So you're using an early generation iPhone, Windows Phone or Android model, then? Because practically everything before them could copy (Windows Mobile even had ctrl+c, literally), and I'm pretty sure that most modern smartphones can copy/paste, too (albeit with kludgy interfaces). Good on you to keep the ol' beast running, though.
EC member Anders Jessen, Trade, suggested that the negotiations surrounding ACTA were unfair; not because of all the shrouded-in-secrecy/hidden-agenda stuff, but because of 'threats' against governments (hacks on government websites, threats to release data if governments voted in favor of ACTA) and the focus on the 'digital' section. He suggested that if that section had not been there, ACTA would have been accepted, and that would have been a good thing with regard to fake physical articles such as clothes and parts (specifically pointing out aircraft parts).
Yet it doesn't dawn on him that maybe they should remove the 'digital' section and re-submit. Or, more likely, it does - but he knows as well as anybody else that the 'digital' part is actually the meat and the 'physical' is just to get major manufacturers and their lobbying prowess on board.
Some of that shines through in his statement that Google's revenue is now bigger than that of all newspaper publishers together, noting that in this era you can make copies much, much faster and that 'online users have cannibalized offline users'.
He does admit to some mistakes and that this is a time for self-reflection for the EC as the EP critized him and suggested that next time something is put forth to which a yes-or-no vote is to be cast, they should better coordinate and cooperate with the EP.
You can indeed already hear the sound, see the video, and record it. Whether you do that by pointing a candybar phone at your screen and recording a dozen mjpeg videos or via a client-side plugin that converts things on-the-fly, doesn't matter.
What they're targeting are 3rd party sites that download the content, convert it, and serve up the converted result (most likely caching things in the interim to save CPU cycles). You may still be the destination of that download, but you are no longer the sole entity (besides YouTube itself) involved.
Now, if they were to go after the client-side solutions (and I don't mean the add-ons that simply submit to a 3rd party server and serve up the result), that'd be different. Maybe they will after getting rid of the 3rd party servers.
If they say "On by default" for do not track, then do not track will be ignored by tracking advertisers. Adhering to it is not mandatory.
While there were some finer points to the case, how does all that fit in with the FTC investigating Google's 'circumventing' of Safari's 'privacy' options?
Ah, thanks for clearing that up (re: takedown sent or not). I blame misreading the document stating:
In response to the Blog Post, FunnyJunk and The Oatmeal had a few (indirect) onlineexchanges. FunnyJunk removed some, but not all, of The Oatmealâ(TM)s comics, as detailed in a follow-up blog post by The Oatmeal.
Presumably this taking down of content was as a result of it being pointed out at the very least (where I assumed it was due to a takedown request). Not a formal (DMCA) takedown request, by any means, of course.
FunnyJunk is like YouTube - a reasonably popular site where users upload content and other users view that content while advertisements around it garner YouTube some money for the service provided.
TheOatmeal is like the RIAA - somebody who believes their content, in this case comics, was 'stolen' and sent a DMCA take-down notice while lambasting that very same system because it doesn't foresee in preventing the same or future comics from being uploaded by users again and is hoping for stronger measures to be available in the future.
Wait... I think I may have gotten the analogies mixed up.. I think we're supposed to root for TheOatmeal here. Let's try that again.
FunnyJunk is one of those run-of-the-mill filfth-of-the-internet sites similar to ebaumsworld that take the hard work of others (via their minion users) and profit off of it (though ads) without so much as a kudos to the original creator nevermind proper attribution or a way to share in the advertisement dollars.
TheOatmeal is such an independent artist creating original content that holds great value, and who exercised his lawful right in terms of copyright and distribution rights by sending a takedown notice to FunnyJunk.
Whichever way you lean: drama of the internets.
If they settle out of court there'll be plenty of winners: FunnyJunk and TheOatmeal for all the exposure, the lawyers for drafting a few letters, and the charities for the money raised. The cynic in me almost wants this to have been staged.
You could actually read the article.. only takes a few seconds.
Known as the pizzicato knee-joint energy harvester, the device fits onto the outside of the knee. It is circular, and consists of a central hub equipped with four protruding arms, surrounded by an outer ring bearing 72 plectra (a plectrum is a plucking tool, such as a guitar pick). The ring rotates about a quarter of a turn with every bend of the knee, causing the plectra to pluck the arms. This causes the arms to vibrate (not unlike a guitar string), and itâ(TM)s those vibrations that are used to generate electrical energy.
Hell, you can keep your 5.25" drives. Wake me when they bring back 8" drives. And what's this Flash nonsense? Get me a direct connection and DDR3 RAM backed up by a battery instead. Solves the whole 'securely erase' thing, too. Yeah, it costs more, but... etc.
You rinse out a bottle that was carrying water? Really?
Well I rinse mine out mostly because it carries mixtures of water and fruit, but it's generally a good idea to rinse a bottle you plan on using again anyway, especially if you've been eating and use that bottle. Should be a video on YouTube somewhere showing what happens when you drink from a bottle. Keep in mind I said 'rinse', not 'sterilize at nearest hospital cleaning station'.
Curious, do you rinse it out with the nasty faucet water you were harping about?
We have awesome faucet water here, but no - I certainly wouldn't do it with the nasty faucet water I briefly mentioned (not sure why you seem to feel offended).
I didn't sell anywhere near $20,000 last year... more like $5000. But that's NOT really profit. The $5000 of used games/books/video originally cost me ~$7000 to acquire. So the net profit is negative income (a loss).
And if you tried to insure them, would their insured worth be $7,000? If you didn't sell them, could you use them as the equivalent of $7,000 to purchase other goods, pay bills, etc.? If you lost them, would you save up of $7,000 in order to regain your existing current wealth? If you had to buy them again in the condition you left them in, would it cost you $7,000?
I guess if your tax system allows such tax shenanigans, you should certainly exploit it.
To be honest, the audio from the interviews is so bad that even with the bits I blanked out (-ui-) because I know I can't make heads or tails of it, there's bound to be other errors in my transcription below. I'd go back and listen a bit more carefully, maybe try and kill some of the noisy frequencies, but at some point it's just time to say: get a good quality directional microphone, guys.. or tap into the sound system;)
TItle: Elon Musk Shows off the SpaceX Dragon Space Capsule
00:00) TITLE A view of a printout of the mission patch for "SPACE COTS - DEMO 2" "FALCON 9 - FALCON" appears with the SlashdotTV logo bar in the bottom reading "Timothy lord at the SpaceX facility in McGregor, Texas". The view fades to a view of Timothy Lord, outside the SpaceX facilities.
00:00) Timothy Elon Musk is having a really good couple of weeks. He says he feels like a new dad when he looked at the space car Dragon capsule, [...]
00:07) TITLE The view fades to a view of the Dragon capsule on the ground.
00:07) Timothy [...] which just last month successfully reached the international space station.
00:10) TITLE The view fades back to Timothy.
00:10) Timothy Although the capsule itself remained closed while on display today, [...]
00:13) TITLE The view fades to a bunch of deformed boxes.
00:13) Timothy [...] we saw neat rows of cargo succesfully retrieved from the ISS.
00:16) TITLE The view fades back to Timothy.
00:16) Timothy Musk spoke today here in McGregor, Texas, home of SpaceX's testing facility. He joined NASA chief Charlie Bolden, congratulating the works here in McGregor.
00:24) TITLE The view changes to that of a large group of SpaceX employees with Elon Musk pointed out in center by a title. The group appears to be very elated, laughing and chattering, and starts walking off and out of the view.
00:40) TITLE The view changes to that of NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, as identified by a title, peering into the Dragon capsule.
00:40) Charles If I look inside it -ui- it's like a space habitation module. I've been in -ui-, which is really neat, because it's like a home away from home and you can live in there, you can sleep in there, you can do everything else. One of the other things that's really neat about it is how clean it is. In fact, I think Don Pettit(?) made the comment [on] orbit how pristine the vehicle was when he went inside, he talked about it smelling like a new car.
01:06) TITLE The view changes to Elon Musk, speaking beside the Dragon capsule, with the title "Main launch operations will stay in Florida and California, but SpaceX may build a third launch site in S.W. Texas... fears of harassment lawsuits can be overcome".
01:06) Elon In Florida and California, people are used to the launches, launches occur -ui-. If it's a new place, people aren't used to it, then you can get some people that like, just, kind of file legal actions. They don't have a lot of merit, but they can just, really, really grind things to a halt. So we're just looking it to be considered.. a rocket launch should be considered on par with, say, with some of the protections that are all afforded to use of gunfire, and fireworks, and lawnmowers *laughs* Literally, it's like, just add rockets to the list of -ui- That seems like a reasonable request *laughs* Like you can't sue someone 'cos somebody's got a lawnmower next door, right? Rockets don't have that protection, so we gotta have a little -ui-
01:57) TITLE The view fades back to Timothy.
01:58) Timothy He emphasized that fuel is actually a very small part of each launch's cost, and that access to space actually gets considerably cheaper if SpaceX - or some other company - comes up with a reusable launch vehicle.
02:08) TITLE The view fades back to Elon
02:08) Elon... long term initiative that we have, the most important
I'm not sure which part you're trying to call out as 'bull' per se.
For the record, I agree with you. I actually do bring my own bottle when possible and when I do want something to drink somewhere else, I'll actually buy that fruit juice tyvm.
But I'm pretty sure none of what you mention has any bearing on why bottled water is popular, which is what the comment was about. Despite being more contaminated, for example, it still tastes better than chlorinated water. Yes, if you have a Brita filter or just let it stand for a while, most of that taste will go away. But who wants to deal with that? Not people on the road, clearly. And of course it's more expensive than water from the tap - but the comparison was to fruit juice. If you can walk into any random store and get water from the tap there (again, bring your own bottle, etc.), feel free to. But a lot of people won't do even that because who knows what's been touching that tap.
Anyway - highly off-topic, we'll save it for a Slashdot story about bottles, perhaps:)
NOTE: This is not the official transcript (if one does exist - I couldn't find it - please do link to it and mod this down), and is only of roughly the first 10 minutes. The rest is also very interesting but I suggest downloading the mp3 and playing it back at twice the speed (keep the pitch) because it. is. long. And I have no idea who the judges are, I think I heard 3 voices, so there you go.
Also... TIL: Typing remittitur is remarkably easy, and Firefox believes it's not a word.
00:00) RIAA Good morning, your honors, and may it please the court, with the court's permission, I'd like to reserve 5 minutes for rebuttal.
Your honors, this appeal presents 2 issues of considerable importance to copyright law. Whether the law protects a copyright holder's ability to make a work available to the public, and the circumstances in which a statutory damages award - that's within the range set by Congress - nonetheless may violate the due process clause.
Now appeliate attempts to block the court's review of the 1st issue by abandoning aspects of the relief that she procured below. But, with all due respect, she continues to take the position that the district court was correct, and appelate review simply doesn't work that way. A party's not free to pick and choose which parts of the district court's judgment they're gonna defend because they find other issues in the case more [ui]
00:50) Judge It's rather complicated here were there are the 3 judgments.
00:54) RIAA It is, your honor, I think that's right. But in any event, I think that almost - sort of - underscores the equities here which is, you know, it's not just a matter of procuring a positive legal ruling and then abandoning on appeal, but it had the consequence of requiring 2 additional trials. Because the 'making available' error was the district's court sole ground for not going forward and entering judgment on the 1st verdict. I mean, in light of other observations of the district court I think it's pretty clear that the district court would have found that judgment constitutionally excessive.
01:26) Judge Leaving the queston of damages aside for the moment, would it make sense for us to go back to that 1st judgment of the district court?
01:36) RIAA I do believe it would, your honor, because I do think that, certainly for right on the 'making available' argument, then I think that almost automatically the right answer would be to go back to the 1st judgment.
01:37) Judge 2 What if you're wrong on that and the other side says "We're willing to let it go" anyway?
01:52) RIAA Well, I think then, your honor, I don't know that that's a box that's available for them to check, I mean.. one thing.. [interrupted]
01:48) Judge 2 You think we should go to the 3rd verdict if we agree with the district court on setting aside the 1st verdict based on the 'make available'.
02:09) RIAA I think if you considered the making available issue on the merits and disagreed with us - I mean I'd like to be able to talk you out of that - but if you reach the 'making available' issue in disagre.. [interrupted]
02;19) Judge 2 [unintellible] more a procedural issue right now..
02:22) RIAA Right.
02:22) Judge 2 I thought, you say "If we go to the merits, yeah, then it follows that we would go to the 3rd verdict", but I'm asking whether we should go to the merits.
02:30) RIAA I think we should, your honor. In fact, I guess I would say under these circumstances, I don't think - with all due respect - you have a choice. I think it would be one thing... [interrupted]
02:38) Judge 2 [ui] they default, aren't they essentially defaulting on the appeal?
02:43) RIAA Well, you know, I don't think they are, your honor, in the sense that they aren't confessing error. So I think they're putting this court in a very awkward position by simply, sort of, refusing
Personally I don't have trouble with computers - though I do have trouble understanding how that even factors into this discussion.
The unrealistic aspect of "a string of bytes having a value of $0" lies in what that string of bytes constitutes.
Presume for a moment that the string of bytes is, in fact, the original studio recording before it goes to any CD pressing outfit. (ignoring the CD mastering people, etc. for a moment here).
The value of that string of bytes is then rather high. You can say that "well anybody can copy it, so it's $0" - but not anybody can copy it, because there's only two data carriers that have it that are under fairly strict access controls.
You could argue that "it's still $0 because maybe nobody will actually buy it", but then we're getting into the realm of philosophy more than the everyday reality.
If you want an analogy: I kidnap your family and by paying me a certain amount of money, whatever you feel your family is worth when expressed in the currency of choice, I will e-mail you the GPS coordinates of where you can find them, completely unharmed albeit rather shocked I'm sure. What is of value of you there is the location. You don't even care that they're GPS coordinates. You also probably couldn't care less if I'd send it to you carved in stone and sent by a flock of carrier pigeons. But the fact is that I'm e-mailing them to you, and that means bytes. Suddenly, those bytes become very, very precious to you indeed.
Obviously MP3s on the internet have no such scarcity. The everyday reality is that songs are sold for, say $0.99. Of course those same songs are also pirated for, typically, $0. The person selling it thus believes the value to be $0.99 (minus fees), the person pirating it believes the value to be $0. Which one is philosophically / technically / morally right vs which one is legally right can often be opposing views which gets rather clouded with the intricacies of the internet.
I guess their argument was something along these lines...
If you are the only person with a particular track, and one person downloads from you, you have uploaded 1 copy.
Now there's two people with that track.
A third person downloads, but of course ends up downloading from both of you. Making the assumption (since there's so many assumptions in this argument already) that there's an equal distribution, then you just uploaded 1.5 copy and the 2nd person uploaded 0.5 copy. The net result is that there is still only 1 (complete) copy distributed by you.
Now there's three people with that track, fourth person downloads, you upload 0.333... bringing your total to 1.8333.
This is where that argument already starts to fall apart, though. Four people, fifth person downloads, you upload 0.25, your total is now 2.08333...
But, again, there's so many assumption in this that already ruin it either which way. E.g. that second person might not upload, themselves, in which case that third person will download only from you. If that repeats for 100 people, you distributed 100 copies all the same. Similarly you can argue that if you uploaded the whole thing to that second person, but then make your P2P client limit itself to only the first half of the file for the second person to request it, then you'll always be stuck at sharing it only 1.5 times. Set it up to only share the first 15 seconds or whatever and you might even try to argue that you were merely offering a preview of the song.
It seems reasonable to ask the question how many people she actually shared a particular file with, but answering it gets ridiculously complex even if you had the actual data.
But it's rather naive, and flawed, of the GP to think that anybody publicly offering files on a P2P network, and getting downloads from them, only uploaded once by definition.
Bottled water is highly popular in the U.S., as far as I've been able to tell, because of a few reasons: 1. It tastes better. Tap water in the U.S. is often chlorinated (yuck) or mixed with lord knows what but it makes me wonder if it's even suitable to be showering in.
2. It's usually available chilled. Water from any random tap won't be chilled.
3. It comes in a bottle. Yeah, you could carry your own bottle around everywhere, but how inconvenient is that? Having to hold on to it even though it's empty, having to rinse it out, etc. etc.
4. It's ubiquitously available. Even an electronics store will sell bottled water near the registers for impulse buyers.
5. It's fairly cheap. Not as cheap as tap water, of course, but certainly a lot cheaper than a fruit juice.
Now, I don't know if analogies to the music can even be properly construed based on those, but let's give it a shot anyway...
1. How would they make the music 'taste better' than what is available from any download site? Higher bitrate? Would still get pirated. Surround sound? Still digital, still pirated. There's nothing they can do to the actual music itself to make it magically be sold more and pirated less. Even if they came out with raw instrument tracks at 192kHz/96bit and it would weigh in at 500MB per song, it wouldn't matter.. those who would want it would still pirate it, and for those who think 500MB is too much, they'll just grab back to the 3MB mp3 which, to them, doesn't really 'taste worse'.
2. Same arguments as under 1., really.
3. They could 'package' music, but then.. they already do that, don't they? You've got albums with sleeves, covers, booklets, etc. Generally, though, people have stopped caring about those. Those that mildly care about it are even catered to - the sleeves, covers and booklets are included in the album download as high quality JPEGs or better. There's precious few people who really want the physical product.
4. They could start selling music through some generic interface that anybody can embed into their site and get a teensy kickback from it.. but torrent sites, limewire, etc. are - in the world of the internet - just as ubiquitous. There isn't any issue with physical proximity to be considered.
5. Lowering the price beyond what it currently is ($0.49 - $1.99) will do little. It's not like there's a whole lot of people out there saying "Oh, I would buy this song - but $0.99 is just too much. If it were only $0.25, I'd buy it right now!". The average person could probably pick up more than that off the street every year.. and not do it because they money on the street is dirty.. who knows what all is on there, ew.
Yes, they have to find different ways for their larger profits, I agree. And they do.. always have.. concerts, swag, all that. But I disagree with the notion that there's no intrinsic 'worth' to music and should thus be free to distribute by those with no license to do so. That's why, in an older comment to a different story, I suggest that copyright be dismissed entirely because it's untenable, and instead there be more strict enforcement of distribution rights.
And on the other hand is hyperbole and backwards Pirate accounting, where a song which was once played on the radio back in the 40's could conceivably have been recorded - legally, for free - by their grandfather onto a wire recorder and passed down through the generations having been transferred to more modern media and replaced with higher quality recordings (after all, one should be entitled to the same piece of music even if it's not the exact same recording) along the way ending with them.
At which point they made it available to 1,000 'friends' whose grandfathers could also just as easily have recorded it back in the 40's and thus, logically, have every right to that same piece of music.
It also does not only extend as far back as the 40's - any newly released song is played on radio, released on youtube, etc. so the arguments work just as well for those.
Which, coincidentally, makes the monetary worth of that music $0, thus there being no monetary damages and no basis for a court case at all.
Moreover, by exposing people to this music they share, those people may be more inclined to listen to more of that music and actually buy them at iTunes, buy the physical albums, go to concerts and purchase t-shirts and other swag.
Really, by some Pirates' logic, the RIAA should be paying them.
I don't really see either extreme being particularly realistic. Unfortunately, the two 'sides' are not likely to come to an agreement any time soon.
These shows would probably be better if they'd plan the entire run out beforehand, and stick to it, instead of basing the shows' length on ratings.
Hear, hear... but unfortunately as a show's creator you don't always have that control. You can't just walk into a network executive's office and make them understand that the story arc closings and final episodes of season 3 are what will keep the show great when that executive is seeing umpteen millions of advertising dollars in the network's future if only there were a season 4. And season 5. They'll say you can always finish off the stories in an upcoming season. Then you finish shooting season 5 and.. lo and behold, you get cancelled because nobody likes watching all the obvious filler material that made the entire show stray from the path set in seasons 1-2.. and the ending you envisioned, and any endings you had to come up with since prolonging the series, never even get made. If you're lucky, it's announced shortly before the season's end and you can try to make up some kind of ending that'll probably be ridiculous but at least it's an ending. ( Right, Voyager? Lost? Heroes?)
I'm actually glad the people behind this project seem to think there's still hope for the StarGate franchise. But as I've mentioned in an earlier comment on this.. traditional sci-fi series episodes are expensive. SG:U was easily $1M/episode. They could do it for less.. if they'd cut a bunch of the 'big' name actors (they tend not to want to be paid less) and just re-used a bunch of the existing shots (currently it's mainly the exterior view shot that gets re-used sparingly) and made at least two 'clip show' episodes per season. But then it wouldn't really be SG:U anymore. My only hope there is that an angel investor is willing to pony up a bunch of money for renewing the series, getting it a decent time slot, tapping into what's left of the fanbase, and performing proper promotion for the series. KickStarter et al wouldn't be a good fit for it. On the up side.. season 2 ended with a soft cliffhanger.
That transition merely accelerated recently, and even then mostly for gaming-related stuff.
For most product type projects, the rewards have been the main drive to backing. This includes short film, music albums, etc. Part of it is to help the creator realize their dream, but a huge chunk of it just to 'get stuff'.
Only for intangibles has it really not been about getting stuff because, well, there's no stuff to get.
Sure, there's been a few projects where realistically the 'stuff' is stupid expensive and no backer would realistically put the money forward for it, let alone dozens or even hundreds, and so the rewards are things like stickers, t-shirts, etc. where it's more about helping make the project work out than the reward, but they are rare.
In a way, it's always been about presales - just that it had been about presales for things that did not yet exist and without the backers' help (or at least the exposure from being at KickStarter) most likely never would.
And therein has indeed been a change recently, in that projects are popping up of essentially finished products, or ideas by people / companies that have the money or could easily get the money through conventional means. It's inevitable, as I mentioned in an earlier comment, but I can see how it takes away from the 'charm' of a CrowdFunding platform.
Thankfully, there's plenty of others to choose from:)
I don't know why somebody quoted the script, considering a script is not necessarily a director's final vision of the story. I guess one could consider it a parallel universe version in which those scenes are left in; I believe the scenes were shot and ended up on the cutting room floor, based on the doctor's mouth moving without any speech - if the scene were to end there, it would have been more natural for the shot to end on a mouth closed pose.
Those looking for confirmation can check out GATTACA at YouTube. ( You know, that site with videos of toddlers dancing to music in the background that get DMCA'd out of existence and doesn't have any real copyright infringement;) ) It'll be in the second video of the playlist, at around 1:35.
I guess that depends on how you view the 'engineering'.
No modifications were made to fertilized eggs, iirc.
But let's say you have 8 fertilized eggs, but only the desire for 1 child - then isn't picking one of those 8 that meets your 'demands' tantamount to engineering? What if you don't pick any of the 8, and instead fertilize 8 more, and again, and again, until you hit the result you were hoping for?
This is at the core of much of the debate on genetic engineering, in that some genetic modifications are simply shortcuts to what random mutations may otherwise cause. What's the difference if instead we let nature (or God for those so inclined) make the modifications for us and we just carefully pick them out from the plethora of other modifications, other than - likely - a whole lot of time?
Well, I know that for myself it's mostly lack of skill on one hand (I'm not that great at woodworking), lack of materials on the other (how would I bend perspex here? Lathe metal?), and lack of funds on yet another (I could have things 3D printed, but that's still expensive).
But I'm working on changing all that via.. 1. practice, practice, practice, 2. There's a 'makershed' type place within 10 miles, 3. Invested in my own 3D printer, due to arrive soon.. coarse resolution but that's usually all I need.
But yeah, it's a common problem that people want 'nice' enclosures, but don't know how to get that done - while having a PCB fabbed and populated (or soldering it themselves), or putting together a kit, is easy enough. Sadly, quality enclosures are expensive.. either 3D print (as mentioned) or injection molded (the mold being the expensive part). Generic (rectangular) enclosures on the other hand have weird sizes that are either just too small or way too big.
I thought that the point of kickstarter was to help people without endless stacks of cash at their disposal, not fancy, fancy rich folk (regardless of how badass Mr. Carmack is/is not).
Please note that the Oculus Rift (tentative name - I think actually they're just going for 'Rift' right now) is not John Carmack's project. He's simply showing a keen interest. I guess you could potentially argue that John Carmack could just throw money at them as an expression of that interest, but right now the people behind it aren't asking him to do so.
That said, I agree with your general sentiment - but I'd it's inevitable that companies with oodles of cash will use CrowdFunding or, more likely, CrowdSourcing platforms to do some dirty work for them. Some people have likened KickStarter to essentially being presales, after all - so a behemoth like EA might use it to gauge interest in 3 different games and then assign funds and personnel accordingly, knowing that there's people who are willing to put forth money and not just random forum posts. But that's speculation.
Perhaps worthy of a mention - since John Carmack mentions it in several videos as well - is the tentatively named Oculus Rift. It's aiming to be a 'low' budget HMD, and a KickStarter project is set to be launched June 14th.
Slashdot Mirror
So you're using an early generation iPhone, Windows Phone or Android model, then? Because practically everything before them could copy (Windows Mobile even had ctrl+c, literally), and I'm pretty sure that most modern smartphones can copy/paste, too (albeit with kludgy interfaces). Good on you to keep the ol' beast running, though.
EC member Anders Jessen, Trade, suggested that the negotiations surrounding ACTA were unfair; not because of all the shrouded-in-secrecy/hidden-agenda stuff, but because of 'threats' against governments (hacks on government websites, threats to release data if governments voted in favor of ACTA) and the focus on the 'digital' section.
He suggested that if that section had not been there, ACTA would have been accepted, and that would have been a good thing with regard to fake physical articles such as clothes and parts (specifically pointing out aircraft parts).
Yet it doesn't dawn on him that maybe they should remove the 'digital' section and re-submit. Or, more likely, it does - but he knows as well as anybody else that the 'digital' part is actually the meat and the 'physical' is just to get major manufacturers and their lobbying prowess on board.
Some of that shines through in his statement that Google's revenue is now bigger than that of all newspaper publishers together, noting that in this era you can make copies much, much faster and that 'online users have cannibalized offline users'.
He does admit to some mistakes and that this is a time for self-reflection for the EC as the EP critized him and suggested that next time something is put forth to which a yes-or-no vote is to be cast, they should better coordinate and cooperate with the EP.
Source:
http://www.nu.nl/tech/2841489/europese-commissie-vreest-gevolgen-bij-afwijzen-acta.html
Translated (horribly):
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=nl&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nu.nl%2Ftech%2F2841489%2Feuropese-commissie-vreest-gevolgen-bij-afwijzen-acta.html
Yeah, but you are not their target.
You can indeed already hear the sound, see the video, and record it. Whether you do that by pointing a candybar phone at your screen and recording a dozen mjpeg videos or via a client-side plugin that converts things on-the-fly, doesn't matter.
What they're targeting are 3rd party sites that download the content, convert it, and serve up the converted result (most likely caching things in the interim to save CPU cycles).
You may still be the destination of that download, but you are no longer the sole entity (besides YouTube itself) involved.
Now, if they were to go after the client-side solutions (and I don't mean the add-ons that simply submit to a 3rd party server and serve up the result), that'd be different. Maybe they will after getting rid of the 3rd party servers.
While there were some finer points to the case, how does all that fit in with the FTC investigating Google's 'circumventing' of Safari's 'privacy' options?
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/05/04/2156218/google-facing-ftc-fine-over-safari-privacy-breach
Ah, thanks for clearing that up (re: takedown sent or not). I blame misreading the document stating:
Presumably this taking down of content was as a result of it being pointed out at the very least (where I assumed it was due to a takedown request). Not a formal (DMCA) takedown request, by any means, of course.
FunnyJunk is like YouTube - a reasonably popular site where users upload content and other users view that content while advertisements around it garner YouTube some money for the service provided.
TheOatmeal is like the RIAA - somebody who believes their content, in this case comics, was 'stolen' and sent a DMCA take-down notice while lambasting that very same system because it doesn't foresee in preventing the same or future comics from being uploaded by users again and is hoping for stronger measures to be available in the future.
Wait... I think I may have gotten the analogies mixed up.. I think we're supposed to root for TheOatmeal here. Let's try that again.
FunnyJunk is one of those run-of-the-mill filfth-of-the-internet sites similar to ebaumsworld that take the hard work of others (via their minion users) and profit off of it (though ads) without so much as a kudos to the original creator nevermind proper attribution or a way to share in the advertisement dollars.
TheOatmeal is such an independent artist creating original content that holds great value, and who exercised his lawful right in terms of copyright and distribution rights by sending a takedown notice to FunnyJunk.
Whichever way you lean: drama of the internets.
If they settle out of court there'll be plenty of winners: FunnyJunk and TheOatmeal for all the exposure, the lawyers for drafting a few letters, and the charities for the money raised. The cynic in me almost wants this to have been staged.
You could actually read the article.. only takes a few seconds.
Hell, you can keep your 5.25" drives. Wake me when they bring back 8" drives. And what's this Flash nonsense? Get me a direct connection and DDR3 RAM backed up by a battery instead. Solves the whole 'securely erase' thing, too. Yeah, it costs more, but... etc.
What a peculiar reply.
Well I rinse mine out mostly because it carries mixtures of water and fruit, but it's generally a good idea to rinse a bottle you plan on using again anyway, especially if you've been eating and use that bottle. Should be a video on YouTube somewhere showing what happens when you drink from a bottle.
Keep in mind I said 'rinse', not 'sterilize at nearest hospital cleaning station'.
We have awesome faucet water here, but no - I certainly wouldn't do it with the nasty faucet water I briefly mentioned (not sure why you seem to feel offended).
And if you tried to insure them, would their insured worth be $7,000?
If you didn't sell them, could you use them as the equivalent of $7,000 to purchase other goods, pay bills, etc.?
If you lost them, would you save up of $7,000 in order to regain your existing current wealth?
If you had to buy them again in the condition you left them in, would it cost you $7,000?
I guess if your tax system allows such tax shenanigans, you should certainly exploit it.
Sweet, the job's yours now! ;)
To be honest, the audio from the interviews is so bad that even with the bits I blanked out (-ui-) because I know I can't make heads or tails of it, there's bound to be other errors in my transcription below. I'd go back and listen a bit more carefully, maybe try and kill some of the noisy frequencies, but at some point it's just time to say: get a good quality directional microphone, guys.. or tap into the sound system ;)
TItle: Elon Musk Shows off the SpaceX Dragon Space Capsule
00:00) TITLE
A view of a printout of the mission patch for "SPACE COTS - DEMO 2" "FALCON 9 - FALCON" appears with the SlashdotTV logo bar in the bottom reading "Timothy lord at the SpaceX facility in McGregor, Texas".
The view fades to a view of Timothy Lord, outside the SpaceX facilities.
00:00) Timothy
Elon Musk is having a really good couple of weeks.
He says he feels like a new dad when he looked at the space car Dragon capsule, [...]
00:07) TITLE
The view fades to a view of the Dragon capsule on the ground.
00:07) Timothy
[...] which just last month successfully reached the international space station.
00:10) TITLE
The view fades back to Timothy.
00:10) Timothy
Although the capsule itself remained closed while on display today, [...]
00:13) TITLE
The view fades to a bunch of deformed boxes.
00:13) Timothy
[...] we saw neat rows of cargo succesfully retrieved from the ISS.
00:16) TITLE
The view fades back to Timothy.
00:16) Timothy
Musk spoke today here in McGregor, Texas, home of SpaceX's testing facility.
He joined NASA chief Charlie Bolden, congratulating the works here in McGregor.
00:24) TITLE
The view changes to that of a large group of SpaceX employees with Elon Musk pointed out in center by a title. The group appears to be very elated, laughing and chattering, and starts walking off and out of the view.
00:40) TITLE
The view changes to that of NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, as identified by a title, peering into the Dragon capsule.
00:40) Charles
If I look inside it -ui- it's like a space habitation module. I've been in -ui-, which is really neat, because it's like a home away from home and you can live in there, you can sleep in there, you can do everything else.
One of the other things that's really neat about it is how clean it is.
In fact, I think Don Pettit(?) made the comment [on] orbit how pristine the vehicle was when he went inside, he talked about it smelling like a new car.
01:06) TITLE
The view changes to Elon Musk, speaking beside the Dragon capsule, with the title "Main launch operations will stay in Florida and California, but SpaceX may build a third launch site in S.W. Texas... fears of harassment lawsuits can be overcome".
01:06) Elon
In Florida and California, people are used to the launches, launches occur -ui-.
If it's a new place, people aren't used to it, then you can get some people that like, just, kind of file legal actions.
They don't have a lot of merit, but they can just, really, really grind things to a halt.
So we're just looking it to be considered.. a rocket launch should be considered on par with, say, with some of the protections that are all afforded to use of gunfire, and fireworks, and lawnmowers *laughs*
Literally, it's like, just add rockets to the list of -ui-
That seems like a reasonable request *laughs*
Like you can't sue someone 'cos somebody's got a lawnmower next door, right?
Rockets don't have that protection, so we gotta have a little -ui-
01:57) TITLE
The view fades back to Timothy.
01:58) Timothy
He emphasized that fuel is actually a very small part of each launch's cost, and that access to space actually gets considerably cheaper if SpaceX - or some other company - comes up with a reusable launch vehicle.
02:08) TITLE
The view fades back to Elon
02:08) Elon ... long term initiative that we have, the most important
I'm not sure which part you're trying to call out as 'bull' per se.
For the record, I agree with you. I actually do bring my own bottle when possible and when I do want something to drink somewhere else, I'll actually buy that fruit juice tyvm.
But I'm pretty sure none of what you mention has any bearing on why bottled water is popular, which is what the comment was about.
Despite being more contaminated, for example, it still tastes better than chlorinated water. Yes, if you have a Brita filter or just let it stand for a while, most of that taste will go away. But who wants to deal with that? Not people on the road, clearly.
And of course it's more expensive than water from the tap - but the comparison was to fruit juice. If you can walk into any random store and get water from the tap there (again, bring your own bottle, etc.), feel free to. But a lot of people won't do even that because who knows what's been touching that tap.
Anyway - highly off-topic, we'll save it for a Slashdot story about bottles, perhaps :)
NOTE: This is not the official transcript (if one does exist - I couldn't find it - please do link to it and mod this down), and is only of roughly the first 10 minutes. The rest is also very interesting but I suggest downloading the mp3 and playing it back at twice the speed (keep the pitch) because it. is. long. And I have no idea who the judges are, I think I heard 3 voices, so there you go.
Also... TIL: Typing remittitur is remarkably easy, and Firefox believes it's not a word.
00:00) RIAA
Good morning, your honors, and may it please the court, with the court's permission, I'd like to reserve 5 minutes for rebuttal.
Your honors, this appeal presents 2 issues of considerable importance to copyright law.
Whether the law protects a copyright holder's ability to make a work available to the public, and the circumstances in which a statutory damages award - that's within the range set by Congress - nonetheless may violate the due process clause.
Now appeliate attempts to block the court's review of the 1st issue by abandoning aspects of the relief that she procured below.
But, with all due respect, she continues to take the position that the district court was correct, and appelate review simply doesn't work that way.
A party's not free to pick and choose which parts of the district court's judgment they're gonna defend because they find other issues in the case more [ui]
00:50) Judge
It's rather complicated here were there are the 3 judgments.
00:54) RIAA
It is, your honor, I think that's right.
But in any event, I think that almost - sort of - underscores the equities here which is, you know, it's not just a matter of procuring a positive legal ruling and then abandoning on appeal, but it had the consequence of requiring 2 additional trials.
Because the 'making available' error was the district's court sole ground for not going forward and entering judgment on the 1st verdict.
I mean, in light of other observations of the district court I think it's pretty clear that the district court would have found that judgment constitutionally excessive.
01:26) Judge
Leaving the queston of damages aside for the moment, would it make sense for us to go back to that 1st judgment of the district court?
01:36) RIAA
I do believe it would, your honor, because I do think that, certainly for right on the 'making available' argument, then I think that almost automatically the right answer would be to go back to the 1st judgment.
01:37) Judge 2
What if you're wrong on that and the other side says "We're willing to let it go" anyway?
01:52) RIAA
Well, I think then, your honor, I don't know that that's a box that's available for them to check, I mean.. one thing.. [interrupted]
01:48) Judge 2
You think we should go to the 3rd verdict if we agree with the district court on setting aside the 1st verdict based on the 'make available'.
02:09) RIAA
I think if you considered the making available issue on the merits and disagreed with us - I mean I'd like to be able to talk you out of that - but if you reach the 'making available' issue in disagre.. [interrupted]
02;19) Judge 2
[unintellible] more a procedural issue right now..
02:22) RIAA
Right.
02:22) Judge 2
I thought, you say "If we go to the merits, yeah, then it follows that we would go to the 3rd verdict", but I'm asking whether we should go to the merits.
02:30) RIAA
I think we should, your honor.
In fact, I guess I would say under these circumstances, I don't think - with all due respect - you have a choice.
I think it would be one thing... [interrupted]
02:38) Judge 2
[ui] they default, aren't they essentially defaulting on the appeal?
02:43) RIAA
Well, you know, I don't think they are, your honor, in the sense that they aren't confessing error.
So I think they're putting this court in a very awkward position by simply, sort of, refusing
Personally I don't have trouble with computers - though I do have trouble understanding how that even factors into this discussion.
The unrealistic aspect of "a string of bytes having a value of $0" lies in what that string of bytes constitutes.
Presume for a moment that the string of bytes is, in fact, the original studio recording before it goes to any CD pressing outfit. (ignoring the CD mastering people, etc. for a moment here).
The value of that string of bytes is then rather high. You can say that "well anybody can copy it, so it's $0" - but not anybody can copy it, because there's only two data carriers that have it that are under fairly strict access controls.
You could argue that "it's still $0 because maybe nobody will actually buy it", but then we're getting into the realm of philosophy more than the everyday reality.
If you want an analogy: I kidnap your family and by paying me a certain amount of money, whatever you feel your family is worth when expressed in the currency of choice, I will e-mail you the GPS coordinates of where you can find them, completely unharmed albeit rather shocked I'm sure.
What is of value of you there is the location. You don't even care that they're GPS coordinates. You also probably couldn't care less if I'd send it to you carved in stone and sent by a flock of carrier pigeons. But the fact is that I'm e-mailing them to you, and that means bytes. Suddenly, those bytes become very, very precious to you indeed.
Obviously MP3s on the internet have no such scarcity. The everyday reality is that songs are sold for, say $0.99. Of course those same songs are also pirated for, typically, $0. The person selling it thus believes the value to be $0.99 (minus fees), the person pirating it believes the value to be $0. Which one is philosophically / technically / morally right vs which one is legally right can often be opposing views which gets rather clouded with the intricacies of the internet.
I guess their argument was something along these lines...
If you are the only person with a particular track, and one person downloads from you, you have uploaded 1 copy.
Now there's two people with that track.
A third person downloads, but of course ends up downloading from both of you. Making the assumption (since there's so many assumptions in this argument already) that there's an equal distribution, then you just uploaded 1.5 copy and the 2nd person uploaded 0.5 copy. The net result is that there is still only 1 (complete) copy distributed by you.
Now there's three people with that track, fourth person downloads, you upload 0.333... bringing your total to 1.8333.
This is where that argument already starts to fall apart, though.
Four people, fifth person downloads, you upload 0.25, your total is now 2.08333...
But, again, there's so many assumption in this that already ruin it either which way.
E.g. that second person might not upload, themselves, in which case that third person will download only from you. If that repeats for 100 people, you distributed 100 copies all the same.
Similarly you can argue that if you uploaded the whole thing to that second person, but then make your P2P client limit itself to only the first half of the file for the second person to request it, then you'll always be stuck at sharing it only 1.5 times. Set it up to only share the first 15 seconds or whatever and you might even try to argue that you were merely offering a preview of the song.
It seems reasonable to ask the question how many people she actually shared a particular file with, but answering it gets ridiculously complex even if you had the actual data.
But it's rather naive, and flawed, of the GP to think that anybody publicly offering files on a P2P network, and getting downloads from them, only uploaded once by definition.
Bottled water is a fairly poor example, though.
Bottled water is highly popular in the U.S., as far as I've been able to tell, because of a few reasons:
1. It tastes better. Tap water in the U.S. is often chlorinated (yuck) or mixed with lord knows what but it makes me wonder if it's even suitable to be showering in.
2. It's usually available chilled. Water from any random tap won't be chilled.
3. It comes in a bottle. Yeah, you could carry your own bottle around everywhere, but how inconvenient is that? Having to hold on to it even though it's empty, having to rinse it out, etc. etc.
4. It's ubiquitously available. Even an electronics store will sell bottled water near the registers for impulse buyers.
5. It's fairly cheap. Not as cheap as tap water, of course, but certainly a lot cheaper than a fruit juice.
Now, I don't know if analogies to the music can even be properly construed based on those, but let's give it a shot anyway...
1. How would they make the music 'taste better' than what is available from any download site? Higher bitrate? Would still get pirated. Surround sound? Still digital, still pirated. There's nothing they can do to the actual music itself to make it magically be sold more and pirated less. Even if they came out with raw instrument tracks at 192kHz/96bit and it would weigh in at 500MB per song, it wouldn't matter.. those who would want it would still pirate it, and for those who think 500MB is too much, they'll just grab back to the 3MB mp3 which, to them, doesn't really 'taste worse'.
2. Same arguments as under 1., really.
3. They could 'package' music, but then.. they already do that, don't they? You've got albums with sleeves, covers, booklets, etc. Generally, though, people have stopped caring about those. Those that mildly care about it are even catered to - the sleeves, covers and booklets are included in the album download as high quality JPEGs or better. There's precious few people who really want the physical product.
4. They could start selling music through some generic interface that anybody can embed into their site and get a teensy kickback from it.. but torrent sites, limewire, etc. are - in the world of the internet - just as ubiquitous. There isn't any issue with physical proximity to be considered.
5. Lowering the price beyond what it currently is ($0.49 - $1.99) will do little. It's not like there's a whole lot of people out there saying "Oh, I would buy this song - but $0.99 is just too much. If it were only $0.25, I'd buy it right now!". The average person could probably pick up more than that off the street every year.. and not do it because they money on the street is dirty.. who knows what all is on there, ew.
Yes, they have to find different ways for their larger profits, I agree. And they do.. always have.. concerts, swag, all that. But I disagree with the notion that there's no intrinsic 'worth' to music and should thus be free to distribute by those with no license to do so. That's why, in an older comment to a different story, I suggest that copyright be dismissed entirely because it's untenable, and instead there be more strict enforcement of distribution rights.
And on the other hand is hyperbole and backwards Pirate accounting, where a song which was once played on the radio back in the 40's could conceivably have been recorded - legally, for free - by their grandfather onto a wire recorder and passed down through the generations having been transferred to more modern media and replaced with higher quality recordings (after all, one should be entitled to the same piece of music even if it's not the exact same recording) along the way ending with them.
At which point they made it available to 1,000 'friends' whose grandfathers could also just as easily have recorded it back in the 40's and thus, logically, have every right to that same piece of music.
It also does not only extend as far back as the 40's - any newly released song is played on radio, released on youtube, etc. so the arguments work just as well for those.
Which, coincidentally, makes the monetary worth of that music $0, thus there being no monetary damages and no basis for a court case at all.
Moreover, by exposing people to this music they share, those people may be more inclined to listen to more of that music and actually buy them at iTunes, buy the physical albums, go to concerts and purchase t-shirts and other swag.
Really, by some Pirates' logic, the RIAA should be paying them.
I don't really see either extreme being particularly realistic. Unfortunately, the two 'sides' are not likely to come to an agreement any time soon.
Hear, hear... but unfortunately as a show's creator you don't always have that control. You can't just walk into a network executive's office and make them understand that the story arc closings and final episodes of season 3 are what will keep the show great when that executive is seeing umpteen millions of advertising dollars in the network's future if only there were a season 4. And season 5. They'll say you can always finish off the stories in an upcoming season. Then you finish shooting season 5 and.. lo and behold, you get cancelled because nobody likes watching all the obvious filler material that made the entire show stray from the path set in seasons 1-2.. and the ending you envisioned, and any endings you had to come up with since prolonging the series, never even get made. If you're lucky, it's announced shortly before the season's end and you can try to make up some kind of ending that'll probably be ridiculous but at least it's an ending. ( Right, Voyager? Lost? Heroes?)
I'm actually glad the people behind this project seem to think there's still hope for the StarGate franchise.
But as I've mentioned in an earlier comment on this.. traditional sci-fi series episodes are expensive. SG:U was easily $1M/episode. They could do it for less.. if they'd cut a bunch of the 'big' name actors (they tend not to want to be paid less) and just re-used a bunch of the existing shots (currently it's mainly the exterior view shot that gets re-used sparingly) and made at least two 'clip show' episodes per season. But then it wouldn't really be SG:U anymore.
My only hope there is that an angel investor is willing to pony up a bunch of money for renewing the series, getting it a decent time slot, tapping into what's left of the fanbase, and performing proper promotion for the series. KickStarter et al wouldn't be a good fit for it.
On the up side.. season 2 ended with a soft cliffhanger.
That transition merely accelerated recently, and even then mostly for gaming-related stuff.
For most product type projects, the rewards have been the main drive to backing. This includes short film, music albums, etc. Part of it is to help the creator realize their dream, but a huge chunk of it just to 'get stuff'.
Only for intangibles has it really not been about getting stuff because, well, there's no stuff to get.
Sure, there's been a few projects where realistically the 'stuff' is stupid expensive and no backer would realistically put the money forward for it, let alone dozens or even hundreds, and so the rewards are things like stickers, t-shirts, etc. where it's more about helping make the project work out than the reward, but they are rare.
In a way, it's always been about presales - just that it had been about presales for things that did not yet exist and without the backers' help (or at least the exposure from being at KickStarter) most likely never would.
And therein has indeed been a change recently, in that projects are popping up of essentially finished products, or ideas by people / companies that have the money or could easily get the money through conventional means.
It's inevitable, as I mentioned in an earlier comment, but I can see how it takes away from the 'charm' of a CrowdFunding platform.
Thankfully, there's plenty of others to choose from :)
You're absolutely right, AC.
I don't know why somebody quoted the script, considering a script is not necessarily a director's final vision of the story. I guess one could consider it a parallel universe version in which those scenes are left in; I believe the scenes were shot and ended up on the cutting room floor, based on the doctor's mouth moving without any speech - if the scene were to end there, it would have been more natural for the shot to end on a mouth closed pose.
Those looking for confirmation can check out GATTACA at YouTube. ( You know, that site with videos of toddlers dancing to music in the background that get DMCA'd out of existence and doesn't have any real copyright infringement ;) ) It'll be in the second video of the playlist, at around 1:35.
I guess that depends on how you view the 'engineering'.
No modifications were made to fertilized eggs, iirc.
But let's say you have 8 fertilized eggs, but only the desire for 1 child - then isn't picking one of those 8 that meets your 'demands' tantamount to engineering?
What if you don't pick any of the 8, and instead fertilize 8 more, and again, and again, until you hit the result you were hoping for?
This is at the core of much of the debate on genetic engineering, in that some genetic modifications are simply shortcuts to what random mutations may otherwise cause. What's the difference if instead we let nature (or God for those so inclined) make the modifications for us and we just carefully pick them out from the plethora of other modifications, other than - likely - a whole lot of time?
Well, I know that for myself it's mostly lack of skill on one hand (I'm not that great at woodworking), lack of materials on the other (how would I bend perspex here? Lathe metal?), and lack of funds on yet another (I could have things 3D printed, but that's still expensive).
But I'm working on changing all that via.. 1. practice, practice, practice, 2. There's a 'makershed' type place within 10 miles, 3. Invested in my own 3D printer, due to arrive soon.. coarse resolution but that's usually all I need.
But yeah, it's a common problem that people want 'nice' enclosures, but don't know how to get that done - while having a PCB fabbed and populated (or soldering it themselves), or putting together a kit, is easy enough. Sadly, quality enclosures are expensive.. either 3D print (as mentioned) or injection molded (the mold being the expensive part). Generic (rectangular) enclosures on the other hand have weird sizes that are either just too small or way too big.
Please note that the Oculus Rift (tentative name - I think actually they're just going for 'Rift' right now) is not John Carmack's project. He's simply showing a keen interest. I guess you could potentially argue that John Carmack could just throw money at them as an expression of that interest, but right now the people behind it aren't asking him to do so.
That said, I agree with your general sentiment - but I'd it's inevitable that companies with oodles of cash will use CrowdFunding or, more likely, CrowdSourcing platforms to do some dirty work for them.
Some people have likened KickStarter to essentially being presales, after all - so a behemoth like EA might use it to gauge interest in 3 different games and then assign funds and personnel accordingly, knowing that there's people who are willing to put forth money and not just random forum posts.
But that's speculation.
Perhaps worthy of a mention - since John Carmack mentions it in several videos as well - is the tentatively named Oculus Rift. It's aiming to be a 'low' budget HMD, and a KickStarter project is set to be launched June 14th.
For more information, see:
http://oculusvr.com/
http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=120&t=14777
( There are more interviews with John Carmack linked to from that thread, and he participates there directly as well. )