That's going too far.
THey should be able to regulate limited public resources only.
RF spectrum.. yes. We need regulation here. THis regulation should be based on use & benefit to society, not the 'highest bidder'. Keep people from hogging spectrum just to maintain monopoly, but don't keep people from using underused spectrum either.
Television, Telecom: This only works out as a 'public' resource for a couple reasons. 1) the amount of land and right-of-ways across the country used for this (people 'own' property, but as a whole, the people of a country 'own' their country). The ohter is that, without the public, it is useless. Telecom has no power without customers.... similar to some trade unions. If the people get together, the people can demand things.
However.. the FCC regulating what kind of TV's oyu can sell is getting out of hand. Now they are trying to regulate a MARKET, and that is wrong. Stick to resources.
I think I understand now. The 'loophole' is that they can ship solaris with all linux's network drivers, providing driver source but not solaris source.
Some (not I) view this as wrong.
There is a clause in the GPL stating that those components that are commonly distributed with the OS do not need to be GPL. (ie: SGI libc, MS Windows everything, etc.).
They are simply applying this clause to the kernel itself.
I don't see the 'loophole' either. Seems pretty plain as day a-o-k by the GPL.
What I don't see is how SOlaris + some GPL drivers makes Solaris a 'derivitave work' from the original drivers..
The driver source are all GPL'd separately, no?
According to GPL, sun can ship a cross compiler, and let you cross-compile your drivers (including automatic conversion/porting, if such a thing exists) from gpl source and then load them into solaris kernel as modules. So what? This is NO PROBLEM! As long as Sun, or others, aren't shipping the cross-compiled binaries without doing diligence to providing source.. that's fine.
I believe how it works is..
The artist owns the 'song' as a creative work. THey can perform it, whatever, wherever. THey retain this right.
The record company owns the RECORDING. They do what THEY want with that recording. This may go along with not allowing the artist to produce anther recording (Exclusive rights) of somethign already done, for a period of time (ie: live albums later, etc... or under a different label)
$5.50/share cheap? how do you valuate mp3.com? What do they have?
They might have some big equipment/drive arrays.
They might have a fat pipe (but are still and end-user of that pipe, so ongoing large costs)
They have how many employees?
And what do they have, other than the domain mp3.com, that someone else couldn't come out and do?
It would be nice if the Record companies were somewhat forced to
STOP saying 'We're protecting our artists'
and START saying 'We're protecting our business model'
I don't know the legal issues surrounding the situation.. but after more thought.
1) Is this a high-security office/network? If so, the take extremely aggressive measures. BE The BOFH, and control everything.
2) If this is simply a requirement.. it's kind of strange. What prevents someone from walking out the door with confidential information? What prevents them from doing it over the phone? Take similar measures to your meatspace security measures as a guideline.
If you don't search your employees on the way out, if you don't monitor their phones.. why sniff theri network?
Switches running with security settings; static switch tables...run a network with static arp if you want.
Aggressive firewalling
Make sure all mail is logged.
Make sure all web traffic is proxied and filtered, if it even needs to be there at all. And log everything.
As for 'protecting privacy' of individuals.. you can't really have it both ways. IF it's a financial network, and people are expected to confrom to a high level of security, it is completely within the rights (most likely) of your company to audit EVERY communication going in or out of the network.
Simply take away their expectation of privacy.
Oh.. also, insist that all mail be escrow-keyed, and signed, or it can't hit the servers. This leaves you an accountability trail.
IN fact, if it's a really secure installation, why do you even need live internet to people's desks?
However, people have a natural right to 'discuss' things that 'might' happen. If I think apple is going to do somethign neat, I can talk about it all I like, and Apple shouldn't have a problem with it.
Of course, where Apple spends it's advertising money is completely up to apple.
For the same reason Apple is not 'forced' to pay these people to put up advertising.
If the Site values editorial content over the money Apple pays it for ads, then they won't buckle. If they DO need apple that badly as a client, then they'll buckle (and so they should if their livleyhood depends on apple)
However, telling a publication not to print certain materials is much more common. Especially if those materials related to you.
For instance, many major magazines that are supposedly run the way you describe flat-out refuse to put AdBuster's Parody ads in, even though AdBuster's will pay FULL price, because they don't want to piss off their 'big' advertisers.
Folks,we might think it's silly.. but this is not 'evil'.
Apple isn't threatening to sue; Apple isn't threatening to abuse the courts to kill 'the little guy'. Apple is saying 'We don't agree with your putting up rumors, so we've decided that unless you stop doing it, we cannot advertise with you anymore'. This is called VOTING WITH YOUR MONEY.
Why should apple advertise with someone who is doing something they don't agree with? For the same reason you should buy music from a band you don't agree with?
From a certain, very technical point of view, this is true.
The work taht is being protected is not 'the exact arrangement of bits on the disc', it is the content of the movie itself.
DeCSS is what allows people to make *copies* of the movie in DivX form.
Sure, you can argue that it's not really a 'copy', but it IS a copy. You now have another way to watch the movie, even if the quality has changed.
Heck, if you had the storage medium, you could have stored the unencrypted data elsewhere, and effectively had a PERFECT COPY of the movie itself.
If you think the small technical details matter, you would be wrong. The CSS prevents you from accessing data in a readable format that you can play back.
Or rather, would thousands of geeks be copying DVDs if they couldn't decrypt the contents?
'Tis true. Edison *did* do some things, but is not the great, wonderful person everyone makes him out to be, and much of what he did was done for greed and power, not for inventing.
ie: Edison invented the electric chair so he could show how AC Electricity was BAD, and tried to get congress to outlaw it (Tesla & Westinghouse were going to use AC to transmit power, which as we all know, is FAR more efficient). Edison was hung on DC.
Edison electrocuted an elephant to death at the world's fair in NY to show how AC was bad.
Tesla was a true genius, and the smithsonian won't even recognize him.
Very good point.
Keep in mind that 'fair use' simply meant that you could not be prosecuted for making 'fair use' of a copyrighted work. In other words, the act of making copies is not illegal if making those copies falls under fair use.
The DeCSS case is about the DMCA, which is basically unrelated. Remember, 'fair use' never meant that those distributing the works had to make it 'technologically possible' for you to copy things in order to make 'fair use' of it, only that making copies for a 'fair use' purpose was not actionable. The DeCSS case is specifically about the DMCA outlawing making tools that are used to circumvent copy control mechanisms, which DeCSS clearly does.
Whether or not this preserves 'fair use' is largely irrelevant. Do you have a right to copy your DVD? SURE!
Does that make DeCSS legal? Not as long as the DMCA is intact.
An analogy might be... hmm.
Here in Canada, I am allowed to make holes in the piece of plywood I have in my garage.
I am *NOT* allowed to posess the fully automatic ak-47 with armor-piercing bullets that I'm using to make those holes.
Does the fact that I have a right to make holes in my plywood slab make it okay for me to own something that is outlawed by a totally different law? No.
The artifacts noticed in the still frame would not be noticed in motion.
Nobody will dispute that DVD is much higher quality than the mp4 version at 10x smaller size.
THe point is, the full-screen quality of movies converted this way to mp4 is more than tolerable. WAYY better than VCD, wayy better than VHS, just not quite DVD. The audio track is 128kbps mp3 (or something similar in wma), which is also not dolby digital, but quite adequate.
And if you don't like it.. nobody forces you to use it.
It's news that Tom posted it, but is it really news that this can be done? Wasn't this covered many moons ago? This has been going on for quite some time so far... a year almost?
It's great that Tom posted it.. but... The ripped-off-from-microsoft-NDA-code reverse-engineered non-open-source badly-named DivX codec is hardly news....
Slashdot Mirror
That's going too far.
THey should be able to regulate limited public resources only.
RF spectrum.. yes. We need regulation here. THis regulation should be based on use & benefit to society, not the 'highest bidder'. Keep people from hogging spectrum just to maintain monopoly, but don't keep people from using underused spectrum either.
Television, Telecom: This only works out as a 'public' resource for a couple reasons. 1) the amount of land and right-of-ways across the country used for this (people 'own' property, but as a whole, the people of a country 'own' their country). The ohter is that, without the public, it is useless. Telecom has no power without customers.... similar to some trade unions. If the people get together, the people can demand things.
However.. the FCC regulating what kind of TV's oyu can sell is getting out of hand. Now they are trying to regulate a MARKET, and that is wrong. Stick to resources.
Right you are.
I think I understand now. The 'loophole' is that they can ship solaris with all linux's network drivers, providing driver source but not solaris source.
Some (not I) view this as wrong.
There is a clause in the GPL stating that those components that are commonly distributed with the OS do not need to be GPL. (ie: SGI libc, MS Windows everything, etc.).
They are simply applying this clause to the kernel itself.
I don't see the 'loophole' either. Seems pretty plain as day a-o-k by the GPL.
What I don't see is how SOlaris + some GPL drivers makes Solaris a 'derivitave work' from the original drivers..
The driver source are all GPL'd separately, no?
According to GPL, sun can ship a cross compiler, and let you cross-compile your drivers (including automatic conversion/porting, if such a thing exists) from gpl source and then load them into solaris kernel as modules. So what? This is NO PROBLEM! As long as Sun, or others, aren't shipping the cross-compiled binaries without doing diligence to providing source.. that's fine.
I believe how it works is..
The artist owns the 'song' as a creative work. THey can perform it, whatever, wherever. THey retain this right.
The record company owns the RECORDING. They do what THEY want with that recording. This may go along with not allowing the artist to produce anther recording (Exclusive rights) of somethign already done, for a period of time (ie: live albums later, etc... or under a different label)
$5.50/share cheap? how do you valuate mp3.com? What do they have?
They might have some big equipment/drive arrays.
They might have a fat pipe (but are still and end-user of that pipe, so ongoing large costs)
They have how many employees?
And what do they have, other than the domain mp3.com, that someone else couldn't come out and do?
It would be nice if the Record companies were somewhat forced to
STOP saying 'We're protecting our artists'
and START saying 'We're protecting our business model'
I don't know the legal issues surrounding the situation.. but after more thought.
1) Is this a high-security office/network? If so, the take extremely aggressive measures. BE The BOFH, and control everything.
2) If this is simply a requirement.. it's kind of strange. What prevents someone from walking out the door with confidential information? What prevents them from doing it over the phone? Take similar measures to your meatspace security measures as a guideline.
If you don't search your employees on the way out, if you don't monitor their phones.. why sniff theri network?
Switches running with security settings; static switch tables.. .run a network with static arp if you want.
Aggressive firewalling
Make sure all mail is logged.
Make sure all web traffic is proxied and filtered, if it even needs to be there at all. And log everything.
As for 'protecting privacy' of individuals.. you can't really have it both ways. IF it's a financial network, and people are expected to confrom to a high level of security, it is completely within the rights (most likely) of your company to audit EVERY communication going in or out of the network.
Simply take away their expectation of privacy.
Oh.. also, insist that all mail be escrow-keyed, and signed, or it can't hit the servers. This leaves you an accountability trail.
IN fact, if it's a really secure installation, why do you even need live internet to people's desks?
However, people have a natural right to 'discuss' things that 'might' happen. If I think apple is going to do somethign neat, I can talk about it all I like, and Apple shouldn't have a problem with it.
Of course, where Apple spends it's advertising money is completely up to apple.
For the same reason Apple is not 'forced' to pay these people to put up advertising.
If the Site values editorial content over the money Apple pays it for ads, then they won't buckle. If they DO need apple that badly as a client, then they'll buckle (and so they should if their livleyhood depends on apple)
However, telling a publication not to print certain materials is much more common. Especially if those materials related to you.
For instance, many major magazines that are supposedly run the way you describe flat-out refuse to put AdBuster's Parody ads in, even though AdBuster's will pay FULL price, because they don't want to piss off their 'big' advertisers.
And man, that's capitalism at it's best.
Folks,we might think it's silly.. but this is not 'evil'.
Apple isn't threatening to sue; Apple isn't threatening to abuse the courts to kill 'the little guy'. Apple is saying 'We don't agree with your putting up rumors, so we've decided that unless you stop doing it, we cannot advertise with you anymore'. This is called VOTING WITH YOUR MONEY.
Why should apple advertise with someone who is doing something they don't agree with? For the same reason you should buy music from a band you don't agree with?
Yet another reason for airlines to raise prices.
No, because in the US, there are no laws guaranteeing privacy unless otherwise disclaimed.
There OUGHT to be, but there aren't.
This is what is meant when people talk about passing consumer privacy laws.
Then they go to court and state their case.
As you said, a large company may have much more to lose, and the damage done may be much more costly than if a small non-profit site is hacked.
Are you implying they should receive the same in damages? That all depends on what happens.
From a certain, very technical point of view, this is true.
The work taht is being protected is not 'the exact arrangement of bits on the disc', it is the content of the movie itself.
DeCSS is what allows people to make *copies* of the movie in DivX form.
Sure, you can argue that it's not really a 'copy', but it IS a copy. You now have another way to watch the movie, even if the quality has changed.
Heck, if you had the storage medium, you could have stored the unencrypted data elsewhere, and effectively had a PERFECT COPY of the movie itself.
If you think the small technical details matter, you would be wrong. The CSS prevents you from accessing data in a readable format that you can play back.
Or rather, would thousands of geeks be copying DVDs if they couldn't decrypt the contents?
I was gonna say it.. but... you did it nicely.
'Tis true. Edison *did* do some things, but is not the great, wonderful person everyone makes him out to be, and much of what he did was done for greed and power, not for inventing.
ie: Edison invented the electric chair so he could show how AC Electricity was BAD, and tried to get congress to outlaw it (Tesla & Westinghouse were going to use AC to transmit power, which as we all know, is FAR more efficient). Edison was hung on DC.
Edison electrocuted an elephant to death at the world's fair in NY to show how AC was bad.
Tesla was a true genius, and the smithsonian won't even recognize him.
But mpeg4/DivX is NOT a vcd..
Very good point.
Keep in mind that 'fair use' simply meant that you could not be prosecuted for making 'fair use' of a copyrighted work. In other words, the act of making copies is not illegal if making those copies falls under fair use.
The DeCSS case is about the DMCA, which is basically unrelated. Remember, 'fair use' never meant that those distributing the works had to make it 'technologically possible' for you to copy things in order to make 'fair use' of it, only that making copies for a 'fair use' purpose was not actionable. The DeCSS case is specifically about the DMCA outlawing making tools that are used to circumvent copy control mechanisms, which DeCSS clearly does.
Whether or not this preserves 'fair use' is largely irrelevant. Do you have a right to copy your DVD? SURE!
Does that make DeCSS legal? Not as long as the DMCA is intact.
An analogy might be... hmm.
Here in Canada, I am allowed to make holes in the piece of plywood I have in my garage.
I am *NOT* allowed to posess the fully automatic ak-47 with armor-piercing bullets that I'm using to make those holes.
Does the fact that I have a right to make holes in my plywood slab make it okay for me to own something that is outlawed by a totally different law? No.
Same thing here.
The artifacts noticed in the still frame would not be noticed in motion.
Nobody will dispute that DVD is much higher quality than the mp4 version at 10x smaller size.
THe point is, the full-screen quality of movies converted this way to mp4 is more than tolerable. WAYY better than VCD, wayy better than VHS, just not quite DVD. The audio track is 128kbps mp3 (or something similar in wma), which is also not dolby digital, but quite adequate.
And if you don't like it.. nobody forces you to use it.
It's news that Tom posted it, but is it really news that this can be done? Wasn't this covered many moons ago? This has been going on for quite some time so far... a year almost?
It's great that Tom posted it.. but... The ripped-off-from-microsoft-NDA-code reverse-engineered non-open-source badly-named DivX codec is hardly news....
Yeah. Okay.. I meant MPAA :)
Reviewing something for the pure geek nature of it all, regardless of the wrath the RIAA will bring down ;)
:)
Yeah.. let's see them try to silence Tom