember seeing a 'use before' date on any linux servers. Do you?"
I haven't seen a 'use before' date, but Linux distributions get cut off just the same. I've got a box at home running Redhat 5.2 that's no longer being supported. Here's the errata archive where they recommend upgrading to a supported product.
While Linux (and open source in general) does have the advantage that someone can always support it, that doesn't mean that someone is supporting it -- especially when the package in question has been superceded by a number of later versions. There's always the option of hiring a trained individual to handle watching bug lists and backporting necessary fixes, but the pricetag on that would make Windows mandatory upgrades cheap in comparison.
And at the other end of the spectrum is "Watashi Tamagoyaki", a sped of version of Ode to Joy with lyrics about an omlette added to it. It's the ending theme for the anime series "Dragon 1/2" (of which only a few episodes were made before the creators were arrested on drug charges).
You're comparing apples and oranges here. In one case, we're talking about pop-up ads tied to (otherwise free) content being provided on the web that the user is actively seeking out. On the other hand, we're talking about a spammer invading your computer, exclusively for the purpose of sending you unwanted ads.
Furthermore, in the case of "blocking pop-up ads being theft", it was a technological solution rather than a legal one. All it was was website content producers only providing content to users who don't block pop-ups. That're you're trying to draw some connection between the two scenarios is just absurd.
I can think of two false positives off the top of my head where legit traffic would get unfairly throttled:
Web-based message boards -- Several of the message boards that I'm on allow users to include inline images. However, the users are responsible for hosting the images on their own servers. So a given page full of messages could easily add an extra 10 hosts to the "fresh contact" list, causing a 10 second delay. Furthermore, at least one of the message boards has a large enough user population that the "recent contact" list wouldn't help out enough at reducing the delay.
Half-Life -- The first thing Half-Life does after acquiring a list of servers from the master server list is to check each one. For even a new mod (like Natural Selection), this can be hundreds of servers. For something popular (like Counter-Strike), it's thousands.
"Fix the damned bugs rather than compounding them, don't let the
game economy be screwed, don't let the game get topheavy, and have a
'live' world where there is no need to camp spots or waste hours
waiting for something to happen."
It's been awhile since I've read the FAQ for this project, but what I
read indicated some interesting approaches to some of the
economy/camping problems. A good deal of equipment will apparently be
player-created using minerals that have randomly generated stats (that
affect the items made with them). Minerals will have a finite supply
-- when a given minerals used up, it's replaced by another supply that
spawns with different states in a random location.
Furthermore, items decay, so your Foobarzonite-based blaster will
become worthless once it breaks down and there's no more Foobarzonite
left in the Universe. At that point, one of the builder-types will
have to design a new blaster based on what is available.
Depending on how quickly items decay and how quickly minerals are used
up, this is one of the following possibilites:
1) A bunch of tedious bullshit that will cause players to waste all their time looking for equipment
2) A complete joke that sounds good on paper but really won't affect anything as the power players will all have personal hordes of enough of the good minerals to last them forever
3) A nice balance that doesn't impact gameplay yet keeps players from all having identical, perfect items; it also keeps the crafter classes heavily involved in gameplay
Choice number 3 is obviously the ideal that they're shooting for, but I could see it drifting to either 1 or 2. I suspect some post-release tweaking will be necessary, and I have a feeling that they'll also need to figure out how to make the numbers scale based on server size (and player class distribution -- if a server has a disproportionately high or low number of crafters, that affects balance).
"I wonder if there's a way to pollute their blacklist with so many
bogus entries that they have to give up."
I don't see it working:
Nov 22 20:49:20 xbl-auth MOD-check: Banned serial number "1234-1234", account "Slashdot Fan 2002"
Nov 22 20:49:21 xbl-auth MOD-check: Banned serial number "1234-1235", account "Slashdot Fan 2002"
Nov 22 20:49:22 xbl-auth MOD-check: Banned serial number "1234-1236", account "Slashdot Fan 2002"
Nov 22 20:49:23 xbl-auth MOD-check: Banned serial number "1234-1237", account "Slashdot Fan 2002"
Nov 22 20:49:24 xbl-auth MOD-check: Banned serial number "1234-1238", account "Slashdot Fan 2002"
The next morning, someone in the XBL division looks at the log files, unbans the serial numbers, pulls up the billing information for "Slashdot Fan 2002", and possibly initiates legal action against Slashdot Fan 2002 (by attempting to equate the serial number spoofing to fraud or account cracking; such claims could be further helped depending on how the network ToS is worded). The easiest part comes from the fact that they already have all your personal info -- there's no dynamic IP address hassle and no need to subpoena the ISP for more information (unless the case gets really serious).
"If it wasn't distributed by P2P it would be distributed by something else..."
If "something else" were just as good at distributing it, P2P wouldn't be nearly as popular as it is. Face it -- P2P makes things available on a wider scale and a greater level of convenience. That's why Napster was popular even outside of the geek crowd. Everything was available and at the user's fingertips.
"TiVo works just fine without when a subscription runs out. You don't get any program info, and you have to manually setup record times, but it does work. Pausing live TV works just like before."
Last I heard, that's only true of the older units. The newer units say on the box that they require the service to operate, and the software enforces this policy by disabling even manual recording.
Reasons why we should be able to board cruise ships for free:
The people who practice the art of actually running the ship (captain, crew, etc.) only see a small portion of the proceeds. The rest is taken by the greedy corporation that runs the cruise line.
If I can take a free cruise, I'll be more likely to tell all my friends about it, increasing the popularity of the ship.
The cruise line can still make money by selling me extras while I'm on board.
The cruise line should pick a better business model.
The cruise line should offer incentives to people who actually purchase their tickets.
Security measures such as checking tickets when people board only inconveniences the paying passengers who have to go through the checkpoint. Stowaways will always get on board no matter what. If I can see a boat, I can get on board.
As long as the cabin I use would have been empty anyway, the cruise line isn't losing any money. I wouldn't have bought a ticket if I hadn't been able to go for free.
"These cheats aren't diluting the validity of the results, only
getting credit for huge quantities of work units."
Except that they are still subverting the validation system. So if
they've got flaky hardware and their results are slightly wrong
because of it, they'll be passing on those corrupted results to a
number of other people who will provide incorrect confirmation.
"If it was indeed a hack/theft, it was someone with access to the
code and/or database itself. Encryption doesn't do you much good,
there."
There are some ways in which it could help. For example, imagine a two machine setup where machine1 accepts bets and cryptographically signs them (including a timestamp) using a private key known only by machine1. Machine1 then passes the bet off to machine2 for a second timestap/signature and longer storage.
Under this system, an attacker would have to subvert both machines in order to place a retroactive bet. If the attacker only subverts machine1, then the machine2 timestamp won't be correct for a bet supposedly placed in the past. If the attacker only subverts machine2, then the stored machine1 signature will be wrong.
Of course to make the system viable, you have to implement policies to make it difficult for a single person to get access to both machines. If someone's responsible for uploading the final betting data to the track, for example, they'd only get access to machine2.
It's not a panacea, and it also doesn't help that they're holding the bets until 4 of the races are done, but it does increase the difficulty of subverting the system if it's properly implemented.
"Ok, Firstly I think you meant to say "Bill and Ted", but anyways..."
If it were Bill and Ted, then the business would almost certainly
become a money pit.
"But this to me is the very definition of money-pit - Throwing tons
of money at an idea that "will" pay off in the future."
Except that I never said tons of money. Also, there's a difference
between spending money on an idea and just throwing it at it. If I
purchase a store front, renovate it to add tables and a kitchen,
prepare a menu, and hire a chef and wait-staff that will begin working
next week, have I created a money pit? Probably not. Yet, I've still
got a week before more restaurant will take off.
There's an inherent timelag between the initial outlay of money in a
business and when money starts coming back in. It varies based on the
business -- in a software context, it often takes a significant amount
of time before you've got something you can sell.
"By your own scenario, the definition of money-pit can only be
applied retroactively."
Not quite. It can only be confirmed absolutely retroactively, but
that's just because hindsight is 20/20. Before that point, it's
something of a judgement call. If a business is spending what it
expected to spend, and it's on-track for the goals that it has set,
then it seems odd to label it a money pit.
For example, let's say Bob and Ted discover that there's a good market
for a certain software product, via carefully conducted market
studies. Now let's say they find that, as far as they can tell, no
one is developing such a product. They plan out the software
development and decide that it'll take 6 months of work from a 3 man
programming team to get this done. Since Bob and Ted are both
business students who don't know how to program, they use their
venture capital to hire 3 programmers. At the 3 month mark, the
project is on schedule and shaping up great. At the 5 month mark,
it's slightly ahead of schedule. Bob and Ted have spent 15 months
worth of programmer pay, and they've gotten exactly what they were
expecting from the spent money. Is this a money pit? I honestly
believe it isn't, as there's nothing to imply that they're
wasting the money.
Now consider a similar case. Only at the 4 month mark, they discover
that they're behind schedule and hire a 4th programmer. At the 5
month mark, they're further behind schedule, and they have reason to
believe that they greatly overestimated the demand for their software.
In this case, they are most likely wasting money, and it's already
turning into a money pit.
The key thing is that a money pit is a pit. The business has
started tossing cash into it, and isn't getting results. In the
non-pit case, even though there's no revenue, there are measurable
results to indicate that the money has been properly spent and that
the business is on the right track for profitability.
"I'd say that a business is a money-pit untill it starts generating
revenue. At that point it loses its pit status, but untill it
demonstrates that you're better of investing your money than burning
it..."
That method prevents you from seeing the big picture. If an
investment is at the point where it has an 80% chance of paying off
tenfold what you put into it over the next 3 years, but it's not
paying off yet, then you're certainly better off than if you had
burned the money. All investment is a gamble, but some of it is a
gamble where the odds are stacked in your favor. If that's the case,
then it's considered a good investment up until/unless it actually
fails. In the long run (or over a variety of investments), the
investor wins.
"If six are generating revenue, then fourteen are a money-pit, no?"
Not necessarily. All you can say is that they aren't generating revenue. We know nothing of their expenses and we know nothing about what phase the businesses are in.
Scenario 1: Bob and Ted come up with a killer business idea. They incorporate as a business, come up with a business plan, and begin looking for investors to provide venture capital. So far, all expenses have been trivial out of pocket stuff (incorporation fees plus some phone calls and maybe minor travel). Is the business generating revenue? No. Is it fair to call it a money pit just because it's taken in some money? No.
Scenario 2: Bob and Ted have found the venture capital. They're currently in the process of spending it in order to develop the product that their business will sell. Since the product isn't ready yet, they obviously can't sell it. Is the business generating revenue? No. Is it fair to call it a money pit? Not if the product can be finished with the money they've got and will sell well.
So just because a business doesn't instantly jump from existing to generating revenue is no reason to label it a money pit. Sure there were dot coms that spent lots of cash and wound up with nothing to show for it. There were also companies that spent lots of cash and then wound up with even more cash to show for it.
"If the legal frame work of a given locality doesn't support your business model, don't use it."
When you say "it" here, I suspect that you're referring to not using the business model. However, another alternative is not using a locality.
If a business owner doesn't think that selling their product in region X will result in a profit, it's fully within their rights to stick to selling in region Y. A business owner has no obligation to sell in a given area, especially if the item in question is a mere luxury good.
"Microsoft would not be happy, to say the least, and we could order them from Australia direct to our doorstep."
Not really. I'm pretty sure U.S. Customs has the authority to seize products mailed into the U.S. that violates the law here. And I have a strong feeling that Microsoft has enough influence to get Customs to do that -- if I'm not mistaken, it's occurred in the past with other mod chip manufacturers.
Gemstone III, a fairly popular pay MUD, also has a lively platinum trade going where people pay real cash. As such, it's not unreasonable to clarify exactly which online game it's for, even if people already assume it's virtual platinum.
"This was an infrigement case so if the devices don't directly
infringe they might be ok."
Of course selling devices that indirectly infringe might cause further
problems for Lik-Sang. Given that they did commit copyright
infringement (of BIOS code), it's not in their best interest to sell
other non-infringing products that still antagonize the companies with
which they might try to settle the case.
The subscription is to the service that provides you with scheduling information, so that the unit knows what shows are on when. This lets it automatically record shows that have changed timeslots, and it lets you pick shows to record by browing show listings rather than requiring you to enter an actual time.
Also, with the ReplayTV units, the price of the service is just included in the unit price as a one-time fee. If you don't want to go the subscription route, Tivo offers a similar deal for $250, which gives you the service for the lifetime of your Tivo. So it's really just that Tivo is giving you more payment options for the service.
"Yes, the men and women featured in Apple's commercials are real people telling their real stories."
So Ellen Feiss' PC really did go "bleep bleep bleep bleep bleep" when it ate her "really good paper"?
Her unofficial fansite (www.ellenfeiss.net) has some (admittedly unsubstantiated) allegations that the story was made-up in a Benadryl-fueled haze. I'll admit that's not exactly concrete proof, but I wouldn't be surprised if some people said what Apple was looking for in an effort to get on TV.
"I just downloaded an infected version of sendmail and verify the checksum: failed. Hmm... let's try again. Aha, it's okay this time."
I believe your analysis is mostly dead-on. However, I do think there's one additional fact that would trigger a bit more suspicion (although probably not nearly enough): There are actually two checksums in play; the published one that you're verifying against, and the one used by the compression system (most likely gzip in this case).
So the official checksum would fail, indicating it's not the official release. However, the compression system's checksum would pass, indicating that what you downloaded is what someone delibrately placed on the server. While someone still might write it off as a race condition where they grabbed the new official checksum yet the previous version of sendmail, it might still raise a few more eyebrows. Probably not many more, but it's a start.
"Until the artists have a method of promotion that does not require
a record label they will always receive the short end of the
stick."
You mean like the Internet?
The truth of the matter is that artists do have a method of promotion
in front of them, and there are even some taking advantage of services
like mp3.com (which while not a good
venue for royalties, still at least provides exposure) and FightCloud (previously mentioned
on Slashdot; $5 CDs with 50% of the profits going to the artists).
But that just doesn't compete with a multi-billion dollar hype
machine, for the obvious reason that money makes stuff happen. Heck,
even the artists on FightCloud seem to be looking at hooking up with a
label, at least based on what was said during the interview mentioned
in the Slashdot article awhile back.
However, nothing's stopping independent artists from undercutting RIAA
prices over the Internet. A group of independent artists can band
together and offer to allow their music to be streamed for free.
Anyone with a server can give away mp3s. The opportunities are there
-- more people just need to take them.
"It's barely possible. The chances of finding 10 tracks in the same
album which aren't badly encoded, labelled wrongly or sampled at
96kbps is extremely high."
But it's only getting easier. Mp3 and (to a lesser extent) P2P were the big innovations that made wide-scale music-based copyright infringement possible. (And before someone jumps on me, I recognize that both have legitimate uses. All I'm saying is that they made the wide-scale infringement possible.)
Now in comparison, getting them to support entire albums (with a moderation/voting system to indicate quality) is really just an incremental step. It's a step people're stumbling on, but it's certainly not as big as what's already been done. It's only a matter of time before you'll be able to type in an album name and have your P2P client download the corresponding album file (which consists of a dozen mp3s and some meta information), complete with grabbing multiple parts of the file from multiple sources. Minimal effort, close to CD quality.
Similarly, it's only a matter of time before the movie copyright infringement field catches up with DVD features. All it takes is a bored hacker with a copy of the DVD specs who makes a player that uses DivX in place of the native DVD mpeg format. Throw everything in a simple container file (similar to the album file above), and you've just eroded one of the few remaining advantages of the legit versions.
Hell, if I was anti-copyright or pro-file sharing, I'd be working on this stuff right now. It's really pretty close.
There's a quote in the article that bothers me: "But the two men both feel that their programs can help music artists get their work heard outside of traditional radio broadcasting."
Yet in that same article, they admit that the system is a way to get around webcasting royalties. This is just silly, as an artist who wants their work to be heard far and wide can offer it up for royalty-free webcasting. Similarly, there are quite a few artists who have placed free, legal mp3s of some of their songs up on the web.
I really wish people wouldn't try and hide behind the rhetoric of trying to help the artists, when some of the artists don't want their copyrights forcibly violated. Personally, I support P2P as a means of circumventing bandwidth limitations, but not as a means of hiding liability when infringing copyright.
(And while I'm up on the soap box, I also disagree with trying to directly compensate the artist for intellectual property that they've sold the rights to. I support more equitable recording contracts, but I also support the right of an artist to contractually sell his/her ownership of song rights in exchange for money. By insisting on tipping the artist at the same time as infringing on copyright, you're eroding the artists' ability to sell that copyright, regardless of whether or not it was a fair deal.)
Slashdot Mirror
You're telling me that RHN/up2date supports Redhat 5.2? That was the entire point -- that Redhat no longer supports version 5.2 of the distribution. You either have to upgrade to a more recent version, or you have to backport the patches yourself. Saying that I can use RHN/up2date for this problem is like saying I can use Windows Update to get around the fact that Microsoft is dropping support for Windows 98.
I haven't seen a 'use before' date, but Linux distributions get cut off just the same. I've got a box at home running Redhat 5.2 that's no longer being supported. Here's the errata archive where they recommend upgrading to a supported product.
While Linux (and open source in general) does have the advantage that someone can always support it, that doesn't mean that someone is supporting it -- especially when the package in question has been superceded by a number of later versions. There's always the option of hiring a trained individual to handle watching bug lists and backporting necessary fixes, but the pricetag on that would make Windows mandatory upgrades cheap in comparison.
And at the other end of the spectrum is "Watashi Tamagoyaki", a sped of version of Ode to Joy with lyrics about an omlette added to it. It's the ending theme for the anime series "Dragon 1/2" (of which only a few episodes were made before the creators were arrested on drug charges).
Furthermore, in the case of "blocking pop-up ads being theft", it was a technological solution rather than a legal one. All it was was website content producers only providing content to users who don't block pop-ups. That're you're trying to draw some connection between the two scenarios is just absurd.
Web-based message boards -- Several of the message boards that I'm on allow users to include inline images. However, the users are responsible for hosting the images on their own servers. So a given page full of messages could easily add an extra 10 hosts to the "fresh contact" list, causing a 10 second delay. Furthermore, at least one of the message boards has a large enough user population that the "recent contact" list wouldn't help out enough at reducing the delay.
Half-Life -- The first thing Half-Life does after acquiring a list of servers from the master server list is to check each one. For even a new mod (like Natural Selection), this can be hundreds of servers. For something popular (like Counter-Strike), it's thousands.
It's been awhile since I've read the FAQ for this project, but what I read indicated some interesting approaches to some of the economy/camping problems. A good deal of equipment will apparently be player-created using minerals that have randomly generated stats (that affect the items made with them). Minerals will have a finite supply -- when a given minerals used up, it's replaced by another supply that spawns with different states in a random location.
Furthermore, items decay, so your Foobarzonite-based blaster will become worthless once it breaks down and there's no more Foobarzonite left in the Universe. At that point, one of the builder-types will have to design a new blaster based on what is available.
Depending on how quickly items decay and how quickly minerals are used up, this is one of the following possibilites:
1) A bunch of tedious bullshit that will cause players to waste all their time looking for equipment
2) A complete joke that sounds good on paper but really won't affect anything as the power players will all have personal hordes of enough of the good minerals to last them forever
3) A nice balance that doesn't impact gameplay yet keeps players from all having identical, perfect items; it also keeps the crafter classes heavily involved in gameplay
Choice number 3 is obviously the ideal that they're shooting for, but I could see it drifting to either 1 or 2. I suspect some post-release tweaking will be necessary, and I have a feeling that they'll also need to figure out how to make the numbers scale based on server size (and player class distribution -- if a server has a disproportionately high or low number of crafters, that affects balance).
I don't see it working:
Nov 22 20:49:20 xbl-auth MOD-check: Banned serial number "1234-1234", account "Slashdot Fan 2002"
Nov 22 20:49:21 xbl-auth MOD-check: Banned serial number "1234-1235", account "Slashdot Fan 2002"
Nov 22 20:49:22 xbl-auth MOD-check: Banned serial number "1234-1236", account "Slashdot Fan 2002"
Nov 22 20:49:23 xbl-auth MOD-check: Banned serial number "1234-1237", account "Slashdot Fan 2002"
Nov 22 20:49:24 xbl-auth MOD-check: Banned serial number "1234-1238", account "Slashdot Fan 2002"
The next morning, someone in the XBL division looks at the log files, unbans the serial numbers, pulls up the billing information for "Slashdot Fan 2002", and possibly initiates legal action against Slashdot Fan 2002 (by attempting to equate the serial number spoofing to fraud or account cracking; such claims could be further helped depending on how the network ToS is worded). The easiest part comes from the fact that they already have all your personal info -- there's no dynamic IP address hassle and no need to subpoena the ISP for more information (unless the case gets really serious).
The names and ages of her kids were listed in the article. Fourth paragraph.
If "something else" were just as good at distributing it, P2P wouldn't be nearly as popular as it is. Face it -- P2P makes things available on a wider scale and a greater level of convenience. That's why Napster was popular even outside of the geek crowd. Everything was available and at the user's fingertips.
Last I heard, that's only true of the older units. The newer units say on the box that they require the service to operate, and the software enforces this policy by disabling even manual recording.
Except that they are still subverting the validation system. So if they've got flaky hardware and their results are slightly wrong because of it, they'll be passing on those corrupted results to a number of other people who will provide incorrect confirmation.
There are some ways in which it could help. For example, imagine a two machine setup where machine1 accepts bets and cryptographically signs them (including a timestamp) using a private key known only by machine1. Machine1 then passes the bet off to machine2 for a second timestap/signature and longer storage.
Under this system, an attacker would have to subvert both machines in order to place a retroactive bet. If the attacker only subverts machine1, then the machine2 timestamp won't be correct for a bet supposedly placed in the past. If the attacker only subverts machine2, then the stored machine1 signature will be wrong.
Of course to make the system viable, you have to implement policies to make it difficult for a single person to get access to both machines. If someone's responsible for uploading the final betting data to the track, for example, they'd only get access to machine2.
It's not a panacea, and it also doesn't help that they're holding the bets until 4 of the races are done, but it does increase the difficulty of subverting the system if it's properly implemented.
If it were Bill and Ted, then the business would almost certainly become a money pit.
"But this to me is the very definition of money-pit - Throwing tons of money at an idea that "will" pay off in the future."
Except that I never said tons of money. Also, there's a difference between spending money on an idea and just throwing it at it. If I purchase a store front, renovate it to add tables and a kitchen, prepare a menu, and hire a chef and wait-staff that will begin working next week, have I created a money pit? Probably not. Yet, I've still got a week before more restaurant will take off.
There's an inherent timelag between the initial outlay of money in a business and when money starts coming back in. It varies based on the business -- in a software context, it often takes a significant amount of time before you've got something you can sell.
"By your own scenario, the definition of money-pit can only be applied retroactively."
Not quite. It can only be confirmed absolutely retroactively, but that's just because hindsight is 20/20. Before that point, it's something of a judgement call. If a business is spending what it expected to spend, and it's on-track for the goals that it has set, then it seems odd to label it a money pit.
For example, let's say Bob and Ted discover that there's a good market for a certain software product, via carefully conducted market studies. Now let's say they find that, as far as they can tell, no one is developing such a product. They plan out the software development and decide that it'll take 6 months of work from a 3 man programming team to get this done. Since Bob and Ted are both business students who don't know how to program, they use their venture capital to hire 3 programmers. At the 3 month mark, the project is on schedule and shaping up great. At the 5 month mark, it's slightly ahead of schedule. Bob and Ted have spent 15 months worth of programmer pay, and they've gotten exactly what they were expecting from the spent money. Is this a money pit? I honestly believe it isn't, as there's nothing to imply that they're wasting the money.
Now consider a similar case. Only at the 4 month mark, they discover that they're behind schedule and hire a 4th programmer. At the 5 month mark, they're further behind schedule, and they have reason to believe that they greatly overestimated the demand for their software. In this case, they are most likely wasting money, and it's already turning into a money pit.
The key thing is that a money pit is a pit. The business has started tossing cash into it, and isn't getting results. In the non-pit case, even though there's no revenue, there are measurable results to indicate that the money has been properly spent and that the business is on the right track for profitability.
"I'd say that a business is a money-pit untill it starts generating revenue. At that point it loses its pit status, but untill it demonstrates that you're better of investing your money than burning it..."
That method prevents you from seeing the big picture. If an investment is at the point where it has an 80% chance of paying off tenfold what you put into it over the next 3 years, but it's not paying off yet, then you're certainly better off than if you had burned the money. All investment is a gamble, but some of it is a gamble where the odds are stacked in your favor. If that's the case, then it's considered a good investment up until/unless it actually fails. In the long run (or over a variety of investments), the investor wins.
Not necessarily. All you can say is that they aren't generating revenue. We know nothing of their expenses and we know nothing about what phase the businesses are in.
Scenario 1: Bob and Ted come up with a killer business idea. They incorporate as a business, come up with a business plan, and begin looking for investors to provide venture capital. So far, all expenses have been trivial out of pocket stuff (incorporation fees plus some phone calls and maybe minor travel). Is the business generating revenue? No. Is it fair to call it a money pit just because it's taken in some money? No.
Scenario 2: Bob and Ted have found the venture capital. They're currently in the process of spending it in order to develop the product that their business will sell. Since the product isn't ready yet, they obviously can't sell it. Is the business generating revenue? No. Is it fair to call it a money pit? Not if the product can be finished with the money they've got and will sell well.
So just because a business doesn't instantly jump from existing to generating revenue is no reason to label it a money pit. Sure there were dot coms that spent lots of cash and wound up with nothing to show for it. There were also companies that spent lots of cash and then wound up with even more cash to show for it.
When you say "it" here, I suspect that you're referring to not using the business model. However, another alternative is not using a locality.
If a business owner doesn't think that selling their product in region X will result in a profit, it's fully within their rights to stick to selling in region Y. A business owner has no obligation to sell in a given area, especially if the item in question is a mere luxury good.
Not really. I'm pretty sure U.S. Customs has the authority to seize products mailed into the U.S. that violates the law here. And I have a strong feeling that Microsoft has enough influence to get Customs to do that -- if I'm not mistaken, it's occurred in the past with other mod chip manufacturers.
Gemstone III, a fairly popular pay MUD, also has a lively platinum trade going where people pay real cash. As such, it's not unreasonable to clarify exactly which online game it's for, even if people already assume it's virtual platinum.
Of course selling devices that indirectly infringe might cause further problems for Lik-Sang. Given that they did commit copyright infringement (of BIOS code), it's not in their best interest to sell other non-infringing products that still antagonize the companies with which they might try to settle the case.
The subscription is to the service that provides you with scheduling information, so that the unit knows what shows are on when. This lets it automatically record shows that have changed timeslots, and it lets you pick shows to record by browing show listings rather than requiring you to enter an actual time.
Also, with the ReplayTV units, the price of the service is just included in the unit price as a one-time fee. If you don't want to go the subscription route, Tivo offers a similar deal for $250, which gives you the service for the lifetime of your Tivo. So it's really just that Tivo is giving you more payment options for the service.
So Ellen Feiss' PC really did go "bleep bleep bleep bleep bleep" when it ate her "really good paper"? Her unofficial fansite (www.ellenfeiss.net) has some (admittedly unsubstantiated) allegations that the story was made-up in a Benadryl-fueled haze. I'll admit that's not exactly concrete proof, but I wouldn't be surprised if some people said what Apple was looking for in an effort to get on TV.
I believe your analysis is mostly dead-on. However, I do think there's one additional fact that would trigger a bit more suspicion (although probably not nearly enough): There are actually two checksums in play; the published one that you're verifying against, and the one used by the compression system (most likely gzip in this case).
So the official checksum would fail, indicating it's not the official release. However, the compression system's checksum would pass, indicating that what you downloaded is what someone delibrately placed on the server. While someone still might write it off as a race condition where they grabbed the new official checksum yet the previous version of sendmail, it might still raise a few more eyebrows. Probably not many more, but it's a start.
You mean like the Internet?
The truth of the matter is that artists do have a method of promotion in front of them, and there are even some taking advantage of services like mp3.com (which while not a good venue for royalties, still at least provides exposure) and FightCloud (previously mentioned on Slashdot; $5 CDs with 50% of the profits going to the artists).
But that just doesn't compete with a multi-billion dollar hype machine, for the obvious reason that money makes stuff happen. Heck, even the artists on FightCloud seem to be looking at hooking up with a label, at least based on what was said during the interview mentioned in the Slashdot article awhile back.
However, nothing's stopping independent artists from undercutting RIAA prices over the Internet. A group of independent artists can band together and offer to allow their music to be streamed for free. Anyone with a server can give away mp3s. The opportunities are there -- more people just need to take them.
But it's only getting easier. Mp3 and (to a lesser extent) P2P were the big innovations that made wide-scale music-based copyright infringement possible. (And before someone jumps on me, I recognize that both have legitimate uses. All I'm saying is that they made the wide-scale infringement possible.)
Now in comparison, getting them to support entire albums (with a moderation/voting system to indicate quality) is really just an incremental step. It's a step people're stumbling on, but it's certainly not as big as what's already been done. It's only a matter of time before you'll be able to type in an album name and have your P2P client download the corresponding album file (which consists of a dozen mp3s and some meta information), complete with grabbing multiple parts of the file from multiple sources. Minimal effort, close to CD quality.
Similarly, it's only a matter of time before the movie copyright infringement field catches up with DVD features. All it takes is a bored hacker with a copy of the DVD specs who makes a player that uses DivX in place of the native DVD mpeg format. Throw everything in a simple container file (similar to the album file above), and you've just eroded one of the few remaining advantages of the legit versions. Hell, if I was anti-copyright or pro-file sharing, I'd be working on this stuff right now. It's really pretty close.
Yet in that same article, they admit that the system is a way to get around webcasting royalties. This is just silly, as an artist who wants their work to be heard far and wide can offer it up for royalty-free webcasting. Similarly, there are quite a few artists who have placed free, legal mp3s of some of their songs up on the web.
I really wish people wouldn't try and hide behind the rhetoric of trying to help the artists, when some of the artists don't want their copyrights forcibly violated. Personally, I support P2P as a means of circumventing bandwidth limitations, but not as a means of hiding liability when infringing copyright.
(And while I'm up on the soap box, I also disagree with trying to directly compensate the artist for intellectual property that they've sold the rights to. I support more equitable recording contracts, but I also support the right of an artist to contractually sell his/her ownership of song rights in exchange for money. By insisting on tipping the artist at the same time as infringing on copyright, you're eroding the artists' ability to sell that copyright, regardless of whether or not it was a fair deal.)