Ok, we all know they make their real money on Office, but does anyone actually think that MS would be so dumb as to simply pull Windows off the market completely and give up their OS monopoly?
They're smart enough to know what would happen: 1 - All those Windows machines would keep running. They might be able to "remotely deactivate" XP machines via Product Activation somehow, but Win9x/ME/NT/2K machines would stay in operation for quite some time.
2 - As Windows machines reach the end of their life, people will look to buy new ones. Computer vendors aren't going to stop including an OS just because Microsoft isn't providing one. They'll find some other OS (most likely Linux) to install and configure. Those "Dude, you're gettin' a Dell" ads would start touting how Dells have the best versions of Linux installed.
3 - Customers would gradually come to be able to work with Linux the way they worked with Windows. (Not using it's full potential, perhaps, but using it enough to type up reports, browse the web, and send e-mails.) Software vendors would have to follow suit and release Linux versions to hedge their bets.
4 - MS would change their mind, and re-release Windows. By then, Linux would have a much larger stake in the OS market. This isn't to say that MS couldn't regain dominance, but it wouldn't be easy for them. And if they didn't, their Office suite might be replaced by someone else's which works on Linux. (Which would mean they'd lose most of their revenue.)
I don't see MS possibly putting themselves in a position like that. The MS execs might be many things, but they're not stupid.
I've seen it in MS's Product Activation. I've seen it in the creation of Copy-Protected CDs. A customer is now seen as the enemy of the company selling it's goods and not a friend. This is a completely backwards view. These companies (MS, MPAA, RIAA, and others) don't see the customer as someone who's plunking down hard-earned money to use something they created (using "created" in the loosest sense with the RIAA/MPAA), but as someone who might pirate their work and deny them additional sales.
They will regularly trot out "how much we're losing" piracy figures. (Nevermind that some users who pirate software would do without before paying the inflated price for a legal copy.) They assume that they have a right to sell their product to everyone, charge whatever they want, and tell the user exactly how they can and can't use the product.
I imagine in their perfect world, there'd be a RIAA/MPAA/MS computer-chip implanted in everyone's brain calculating how much we use their product (so we can be billed by the hour, rounded up of course), stopping us from doing things they deem "illegal" (I'm sorry, you can't rip that. After all, you paid for it, but we still *own* it.), and turning us in the police if we persist.
If I could sit in a room with them and say one thing it'd be: "You're in for a serious wake-up call. People do not like being treated like criminals. They take offense to it. You exist to provide a service to the public (and make some $$$ off of it), the public doesn't exist to send money to you." Of course, I'd probably be branded a criminal by those statements and be shipped off for a "special" brain implant.
Business-school professors could feast for years on the unintended consequences that come from treating Britney Spears tunes like nuclear secrets.
So we might have Britney Spears tunes locked up with only a select few authorized to listen to them? Maybe there is a upside (albeit a tiny one) to this after all.
Granting the ABILITY to do something is almost never a problem. Doing it might be another matter. The general rule of law in this country is "innocent until proven guilty."
Sadly, it seems that companies nowadays are taking the viewpoint that their customers are guilty criminals unless proven innocent. And they're buying laws (DCMA, SSSCA, etc) to make this viewpoint a legal default. As far as I'm concerned, though, if they have to assume that all of their customers are criminals, then they should seriously reconsider how they are doing business. If 60 million people are downloading music from Napster and I were a record exec, I'd think "Gee, there's a big demand for online music. Maybe there's some way for me to profit off of this by providing a for-pay service that customers would want to use. Something that would make piracy a less-attractive option."
Actually, I apologize for the paradox up above.... If I were a record exec, I wouldn't be able to think and everytime I heard "Internet" by few remaining brain cells would replace it with "dirty, low-down, cyber pirates."
Now I'm no MS Basher. I'll take them to task when it needs to be done, but I'll also praise them when they deserve it. Still, with quotes like the following, it's getting harder and harder to find something to praise about them:
"Rather than form a federation with Microsoft and work with what we had already created, there was this notion that the world should be offered an alternative," Mundie said.
Oh no!!!! An alternative! How horrible that consumers be offered a choice!
Some people have knocked Paypal and while I'm sure it has it's problems, let me give the other side of the tale. As a webmaster who's looked into ways of accepting credit card donations for my site, I looked into Paypal and the only other service like it that I know of: Amazon's Honor System.
Paypal charges a fee of 30 cents + 2.9% of the payment. This means for a $5 payment, Slashdot would only see $4.56.
Amazon meanwhile charges $0.15 plus 15% of the payment. For that same $5 payment, Slashdot would only see $4.10.
A $0.46 fee might not seem like alot, but it can build up over time (especially with a high traffic site like Slashdot). For my site, I'm planning on looking into adding an Amazon payment option (along with a "snail mail check" address). I'd also fully inform visitors as to how much of their donation actually goes to me. If anyone knows of any better options out there, I'd love to know what they are.
This seems so Dilbertian...
on
SSSCA Hearing
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· Score: 4, Funny
Just replace the IT industry with Dilbert, the MPAA folks with marketing weasels, and the congressmen with Pointy-Haired Bosses. To sum up the hearings, this is how it went:
Marketing Weasels: "This online piracy is hurting sales. The solution is obvious: Make all computers unable to copy anything."
PHB: "Yup. That sounds right, take care of it Dilbert."
Dilbert: "That's impossible. All computers copy. It's part of their basic operation. You might as well tell me to design a perpetual motion machine."
PHB: "I don't understand what you're saying. Logically, anything I don't understand isn't important. You have 12 to 18 months to make all the computers in the world unable to copy. Oh, and the marketing weasels get to decide on the specs. Don't worry, they rarely change their minds more than twice a day."
Considering the nature of software, bugs are a fact of life. No code is going to be 100% bug free unless it's a simple "Hello World" program. It's how the vendor treats the bugs that counts.
If the vendor is informed and fixes the bug in a reasonable amount of time then they shouldn't be liable. (Reasonable being a flexible span of time. If a bug is particularly vexing but they keep their users informed of the progress, then they should get extra time. But if they just say "yeah, yeah, we'll work on it" and then nothing happens for a month, they don't get extra time.) Of course, if the vendor is informed about the bug and does nothing about it, they should be made liable.
Finally, if they release a patch but the user doesn't install it and has their security compromised (e.g. what happened with CodeRed), the user is the one at fault. In this case, it would be like an automobile manufacturer issuing a recall, a consumer ignoring the recall, and then getting into an accident because of the very defect that prompted the recall. Software companies shouldn't be liable for the stupidity/ignorance of their users.
2. Flash is evil, and of the devil. Flash is blaspemy.
Flash *can* be used to make some really nice navigation functions, but it's more often used to make flashy animations that just distract the user. Only use Flash as a last-resort, if at all.
4. Images should be used for illustrative purposes, not to show you found a neat image and *never* as a background.
Minor exception, on one of my sites, I use a three toned image as a background. It gives the appearance of the page being divided into three columns (left nav, main content area with white background, and grey blank right column). The look is clean and since the image is a small GIF that's just repeated by the browser, the download time is minimized. However, rule 4 applies where the background image in any way interferes with the reading of the page.
7. Style sheets should always be used (see number 1) but make sure that necessary style pairings (such as colored tables and the text within) are defined in the same scope. A page-declared table color and text/css file declared table text color could cause problems if your style sheet file doesn't load.
Also test between browsers. NS 4.x is notorious for mis-displaying CSS. Unfortunately, NS 4.x usership hasn't sunk enough (switching to NS6/Mozilla) to justify simply ignoring the browser. It will cause you more headaches, but at least the user won't leave your site right away.
About NS 4.x: I totally agree! When I design my sites, I don't mind supporting non-IE browsers. But supporting NS 4.x is one giant headache. It will display some CSS correctly, some incorrectly, some not at all. Not to say that IE is 100% perfect, but it's light-years ahead of NS 4.x. If only the NS users would upgrade to NS 6.x or Mozilla, a lot of web developers would be able to cut down on their asprin intake.
Gotta love this quote from the article (bolding mine):
Valenti wrote: "What's keeping the movie industry from making its creativity theft-proof? Simply put, in order to transport movies as agreed to by the consumer on a rent, buy, or pay-per-view basis with heightened security, computers and video devices must be prepared to react to instructions embedded in the film."
Who wants to bet that, should Valenti get what he wants, downloading and playing a movie from a "MPAA-Approved" site will result in something like the following message:
"Accessing bank account.... Transferring money to MPAA.... Checking system for pirated material.... Possible copyright violation found, alerting police now.... While you wait you may play the downloaded movie (only once though)."
Because some people won't read the article, here are the 10 conditions:
Privacy 1. Defendants shall immediately ensure that any and all Internet music file downloads and listening of the music contained or arising out of said Charlie Pride CD are always anonymous and personal identifying information including, but not limited to, e-mail address and IP addresses shall not be required nor obtained as a condition of downloading (including file downloads from sunncomm.com) or playing or listening to the CD or music files, thereby protecting consumer privacy.
2. Defendants shall immediately purge all personal identifying information (including e-mail addresses and IP addresses) obtained via the music file downloading process to date.
3. Defendants shall amend their privacy policy(s) to advise consumers that all Internet file downloads of the music contained on the Charlie Pride CD are anonymous.
Right of First Sale 4. Defendants shall not impair or limit in any manner the ability and right of consumers to lawfully sell or transfer ownership of the Charlie Pride CD to others who shall have the equal ability to download related digital music files;
Return Policy 5. Defendants shall immediately begin accepting from consumers not satisfied with the Charlie Pride CD due to problems with playability on their CD player, computer CD player, or electronic or portable playing device
Platform Notices 6. Defendants shall include a warning that the Charlie Pride CD is not designed to work in DVD players or Computer CD-ROM players;
7. Defendants shall include a warning of the minimum system requirements for playing the downloadable encrypted digital music files on a computer, including Microsoft Windows 98 and above and Microsoft Windows Media Player 7.0 and above and access to the Internet;
Spaceshifting Notices 8. Defendants shall include a warning that the Charlie Pride CD and encrypted digital music file downloads are not compatible with MP3 rippers and players and are not compatible with MP3 electronic playing devices;.
9. Defendants shall include a notice to visit a web page with a simple URL for an updated list of known compatibility problems related to computers. CDplayers, and digital music playing devices;
10. Defendants shall include a warning that the downloadable encrypted digital music files of the songs contained on the Charlie Pride CD may only be downloaded six times.
Because it's best to give the vendor (yes, even Microsoft) a fair amount of time to fix the problem. Every coder is human and is going to make some mistakes. Bugs are a fact of life in coding. Most vendors want their product to be the best out there and will do all they can to patch up any security holes. (Especially the little guys who can't rely on pure marketshare to srive their sales.) Of course, if the vendor doesn't fix the problem (or denies that a problem even exists), then the details should be released to the public.
I think you're right. I wasn't sure whether or not the police took the files from the guy's system. If they went into his house and took computer files (along with whatever else) as evidence, then they don't need a warrant. If the 15 year old girl he was chatting with printed out the chat transcripts and handed it to police, then they don't need a warrant.
Standard disclaimer: IANAL. This is just my "common sense" talking. Common sense and the law might conflict sometimes.
At first I was completely opposed to the police accessing his e-mail without a warrent, ready to liken it to them tapping his phone without permission. Then I read these lines:
The court also said the wiretapping law did not apply because police did not intercept Proetto's messages as he was sending them, but after the fact.
Now, the article didn't go into whether or not the police had an "overall warrant" to search through his stuff, but assuming they did, I see nothing wrong with this. If they merely got the e-mails from the 15-year old, the ISP, or his computer, then they'd just need the proper warrants to search. (Not a wiretapping warrant.)
... Once you think they've done their worst, they one-up themselves. First they claim that it's wrong to download music because you're stealing from the artist. (Like any of us believed that they were sincere.) Then they set up a site where it would take them over 5.2 million downloads a year just to match a $6 per hour burger-flipping job. And when the artists and managers tell them "We don't want those songs online, take them down," the RIAA doesn't even give them the dignity of a real response.
In RIAA's eyes, the artists are cattle to be milked for all their worth so that they (the RIAA execs) can get as fat as possible. And when the cow (artist) stops producing milk (profits)? Just dump them aside.
At least the fans downloading/sharing the MP3s illegally had the decency to appreciate the artist's work. I think we'll start to see "Round 2" of the online music wars pitting artists against the RIAA. "Round 3" will be a lot more interesting if the artists win.
Those "CD Club" discs are also counted as "Promotional Copies." I can't understand the logic of why a consumer buying a full-featured disc of music should fall under a "promotion," but you can't really include logic and the RIAA in the same sentence. (At least not without "lack of.")
The internet in no way affects your quality of life.
Well besides the obvious "helps me find better deals when shopping" the Internet has done a lot to improve the quality of my life:
Through the Internet (Yahoo Chat Rooms, specifically), I met my wife. We lived 200 miles apart when we met, so without the 'Net we never would have met. This certainly has improved the quality of my life.
I'm a web developer. Thus, working with the Internet provides me with a paycheck without which my quality of life would seriously suffer.
Through the Internet I've met people I would have never met before. This has introduced me to viewpoints and ideas I would have never considered and has broadened my horizons.
Based on those three points alone, I'd say that the Internet has improved my quality of life.
I'd say they (the beta testers) don't own any portion of the IP rights. If a beta tester points out that doing X, Y, and Z will cause a crash, they're simply giving you feedback about your product. You're the one who comes up with a solution on how to fix it. Even if they give a way to fix it, they don't own the IP rights to that method. This is assuming that you control the source code 100%. If the code is freely available, someone submits some patched code, and you use it then all bets are off. To be on the safe side, you should probably have a disclaimer somewhere on the beta test site that states that all submissions become your property. Just to be on the safe side. (I tend to beta test my programs with a group of technically adept friends of mine, so I've never run into this. They're unlikely to demand rights to my program, they're just happy that I continue to develop it.)
That's why the data shouldn't be tied to an individual user, but reported on the whole. For example, they might say that for a given timeslot, 33% of their audience watched NBC's show, 15% watched a program on HBO, etc. They might report that 0.001% watched "News The Government Doesn't Want You To Know" on a public access station, but most likely it would be grouped into a "Other" category. And there would be no way (from the press release and without a warrant) to trace the data back to the level of an individual person.
A while back I had an idea like this. Get old TV shows that were sitting on the shelves collecting dust and put them on the 'Net in a streaming format. You could charge a (reasonable) fee with differing access levels. For example, maybe $10 per month would get you 10 shows at low quality and $20 would get you 20 shows at medium quality. (I'm just making these figures off the top of my head, so don't complain "that's too high.")
Of course, I didn't have any contacts in the TV industry and I saw how reluctant the music/movie industries were to have their products online in any shape or form. So I gave up on it and moved to other site ideas.
I still think this would be a good idea though. Maybe some server-side scripting could splice in commercials based on the user's preference and show. For example, say you're watching that episode of Futurama online (since you missed it on TV due to Fox's scheduling nightmares) and you come to a commercial. Since you've said you're interested in Sci-Fi and you're (obviously) interested in Futurama, you see commercials for the a new Sci-Fi movie, Futurama merchandise, new Simpsons episodes, etc.
This would increase the value of the commercials since the vendors will have their commercial seen by people who would be more likely to purchase the products. (Of course, the user would need to be able to change their profile at any time and would need to be assured that their user data wouldn't be shared.) Are there even any "server-side video splicing" tools?
Why not sell the used CD on Half.com and buy some other used CDs there? I bought 4 CDs there a few months ago and it cost me about $35 (including shipping). If I went to the local store, it would have cost over $50 (before tax), if they would have even had them (some were over a decade old). Of course the RIAA probably looks down upon people buying used CDs when they could be sending more money into the RIAA bank accounts!
Re:As a Trillian and AIM user...
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AOL vs. Trillian
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· Score: 2
Well, you can save conversations so it does have rudimentary message logging. And I personally find the IMVironments distracting. I don't want some animation and scenery getting in the way of the message I'm reading. AIM isn't perfect, but it's still pretty good.
"It has long been our very public policy that when a service unleashes software that hacks into our system, and endangers the security of our system, we stop it," AOL spokeswoman Kathy McKiernan said.
So, since I run Trillian does that make me a hacker? And here I thought I was running an app that just made my life a whole lot easier by combining various incompatible IM services into one easy-to-use application.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, we all know they make their real money on Office, but does anyone actually think that MS would be so dumb as to simply pull Windows off the market completely and give up their OS monopoly?
They're smart enough to know what would happen:
1 - All those Windows machines would keep running. They might be able to "remotely deactivate" XP machines via Product Activation somehow, but Win9x/ME/NT/2K machines would stay in operation for quite some time.
2 - As Windows machines reach the end of their life, people will look to buy new ones. Computer vendors aren't going to stop including an OS just because Microsoft isn't providing one. They'll find some other OS (most likely Linux) to install and configure. Those "Dude, you're gettin' a Dell" ads would start touting how Dells have the best versions of Linux installed.
3 - Customers would gradually come to be able to work with Linux the way they worked with Windows. (Not using it's full potential, perhaps, but using it enough to type up reports, browse the web, and send e-mails.) Software vendors would have to follow suit and release Linux versions to hedge their bets.
4 - MS would change their mind, and re-release Windows. By then, Linux would have a much larger stake in the OS market. This isn't to say that MS couldn't regain dominance, but it wouldn't be easy for them. And if they didn't, their Office suite might be replaced by someone else's which works on Linux. (Which would mean they'd lose most of their revenue.)
I don't see MS possibly putting themselves in a position like that. The MS execs might be many things, but they're not stupid.
I've seen it in MS's Product Activation. I've seen it in the creation of Copy-Protected CDs. A customer is now seen as the enemy of the company selling it's goods and not a friend. This is a completely backwards view. These companies (MS, MPAA, RIAA, and others) don't see the customer as someone who's plunking down hard-earned money to use something they created (using "created" in the loosest sense with the RIAA/MPAA), but as someone who might pirate their work and deny them additional sales.
They will regularly trot out "how much we're losing" piracy figures. (Nevermind that some users who pirate software would do without before paying the inflated price for a legal copy.) They assume that they have a right to sell their product to everyone, charge whatever they want, and tell the user exactly how they can and can't use the product.
I imagine in their perfect world, there'd be a RIAA/MPAA/MS computer-chip implanted in everyone's brain calculating how much we use their product (so we can be billed by the hour, rounded up of course), stopping us from doing things they deem "illegal" (I'm sorry, you can't rip that. After all, you paid for it, but we still *own* it.), and turning us in the police if we persist.
If I could sit in a room with them and say one thing it'd be: "You're in for a serious wake-up call. People do not like being treated like criminals. They take offense to it. You exist to provide a service to the public (and make some $$$ off of it), the public doesn't exist to send money to you." Of course, I'd probably be branded a criminal by those statements and be shipped off for a "special" brain implant.
Business-school professors could feast for years on the unintended consequences that come from treating Britney Spears tunes like nuclear secrets.
So we might have Britney Spears tunes locked up with only a select few authorized to listen to them? Maybe there is a upside (albeit a tiny one) to this after all.
Granting the ABILITY to do something is almost never a problem. Doing it might be another matter. The general rule of law in this country is "innocent until proven guilty."
Sadly, it seems that companies nowadays are taking the viewpoint that their customers are guilty criminals unless proven innocent. And they're buying laws (DCMA, SSSCA, etc) to make this viewpoint a legal default. As far as I'm concerned, though, if they have to assume that all of their customers are criminals, then they should seriously reconsider how they are doing business. If 60 million people are downloading music from Napster and I were a record exec, I'd think "Gee, there's a big demand for online music. Maybe there's some way for me to profit off of this by providing a for-pay service that customers would want to use. Something that would make piracy a less-attractive option."
Actually, I apologize for the paradox up above.... If I were a record exec, I wouldn't be able to think and everytime I heard "Internet" by few remaining brain cells would replace it with "dirty, low-down, cyber pirates."
Now I'm no MS Basher. I'll take them to task when it needs to be done, but I'll also praise them when they deserve it. Still, with quotes like the following, it's getting harder and harder to find something to praise about them:
"Rather than form a federation with Microsoft and work with what we had already created, there was this notion that the world should be offered an alternative," Mundie said.
Oh no!!!! An alternative! How horrible that consumers be offered a choice!
Some people have knocked Paypal and while I'm sure it has it's problems, let me give the other side of the tale. As a webmaster who's looked into ways of accepting credit card donations for my site, I looked into Paypal and the only other service like it that I know of: Amazon's Honor System.
Paypal charges a fee of 30 cents + 2.9% of the payment. This means for a $5 payment, Slashdot would only see $4.56.
Amazon meanwhile charges $0.15 plus 15% of the payment. For that same $5 payment, Slashdot would only see $4.10.
A $0.46 fee might not seem like alot, but it can build up over time (especially with a high traffic site like Slashdot). For my site, I'm planning on looking into adding an Amazon payment option (along with a "snail mail check" address). I'd also fully inform visitors as to how much of their donation actually goes to me. If anyone knows of any better options out there, I'd love to know what they are.
Just replace the IT industry with Dilbert, the MPAA folks with marketing weasels, and the congressmen with Pointy-Haired Bosses. To sum up the hearings, this is how it went:
Marketing Weasels: "This online piracy is hurting sales. The solution is obvious: Make all computers unable to copy anything."
PHB: "Yup. That sounds right, take care of it Dilbert."
Dilbert: "That's impossible. All computers copy. It's part of their basic operation. You might as well tell me to design a perpetual motion machine."
PHB: "I don't understand what you're saying. Logically, anything I don't understand isn't important. You have 12 to 18 months to make all the computers in the world unable to copy. Oh, and the marketing weasels get to decide on the specs. Don't worry, they rarely change their minds more than twice a day."
Considering the nature of software, bugs are a fact of life. No code is going to be 100% bug free unless it's a simple "Hello World" program. It's how the vendor treats the bugs that counts.
If the vendor is informed and fixes the bug in a reasonable amount of time then they shouldn't be liable. (Reasonable being a flexible span of time. If a bug is particularly vexing but they keep their users informed of the progress, then they should get extra time. But if they just say "yeah, yeah, we'll work on it" and then nothing happens for a month, they don't get extra time.) Of course, if the vendor is informed about the bug and does nothing about it, they should be made liable.
Finally, if they release a patch but the user doesn't install it and has their security compromised (e.g. what happened with CodeRed), the user is the one at fault. In this case, it would be like an automobile manufacturer issuing a recall, a consumer ignoring the recall, and then getting into an accident because of the very defect that prompted the recall. Software companies shouldn't be liable for the stupidity/ignorance of their users.
2. Flash is evil, and of the devil. Flash is blaspemy.
Flash *can* be used to make some really nice navigation functions, but it's more often used to make flashy animations that just distract the user. Only use Flash as a last-resort, if at all.
4. Images should be used for illustrative purposes, not to show you found a neat image and *never* as a background.
Minor exception, on one of my sites, I use a three toned image as a background. It gives the appearance of the page being divided into three columns (left nav, main content area with white background, and grey blank right column). The look is clean and since the image is a small GIF that's just repeated by the browser, the download time is minimized. However, rule 4 applies where the background image in any way interferes with the reading of the page.
7. Style sheets should always be used (see number 1) but make sure that necessary style pairings (such as colored tables and the text within) are defined in the same scope. A page-declared table color and text/css file declared table text color could cause problems if your style sheet file doesn't load.
Also test between browsers. NS 4.x is notorious for mis-displaying CSS. Unfortunately, NS 4.x usership hasn't sunk enough (switching to NS6/Mozilla) to justify simply ignoring the browser. It will cause you more headaches, but at least the user won't leave your site right away.
About NS 4.x: I totally agree! When I design my sites, I don't mind supporting non-IE browsers. But supporting NS 4.x is one giant headache. It will display some CSS correctly, some incorrectly, some not at all. Not to say that IE is 100% perfect, but it's light-years ahead of NS 4.x. If only the NS users would upgrade to NS 6.x or Mozilla, a lot of web developers would be able to cut down on their asprin intake.
Gotta love this quote from the article (bolding mine):
Valenti wrote: "What's keeping the movie industry from making its creativity theft-proof? Simply put, in order to transport movies as agreed to by the consumer on a rent, buy, or pay-per-view basis with heightened security, computers and video devices must be prepared to react to instructions embedded in the film."
Who wants to bet that, should Valenti get what he wants, downloading and playing a movie from a "MPAA-Approved" site will result in something like the following message:
"Accessing bank account.... Transferring money to MPAA.... Checking system for pirated material.... Possible copyright violation found, alerting police now.... While you wait you may play the downloaded movie (only once though)."
Because some people won't read the article, here are the 10 conditions:
.
Privacy
1. Defendants shall immediately ensure that any and all Internet music file downloads and listening of the music contained or arising out of said Charlie Pride CD are always anonymous and personal identifying information including, but not limited to, e-mail address and IP addresses shall not be required nor obtained as a condition of downloading (including file downloads from sunncomm.com) or playing or listening to the CD or music files, thereby protecting consumer privacy.
2. Defendants shall immediately purge all personal identifying information (including e-mail addresses and IP addresses) obtained via the music file downloading process to date.
3. Defendants shall amend their privacy policy(s) to advise consumers that all Internet file downloads of the music contained on the Charlie Pride CD are anonymous.
Right of First Sale
4. Defendants shall not impair or limit in any manner the ability and right of consumers to lawfully sell or transfer ownership of the Charlie Pride CD to others who shall have the equal ability to download related digital music files;
Return Policy
5. Defendants shall immediately begin accepting from consumers not satisfied with the Charlie Pride CD due to problems with playability on their CD player, computer CD player, or electronic or portable playing device
Platform Notices
6. Defendants shall include a warning that the Charlie Pride CD is not designed to work in DVD players or Computer CD-ROM players;
7. Defendants shall include a warning of the minimum system requirements for playing the downloadable encrypted digital music files on a computer, including Microsoft Windows 98 and above and Microsoft Windows Media Player 7.0 and above and access to the Internet;
Spaceshifting Notices
8. Defendants shall include a warning that the Charlie Pride CD and encrypted digital music file downloads are not compatible with MP3 rippers and players and are not compatible with MP3 electronic playing devices;
9. Defendants shall include a notice to visit a web page with a simple URL for an updated list of known compatibility problems related to computers. CDplayers, and digital music playing devices;
10. Defendants shall include a warning that the downloadable encrypted digital music files of the songs contained on the Charlie Pride CD may only be downloaded six times.
Because it's best to give the vendor (yes, even Microsoft) a fair amount of time to fix the problem. Every coder is human and is going to make some mistakes. Bugs are a fact of life in coding. Most vendors want their product to be the best out there and will do all they can to patch up any security holes. (Especially the little guys who can't rely on pure marketshare to srive their sales.) Of course, if the vendor doesn't fix the problem (or denies that a problem even exists), then the details should be released to the public.
I think you're right. I wasn't sure whether or not the police took the files from the guy's system. If they went into his house and took computer files (along with whatever else) as evidence, then they don't need a warrant. If the 15 year old girl he was chatting with printed out the chat transcripts and handed it to police, then they don't need a warrant.
Standard disclaimer: IANAL. This is just my "common sense" talking. Common sense and the law might conflict sometimes.
At first I was completely opposed to the police accessing his e-mail without a warrent, ready to liken it to them tapping his phone without permission. Then I read these lines:
The court also said the wiretapping law did not apply because police did not intercept Proetto's messages as he was sending them, but after the fact.
Now, the article didn't go into whether or not the police had an "overall warrant" to search through his stuff, but assuming they did, I see nothing wrong with this. If they merely got the e-mails from the 15-year old, the ISP, or his computer, then they'd just need the proper warrants to search. (Not a wiretapping warrant.)
... Once you think they've done their worst, they one-up themselves. First they claim that it's wrong to download music because you're stealing from the artist. (Like any of us believed that they were sincere.) Then they set up a site where it would take them over 5.2 million downloads a year just to match a $6 per hour burger-flipping job. And when the artists and managers tell them "We don't want those songs online, take them down," the RIAA doesn't even give them the dignity of a real response.
In RIAA's eyes, the artists are cattle to be milked for all their worth so that they (the RIAA execs) can get as fat as possible. And when the cow (artist) stops producing milk (profits)? Just dump them aside.
At least the fans downloading/sharing the MP3s illegally had the decency to appreciate the artist's work. I think we'll start to see "Round 2" of the online music wars pitting artists against the RIAA. "Round 3" will be a lot more interesting if the artists win.
Those "CD Club" discs are also counted as "Promotional Copies." I can't understand the logic of why a consumer buying a full-featured disc of music should fall under a "promotion," but you can't really include logic and the RIAA in the same sentence. (At least not without "lack of.")
Well besides the obvious "helps me find better deals when shopping" the Internet has done a lot to improve the quality of my life:
Based on those three points alone, I'd say that the Internet has improved my quality of life.
I'd say they (the beta testers) don't own any portion of the IP rights. If a beta tester points out that doing X, Y, and Z will cause a crash, they're simply giving you feedback about your product. You're the one who comes up with a solution on how to fix it. Even if they give a way to fix it, they don't own the IP rights to that method. This is assuming that you control the source code 100%. If the code is freely available, someone submits some patched code, and you use it then all bets are off. To be on the safe side, you should probably have a disclaimer somewhere on the beta test site that states that all submissions become your property. Just to be on the safe side. (I tend to beta test my programs with a group of technically adept friends of mine, so I've never run into this. They're unlikely to demand rights to my program, they're just happy that I continue to develop it.)
That's why the data shouldn't be tied to an individual user, but reported on the whole. For example, they might say that for a given timeslot, 33% of their audience watched NBC's show, 15% watched a program on HBO, etc. They might report that 0.001% watched "News The Government Doesn't Want You To Know" on a public access station, but most likely it would be grouped into a "Other" category. And there would be no way (from the press release and without a warrant) to trace the data back to the level of an individual person.
A while back I had an idea like this. Get old TV shows that were sitting on the shelves collecting dust and put them on the 'Net in a streaming format. You could charge a (reasonable) fee with differing access levels. For example, maybe $10 per month would get you 10 shows at low quality and $20 would get you 20 shows at medium quality. (I'm just making these figures off the top of my head, so don't complain "that's too high.")
Of course, I didn't have any contacts in the TV industry and I saw how reluctant the music/movie industries were to have their products online in any shape or form. So I gave up on it and moved to other site ideas.
I still think this would be a good idea though. Maybe some server-side scripting could splice in commercials based on the user's preference and show. For example, say you're watching that episode of Futurama online (since you missed it on TV due to Fox's scheduling nightmares) and you come to a commercial. Since you've said you're interested in Sci-Fi and you're (obviously) interested in Futurama, you see commercials for the a new Sci-Fi movie, Futurama merchandise, new Simpsons episodes, etc.
This would increase the value of the commercials since the vendors will have their commercial seen by people who would be more likely to purchase the products. (Of course, the user would need to be able to change their profile at any time and would need to be assured that their user data wouldn't be shared.) Are there even any "server-side video splicing" tools?
Why not sell the used CD on Half.com and buy some other used CDs there? I bought 4 CDs there a few months ago and it cost me about $35 (including shipping). If I went to the local store, it would have cost over $50 (before tax), if they would have even had them (some were over a decade old). Of course the RIAA probably looks down upon people buying used CDs when they could be sending more money into the RIAA bank accounts!
Well, you can save conversations so it does have rudimentary message logging. And I personally find the IMVironments distracting. I don't want some animation and scenery getting in the way of the message I'm reading. AIM isn't perfect, but it's still pretty good.
Gotta love the quote from the AOL spokeswoman:
"It has long been our very public policy that when a service unleashes software that hacks into our system, and endangers the security of our system, we stop it," AOL spokeswoman Kathy McKiernan said.
So, since I run Trillian does that make me a hacker? And here I thought I was running an app that just made my life a whole lot easier by combining various incompatible IM services into one easy-to-use application.
Should be easy to boycott AIM advertisers. Half of the ads seem to be advertising free hours if you sign up for AOL!