Also, Opera should have an Emacs mode so I can use all my favorite features of Emacs without having to switch out of Opera and start a separate Emacs session.
And you should be able to win prizes by using Opera!
Or, you could stop patronizing so-called musicians who are content to fill out three-quarters of an album with garbage.
No CD I've bought in the past 3 years (excluding impulse buys from the $1.99 used-CD bin) has had more than 1 or 2 bad songs on it. It's because I give my money to musicians who care about their product.
Then they can go after Walmart because they re-release some of their products after editing the content.
The RIAA already knows this. In fact, Walmart has the RIAA's blessing, since it's the RIAA-member record companies that actually do the editing of the content and production of the media.
What, did you think Walmart bought an unedited copy of Ja Rule's CD, opened up the wave data in ProTools, censored out the dirty words, burned the new data to a CD master and made thousands of copies of the disc and packaging THEMSELVES?
BECAUSE THEY SOLD THE SOFTWARE TO PEOPLE IN THE US. IN EXCHANGE FOR US DOLLARS. FROM A SERVER HOSTED IN THE US.
Holy Christ, will this question ever stop getting asked? It's come up in every/. story about the case since Dmitry was first arrested. And it's been answered soundly each time.
Hopefully the end of the court case means no one will need to ask it again.
You spelled 'Elcomsoft' wrong six times out of six. Are you a Slashdot editor?
And yes, I'm sure Elcomsoft knew what they designed the software to do. What they designed it to do was ensure their rights under Russian law.
Did they intend from the start to export their software to the United States specifically for the purpose of breaking copy protection? The jury says they didn't.
I'm surprised that Acacia actually seems to have the balls to go through with their threats to bring this to court. It would only take one ruling that the patent is overly broad and inapplicable to ruin their business plan forever.
Threatening to sue is a great way to make money, because there's very little expense and great potential for return involved. (It's like a meatspace equivalent to email spamming.)
But actually suing people is a much more risky business plan. You can never be sure that the men and women on the jury are going to act in the best interest of your bottom line.
Why do you think that your DSL provider couldn't impose the same download/upload caps and forbid services on unapproved ports than you loathe so much about the "Cable TOS" (whatever that represents)?
The lingua franca between your PC and the ISP's NOC is different for Cable and DSL network connections, but the business relationship between you and the ISP is the same. Anything they can do to a cable customer they can find a way to do to a DSL user, and vice versa.
Light bulbs cost a dozen for 5 bucks. And then there's 'extended life' incandescent bulbs and flourescent lighting if you're willing to pay extra for the extra quality.
If they want to sell us disposable CD's, they would be wise to follow the light bulb model. Sell the ephemeral stuff like pop singles at a very low price point. They'll make up for the low profit margins in volume. Then, for the audiophiles and music lovers, offer selected higher-tier releases (Au20 discs, DVD Audio, etc.)
The problem is that for the "opt-in/out" program to work as you see it, the consumer has to be well informed about what they're opting into if they decide to put the CD in their drive.
It's not like the record company is going to put a 2-page insert in the CD jewelbox describing what their spyware does, right?
If this Officially Sanctioned site follows Lucas Arts policy in any way it will be up for grabs once you post. If they borrow from your idea, you won't get anything for it.
And?
If you create a derivative work based on and requiring use of a LucasArts game, shouldn't LucasArts be the one that stands to benefit financially because of it?
This seems like a pretty standard and harmless working arrangement to me.
Hey, at least I'm honest. But here's my responses to the points made in the summary:
(1) Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy,
Agreed.
(2) Piracy is progressive taxation;
I don't understand what this is supposed to mean.
(3) Customers want to do the right thing, if they can;
Disagree. Customers only want to do the right thing if they face potential repercussions for doing the thing that benefits them the most instead.
(4)Shoplifting is a bigger threat than piracy;
Probably true. In the case of media that can exist without a physical form, such as music and software, both are relatively inconsequential.
(5) File sharing networks don't threaten book, music, or film publishing. They threaten existing publishers;
Until a workable new paradigm for publishing exists, this statement is self-contradictory. How do you publish if you're not a publisher?
(6)"Free" is eventually replaced by a higher-quality paid service;
Absolutely disagree. This is the principle that the entire Dot-com New Economy was based on, and we all saw how well that worked out.
Consumers do grudgingly agree to price hikes, but if you've given them something for free and then take that away, they'd rather find someone else that still offers it for free than pony up any dough.
(7)There's more than one way to do it. "
Agreed. It's yet to be proven whether any of them will be to everyone's satisfaction though.
Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 19,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps only weigh 1.5 tons. - Popular Mechanics, March 1949.
Applying Moore's Law to the ENIAC's architecture in terms of number of vacuum tubes and system weight, we find that the future occured somewhere around June 1955...!
Slashdot Mirror
Also, Opera should have an Emacs mode so I can use all my favorite features of Emacs without having to switch out of Opera and start a separate Emacs session.
And you should be able to win prizes by using Opera!
How is this different from video teleconferencing software like CU-SeeMe, which has been around for about 8 years now?
Ahem, New Jersey says "Hi, we're on the Hudson too."
Or, you could stop patronizing so-called musicians who are content to fill out three-quarters of an album with garbage.
No CD I've bought in the past 3 years (excluding impulse buys from the $1.99 used-CD bin) has had more than 1 or 2 bad songs on it. It's because I give my money to musicians who care about their product.
Exactly!
Disney spends its money on buying bad copyright legislation, and EA gets to benefit from it without spending any money!
EA therefore has lower expenses and will catch up to Disney over time.
Then they can go after Walmart because they re-release some of their products after editing the content.
The RIAA already knows this. In fact, Walmart has the RIAA's blessing, since it's the RIAA-member record companies that actually do the editing of the content and production of the media.
What, did you think Walmart bought an unedited copy of Ja Rule's CD, opened up the wave data in ProTools, censored out the dirty words, burned the new data to a CD master and made thousands of copies of the disc and packaging THEMSELVES?
If you buy a CD, you know that you are paying $17 for the 2 hits on it. The other 10~12 songs are just fluf. If you don't like it, don't buy music.
If you're supporting artists who care more about HIT SINGLES than GOOD ALBUMS, you're not buying music to begin with.
I will never understand why people who complain that 90% of the music they buy is shit don't STOP LISTENING TO SHIT.
To those who read as far as #4 and thought "Yeah, I should totally do that!"...
BZZT
Only the consumer is allowed to make fair-use backup/format-shifted copies. Retailers are not.
Funny, my copy was called ADVENT.COM
BECAUSE THEY SOLD THE SOFTWARE TO PEOPLE IN THE US. IN EXCHANGE FOR US DOLLARS. FROM A SERVER HOSTED IN THE US.
/. story about the case since Dmitry was first arrested. And it's been answered soundly each time.
Holy Christ, will this question ever stop getting asked? It's come up in every
Hopefully the end of the court case means no one will need to ask it again.
You spelled 'Elcomsoft' wrong six times out of six. Are you a Slashdot editor?
And yes, I'm sure Elcomsoft knew what they designed the software to do. What they designed it to do was ensure their rights under Russian law.
Did they intend from the start to export their software to the United States specifically for the purpose of breaking copy protection? The jury says they didn't.
Well, mainly because touchpads are garbage. They're the reason I started learning a lot more keyboard shortcuts when I got a notebook that had one.
I work in an IT department at a major university and I don't see these extreme geeks you appear to be referring to.
Two possibilities:
1. No one you see at work is a real geek because geeks don't want to support PeopleSoft for a paltry $32K/yr, or
2. The geek is YOOOUUUUUUUU.
Hope that helps.
Quantum computer patents?
Do you mean patents on quantum computers, or quantum patents on computers? Because Acacia already holds the latter.
I'm surprised that Acacia actually seems to have the balls to go through with their threats to bring this to court. It would only take one ruling that the patent is overly broad and inapplicable to ruin their business plan forever.
Threatening to sue is a great way to make money, because there's very little expense and great potential for return involved. (It's like a meatspace equivalent to email spamming.)
But actually suing people is a much more risky business plan. You can never be sure that the men and women on the jury are going to act in the best interest of your bottom line.
Wow, is it time for another HILARIOUS Dilbert newsletter from Scott Adams already???
Why do you think that your DSL provider couldn't impose the same download/upload caps and forbid services on unapproved ports than you loathe so much about the "Cable TOS" (whatever that represents)?
The lingua franca between your PC and the ISP's NOC is different for Cable and DSL network connections, but the business relationship between you and the ISP is the same. Anything they can do to a cable customer they can find a way to do to a DSL user, and vice versa.
Light bulbs cost a dozen for 5 bucks. And then there's 'extended life' incandescent bulbs and flourescent lighting if you're willing to pay extra for the extra quality.
If they want to sell us disposable CD's, they would be wise to follow the light bulb model. Sell the ephemeral stuff like pop singles at a very low price point. They'll make up for the low profit margins in volume. Then, for the audiophiles and music lovers, offer selected higher-tier releases (Au20 discs, DVD Audio, etc.)
The problem is that for the "opt-in/out" program to work as you see it, the consumer has to be well informed about what they're opting into if they decide to put the CD in their drive.
It's not like the record company is going to put a 2-page insert in the CD jewelbox describing what their spyware does, right?
Yes, but many more people use keyboards and mouses for input that webcams, and more often.
1000 people touch-typing and/or dragging the mouse cursor across the screen will easily generate more bytes than 1 person with a webcam.
Gartner's prediction (and mine) is that this is not likely to change much very soon.
Okay, there are innovations in user interface. But how likely is it that any of them will become widely adopted in the near future?
Light pens seemed like the Next Big Thing in I/O devices 20 years ago... how many practical applications do they have today?
If this Officially Sanctioned site follows Lucas Arts policy in any way it will be up for grabs once you post. If they borrow from your idea, you won't get anything for it.
And?
If you create a derivative work based on and requiring use of a LucasArts game, shouldn't LucasArts be the one that stands to benefit financially because of it?
This seems like a pretty standard and harmless working arrangement to me.
Hey, at least I'm honest. But here's my responses to the points made in the summary:
(1) Obscurity is a far greater threat to
authors and creative artists than piracy,
Agreed.
(2) Piracy is progressive taxation;
I don't understand what this is supposed to mean.
(3) Customers want to do the right thing, if they can;
Disagree. Customers only want to do the right thing if they face potential repercussions for doing the thing that benefits them the most instead.
(4)Shoplifting is a bigger threat than piracy;
Probably true. In the case of media that can exist without a physical form, such as music and software, both are relatively inconsequential.
(5) File sharing networks don't threaten book, music, or film publishing. They threaten existing
publishers;
Until a workable new paradigm for publishing exists, this statement is self-contradictory. How do you publish if you're not a publisher?
(6)"Free" is eventually replaced by a higher-quality paid service;
Absolutely disagree. This is the principle that the entire Dot-com New Economy was based on, and we all saw how well that worked out.
Consumers do grudgingly agree to price hikes, but if you've given them something for free and then take that away, they'd rather find someone else that still offers it for free than pony up any dough.
(7)There's more than one way to do it. "
Agreed. It's yet to be proven whether any of them will be to everyone's satisfaction though.
Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 19,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps only weigh 1.5 tons.
- Popular Mechanics, March 1949.
Applying Moore's Law to the ENIAC's architecture in terms of number of vacuum tubes and system weight, we find that the future occured somewhere around June 1955...!
Well, don't worry. I'm sure one of the crack Slashdot editors will just go in and fix... oh yeah.