So TPB had a commercial website (at least they accepted advertising revenue; even if they made a net loss, commercial incompetence is no defence ) that was almost exclusively used for piracy, and what? Were they simply unaware of this? Were they aware and taking reasonable steps to reduce the problem?
Seems to me that the guys set up a website for the primary purpose of aiding copyright infringement. Anecdotally, it's certainly the only purpose just about anyone I know used it for.
I always wonder about people who argue that TPB wasn't about piracy*. Do they actually believe it themselves? If so I have a bridge to sell them. Are they trying to convince people like me that it wasn't? Are they hoping that the arguments will get to some hypothetical court somewhere who will interpret the law in the manner of a computer program, rather than take into account situations and abstract concepts such as a reasonable man test?
*And get over yourself. The term "piracy" has been used in this way since the 16th century!
In Britain, there are standard guidelines for redundancies. These cover how decisions are made, the right of the staff to be consulted, and the minimum redundancy payment.
If he's a jerk, you have to make some effort to resolve the situation. If you can't then you can probably use the fact that he is incapable of doing the job as a reason to dismiss him.
I don't think the MP did anything fundamentally wrong here. She made a slight error in judgement perhaps in expecting the minister to keep it confidential but that's quite understandable. You should be able to trust ministers.
The minister had no right to give it to TF1. He made the mistake.
I'd say the Human Rights Act (or French equivalent) has something to say again. There is a right to privacy. Certainly, this is dependent on what is considered reasonable, and it's perfectly reasonable for the MP to have forwarded the email to the minister responsible for the law. However, it violates any expectation of privacy if this communication between a private individual and the government makes it outside the government.
TF1 had no legal right to sack the guy. This has been pretty much agreed on in all the comments.
As a result of him being fired, what was only a polite message to his MP urging opposition to the proposal has become part of a fairly significant national news story which clearly paints the media as the bad guys and those opposing the law as the innocent victims.
People seem happier wit multiple video formats than multiple audio formats. The relative rarity of standalone digital video players and level of improvements may be a factor here. Right now I'm mainly using MKV with h264. A year or two ago I was using mostly divX. Before that, some other format in an AVI container.
Painful technical support that's been outsourced, off-shored, and dramatically reduced in size in spite of being understaffed to start with.
Always found tech support to be fine for the basic stuff that I expect to need them for.
Phorm
I don't quite see how you can mention this and then say
"Virgin Media are so bad they almost make BT look good. Almost.". BT use Phorm. Virgin don't!
At least you still have grapefruit spoons. They are no longer sold in the UK, due to health and safety concerns over people cutting their mouths (I honestly wish I was making this one up - you can still find them in second-hand shops, but good luck finding new ones).
You can get them from Lakeland. Sounds like something made up by the Daily Mail.
If instead, the tax was on profits, the aim would still be to maximise profits. Increasing the cost would reduce this and increase the effective tax per loaf.
Company overheads really don't have a lot of impact on the cost of goods. Increase the price and sales go down. Otherwise they'd just increase the price.
Ultimately for a contract to be valid, both sides have to agree to it. The signing a piece of paper isn't required. "Paint my house and I'll give you $100" is a contract (assuming it's a genuine offer). The only problem is it's hard to prove that I agreed.
So, you can agree to a contract via your avatar, but considering the nature of Second Life, there's a decent argument that nobody believed it was a genuine agreement.
In short, don't be a moron. Get a real contract, in real paper, and sign it with your real name (and make sure they do too!)
Ultimately I think this can be solved with game design.
A game should be just as much fun to play if you're a level 1 n00b or if you're a level 100 super-monster with a horde of violent psychos at your command.
It seems that they're claiming circumvention of the Fairplay DRM, which, if I understand it, the discussion didn't go anywhere near the DRM, and only discussed how to transfer data from a computer to an iPod.
The things that the BBC produces in house are usually sold to other countries with a local exclusivity agreement for the buyer. They're contractually barred from showing them there by that side of the agreement as well.
I don't know what packages your provider offers, but I imagine their pricing structure considers most channels to be padding to make the deal look better so people don't question why they're paying an extra $30 for one extra channel (even though that's exactly what they're doing). While they may be missing out on $20 a month from you, they're making $40 a month from someone who values those channels more than you.
Or maybe they got their estimations wrong and there are more than 3 times as many people who would go for a $20 package than would go for the $60 package, but they're working on the theory that they haven't.
Most would welcome the chance to buy only those channels they want to watch, rather than pay for expensive packages of programming they are largely not interested in.
I'm sure they would, but the economics of television channels doesn't work like that.
Let's suppose person A is willing to pay $5 a month for the sport channel and $10 per month on the news channel. Person B is willing to spend $10 a month on the sport channel and $5 a month on the news channel. If the package of 2 channels costs $15 they'll both be willing to pay for the channels. If the cable provider charges $7.50 for each, then each subscriber only pay for one channel since the other one is not worth the amount they're charging to that customer. So, the cable provider has lost out on $15, and each subscriber has lost out on a channel that they're reasonably interested in.
It's not like other purchases. The cable provider doesn't have to buy a selection of channels and resell them. They pay a fixed fee to the station, based on the expected number of subscribers, and price their offering so as to maximise their profits.
Internet based TV services aren't going to change this offering. They'll still offer a selection of "channels". You'll still end up with a package of programmes, most of which you don't want to watch.
Slashdot Mirror
:) Fair enough. I just wanted to pre-empt the argument that we always get into.
Sue Anakata. He's ultimately responsible for the problem, and arranged this with deliberate intent to cause financial harm.
They were the size of bricks
Whoah! You're a decade out. Yes, they were chunky by modern standards, but nothing like the 1980' bricks
So TPB had a commercial website (at least they accepted advertising revenue; even if they made a net loss, commercial incompetence is no defence ) that was almost exclusively used for piracy, and what? Were they simply unaware of this? Were they aware and taking reasonable steps to reduce the problem?
Seems to me that the guys set up a website for the primary purpose of aiding copyright infringement. Anecdotally, it's certainly the only purpose just about anyone I know used it for.
I always wonder about people who argue that TPB wasn't about piracy*. Do they actually believe it themselves? If so I have a bridge to sell them. Are they trying to convince people like me that it wasn't? Are they hoping that the arguments will get to some hypothetical court somewhere who will interpret the law in the manner of a computer program, rather than take into account situations and abstract concepts such as a reasonable man test?
*And get over yourself. The term "piracy" has been used in this way since the 16th century!
No idea in France.
In Britain, there are standard guidelines for redundancies. These cover how decisions are made, the right of the staff to be consulted, and the minimum redundancy payment.
If he's a jerk, you have to make some effort to resolve the situation. If you can't then you can probably use the fact that he is incapable of doing the job as a reason to dismiss him.
I don't think the MP did anything fundamentally wrong here. She made a slight error in judgement perhaps in expecting the minister to keep it confidential but that's quite understandable. You should be able to trust ministers.
The minister had no right to give it to TF1. He made the mistake.
I'd say the Human Rights Act (or French equivalent) has something to say again. There is a right to privacy. Certainly, this is dependent on what is considered reasonable, and it's perfectly reasonable for the MP to have forwarded the email to the minister responsible for the law. However, it violates any expectation of privacy if this communication between a private individual and the government makes it outside the government.
TF1 had no legal right to sack the guy. This has been pretty much agreed on in all the comments.
As a result of him being fired, what was only a polite message to his MP urging opposition to the proposal has become part of a fairly significant national news story which clearly paints the media as the bad guys and those opposing the law as the innocent victims.
TF1 really cocked this one up.
People seem happier wit multiple video formats than multiple audio formats. The relative rarity of standalone digital video players and level of improvements may be a factor here. Right now I'm mainly using MKV with h264. A year or two ago I was using mostly divX. Before that, some other format in an AVI container.
Painful technical support that's been outsourced, off-shored, and dramatically reduced in size in spite of being understaffed to start with.
Always found tech support to be fine for the basic stuff that I expect to need them for.
Phorm
I don't quite see how you can mention this and then say "Virgin Media are so bad they almost make BT look good. Almost.". BT use Phorm. Virgin don't!
At least you still have grapefruit spoons. They are no longer sold in the UK, due to health and safety concerns over people cutting their mouths (I honestly wish I was making this one up - you can still find them in second-hand shops, but good luck finding new ones).
You can get them from Lakeland. Sounds like something made up by the Daily Mail.
Isn't this like comparing vi to MS Word? They're similar tools that can be used for similar tasks but really they're for very different purposes.
But that would be a unit cost, not an overhead.
If instead, the tax was on profits, the aim would still be to maximise profits. Increasing the cost would reduce this and increase the effective tax per loaf.
Absolutely. The classic car enthusiast analogy is much more appropriate.
Nobody believes that the C64 is a solution for anything other than playing C64 games, but a lot of people love those games.
Company overheads really don't have a lot of impact on the cost of goods. Increase the price and sales go down. Otherwise they'd just increase the price.
Unless things have changed since 2004, The licence fee is the main source of income.
Then I'd set up a search engine for the UK and pay the tax, on the basis that there's no longer a heft 100 ton gorilla (i.e. Google) to compete with.
And just say we did.
Cybersex is really just interactive pornography. I think this is how the law would see it anyway.
Ultimately for a contract to be valid, both sides have to agree to it. The signing a piece of paper isn't required. "Paint my house and I'll give you $100" is a contract (assuming it's a genuine offer). The only problem is it's hard to prove that I agreed.
So, you can agree to a contract via your avatar, but considering the nature of Second Life, there's a decent argument that nobody believed it was a genuine agreement.
In short, don't be a moron. Get a real contract, in real paper, and sign it with your real name (and make sure they do too!)
Yes!
Yeah. I've had that.
"Do you have a save?"
"No."
"Do you have a crash dump?"
"No."
"Does this happen consistently?"
"No."
Ultimately I think this can be solved with game design.
A game should be just as much fun to play if you're a level 1 n00b or if you're a level 100 super-monster with a horde of violent psychos at your command.
I agree with your assessment.
It seems that they're claiming circumvention of the Fairplay DRM, which, if I understand it, the discussion didn't go anywhere near the DRM, and only discussed how to transfer data from a computer to an iPod.
The things that the BBC produces in house are usually sold to other countries with a local exclusivity agreement for the buyer. They're contractually barred from showing them there by that side of the agreement as well.
I don't know what packages your provider offers, but I imagine their pricing structure considers most channels to be padding to make the deal look better so people don't question why they're paying an extra $30 for one extra channel (even though that's exactly what they're doing). While they may be missing out on $20 a month from you, they're making $40 a month from someone who values those channels more than you.
Or maybe they got their estimations wrong and there are more than 3 times as many people who would go for a $20 package than would go for the $60 package, but they're working on the theory that they haven't.
Most would welcome the chance to buy only those channels they want to watch, rather than pay for expensive packages of programming they are largely not interested in.
I'm sure they would, but the economics of television channels doesn't work like that.
Let's suppose person A is willing to pay $5 a month for the sport channel and $10 per month on the news channel. Person B is willing to spend $10 a month on the sport channel and $5 a month on the news channel. If the package of 2 channels costs $15 they'll both be willing to pay for the channels. If the cable provider charges $7.50 for each, then each subscriber only pay for one channel since the other one is not worth the amount they're charging to that customer. So, the cable provider has lost out on $15, and each subscriber has lost out on a channel that they're reasonably interested in.
It's not like other purchases. The cable provider doesn't have to buy a selection of channels and resell them. They pay a fixed fee to the station, based on the expected number of subscribers, and price their offering so as to maximise their profits.
Internet based TV services aren't going to change this offering. They'll still offer a selection of "channels". You'll still end up with a package of programmes, most of which you don't want to watch.