You may have a good point about where the money is going,b ut by this logic, I should be able to go into my local BMW dealer and help myself to a Z3 convertible, 'cause although I want it, I'm not going to buy one.
Now, granted, one is theft, and the other is copying. I can see the difference. But the point is, if you're not willing to pay the price for it, you shouldn't be allowed to have it.
Music, as wonderful as it is, isn't a basic human right. And unfortunately, despite the fact that people seem to think The Internet isn't included in reality, there are laws concerning this sort of thing (at least in the US; other countries, check for yourself).
Copying a work of art that you do not have permission to copy is illegal. Plain and simple. It's not confusing, it's easy to understand. If an artist creates something and doesn't give you permission to have a copy of it, you can't.
Sure, it would be great if all the artists I love would give away their music for free, but they choose not to. Perhaps that will change as the forms of distribution the Internet make possible bring down the cost of self-publishing. In the meantime, I don't even see why people are debating.
Let me restate what I think is the most important point here. If your friend isn't going to pay for Diablo 2, why should he have the right to a copy of it? If I walked into a video arcade (you people are old enough to remember those, right?) and told the attendant I didn't want to PAY for a certain game, but I expected to be able to PLAY it, he'd laugh me out.
...and giving a copy of yesterday's best encoding...
You mean like the CD format?:P Seriously, I'd love to have MP3s onthe CDs I buy, I garuntee I would buy more, and appreciate them more. You may not realize this, but some of us don't have the clock cycles to spare to make our own MP3s.
Personally, my primary computer is a Pentium 200. It takes ten-fifteen minutes to rip a good MP3 from a CD at that speed. I also have a DSL connection. It takes 45-60 seconds to download someone else's ripped MP3 off of Napster.
Anyhow, people still collect vinyl, not to mention 8-tracks, cassette tapes, etc... there really isn't any such thing as an outdated encoding format.
Well, I read the review of the software, and I have to wonder why anyone would want to implement it. I mean, for crying out loud, they don't even know how much porn it lets get through! They do know for sure it blocks one out of about every 20 legitimate sites.
To me, that sounds more like a good way to cripple your browser, than a good way to protect your children.
There's something else fundamentally wrong with censorware -- which is this: Even if it did a good job of blocking web sites, we all know (c'mon, you know it too!) the best, most accessable porn isn't on the web -- it's on usenet! I have yet to hear of a censoring program that blocks usenet access.
Or, for that matter, censorware that can block the various EXE porn-clients available. Really, I haven't heard of any kind of censorware that's actually worth using.
When I have children, I'll count on teaching them what's right and what's wrong, rather than trying to police them with vaporware.
I'm hoping you mean the IPs of the cracker's boxes, not the IPs of Kuro5hin's boxen, which A) would be easy to find if you wanted them, and B) wouldn't help you much in dispensing justice.
Personally, I think we should find the kid who did this and take away all his.jpgs of Natalie Portman and hot grits.
I'd like to point out that I mixed up and got my previous response attached to the wrong post. I'm a terrible human being and deserve to die a thousand horrible deaths.
Uhm, I like how you think. I think you're right on. ButI'd like to point out as someone who has worked in and spent a lot of time in pet stores, a good 75% of the mice, rats, gerbils, guinea pigs, and even bunny rabbits bought are snake food.
Any pet store owner knows this. When I was a kid, I used to raise mice to sell to the pet store. They'd buy them from me for something like $.10 a peice. The only reason they were always willing to buy more is because they sell so many for snake food.
So it's a good point you're making, but a bad analogy. The pet store owner won't stop selling you mice, no matter how many you buy. Most pet stores even stock pre-killed (frozen) mice for snake food for snakes that don't like to eat live stuff.
But I'd like topoitn something out. A girl seducing a guy into giving away a big ol' sword or money or whatever is hardly cheating. Women have been doing that for ages.
And lest this be labeled a troll or flamebait, let me say that men are often guilty of the same things. And I'm not saying it's a bad thing, either -- consider that each party gets something they want out of the transaction. The seducer ets the prize, and the seducee gets the attentions of the seducer.
So it's all good in my book. For the record, however, I don't play online games at all, so I may have no right to comment.
Why not give it to SETI@home and let them do some of their own darn work? Or -- better yet -- give it to that Martinez Troll and have him/her/it use it to end world hunger.
I live in Chicago, too. I get those calls, too. They suck!
Not the point, though. Next time you've got a message on your system you don't wan to hear, hit 337 on your dial pad. It fast-forwards to the end and deletes the message, effectively a "skip and delete" command. I use it all the time. 339 will skip and save, FYI.
The link to the article is busted, so now I have a great excuse for saying anything at all I want about the topic, no matter how off-base.
So I heard about these DVD RW devices, and they're supposed to have an chip on-board that prevents the writing of MP3s, VCDs, DVDs, and anything else the MPAA and RIAA don't like.
Okay, but your department store analogy doesn't quite hold up. A better way to put it (in this case, not inthe case of search engines) would be if you ran a department store, and your competitor from across the street sent over a crew of guys with cameras to document everything you've got in the store, which they then publish as products being available in their own catalog.
If that larger company didn't want to be indexed by Pricewatch then they would lose your business.
Multiply by several thousand and you'll get some small idea the amount of business these sites stand to lose by not being indexed. No company -- no matter how large -- wants to lose evenone customer, much less a huge portion of the market like that. They'll all let themselves be indexed, believe me. And if they don't, then screw them -- or more specifically, let them screw themselves.
I use shopper.com to comparison shop all the time, and I don't always buy from the lowest priced vendor. I go for one I can trust as well. I'm sure i'm not the only person who feels that way, and I trust that any company with brains enough to be worthy of my business will see things "my" way, too.
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Now, granted, one is theft, and the other is copying. I can see the difference. But the point is, if you're not willing to pay the price for it, you shouldn't be allowed to have it.
Music, as wonderful as it is, isn't a basic human right. And unfortunately, despite the fact that people seem to think The Internet isn't included in reality, there are laws concerning this sort of thing (at least in the US; other countries, check for yourself).
Copying a work of art that you do not have permission to copy is illegal. Plain and simple. It's not confusing, it's easy to understand. If an artist creates something and doesn't give you permission to have a copy of it, you can't.
Sure, it would be great if all the artists I love would give away their music for free, but they choose not to. Perhaps that will change as the forms of distribution the Internet make possible bring down the cost of self-publishing. In the meantime, I don't even see why people are debating.
Let me restate what I think is the most important point here. If your friend isn't going to pay for Diablo 2, why should he have the right to a copy of it? If I walked into a video arcade (you people are old enough to remember those, right?) and told the attendant I didn't want to PAY for a certain game, but I expected to be able to PLAY it, he'd laugh me out.
Therefore, I laugh at you. Ha!
You mean like the CD format? :P Seriously, I'd love to have MP3s onthe CDs I buy, I garuntee I would buy more, and appreciate them more. You may not realize this, but some of us don't have the clock cycles to spare to make our own MP3s.
Personally, my primary computer is a Pentium 200. It takes ten-fifteen minutes to rip a good MP3 from a CD at that speed. I also have a DSL connection. It takes 45-60 seconds to download someone else's ripped MP3 off of Napster.
Anyhow, people still collect vinyl, not to mention 8-tracks, cassette tapes, etc... there really isn't any such thing as an outdated encoding format.
To me, that sounds more like a good way to cripple your browser, than a good way to protect your children.
There's something else fundamentally wrong with censorware -- which is this: Even if it did a good job of blocking web sites, we all know (c'mon, you know it too!) the best, most accessable porn isn't on the web -- it's on usenet! I have yet to hear of a censoring program that blocks usenet access.
Or, for that matter, censorware that can block the various EXE porn-clients available. Really, I haven't heard of any kind of censorware that's actually worth using.
When I have children, I'll count on teaching them what's right and what's wrong, rather than trying to police them with vaporware.
Easy for me to say, I know.
Personally, I think we should find the kid who did this and take away all his .jpgs of Natalie Portman and hot grits.
Just my $.02
Any pet store owner knows this. When I was a kid, I used to raise mice to sell to the pet store. They'd buy them from me for something like $.10 a peice. The only reason they were always willing to buy more is because they sell so many for snake food.
So it's a good point you're making, but a bad analogy. The pet store owner won't stop selling you mice, no matter how many you buy. Most pet stores even stock pre-killed (frozen) mice for snake food for snakes that don't like to eat live stuff.
And lest this be labeled a troll or flamebait, let me say that men are often guilty of the same things. And I'm not saying it's a bad thing, either -- consider that each party gets something they want out of the transaction. The seducer ets the prize, and the seducee gets the attentions of the seducer.
So it's all good in my book. For the record, however, I don't play online games at all, so I may have no right to comment.
Yeah, that's the ticket.
Not the point, though. Next time you've got a message on your system you don't wan to hear, hit 337 on your dial pad. It fast-forwards to the end and deletes the message, effectively a "skip and delete" command. I use it all the time. 339 will skip and save, FYI.
So I heard about these DVD RW devices, and they're supposed to have an chip on-board that prevents the writing of MP3s, VCDs, DVDs, and anything else the MPAA and RIAA don't like.
Or something.
I'd call that unacceptable business practice.
Multiply by several thousand and you'll get some small idea the amount of business these sites stand to lose by not being indexed. No company -- no matter how large -- wants to lose evenone customer, much less a huge portion of the market like that. They'll all let themselves be indexed, believe me. And if they don't, then screw them -- or more specifically, let them screw themselves.
I use shopper.com to comparison shop all the time, and I don't always buy from the lowest priced vendor. I go for one I can trust as well. I'm sure i'm not the only person who feels that way, and I trust that any company with brains enough to be worthy of my business will see things "my" way, too.