No, but they do have auto-run on for everything, because turning it off requires editing the registry, which 99.97% of Windows users don't even know exists.
Under XP, right click on the CD-ROM drive and select properties, then autoplay. This allows you to disable autoplay of CDs. I don't know whether people know this, but a lot more will know this than about the registry.
The record companies spend a lot of money in producing a protection mechanism that costs a lot of money, prevents some users from playing the discs, and ends up causing severely bad PR for them... And the real beauty is - their DRM doesn't work!
Sure, it may prevent some people from ripping songs from the CD, but anyone who wants to will manage to do get a copy. They'll find software that will do what they want, or if they're completely stuck, they'll just download it from someone who has managed. Professional pirates will be able to make a copy anyway (with or without DRM). Several applications will work in Windows. A lot of the people with the technical ability to know how to rip a CD will turn off autoplay anyway.
I wonder if Sony, or any of the music cartel have actually done any research at all on how effective their technology is at its purpose? Or rather how effective their technology is at increasing sales, which is, after all, what they actually want.
It could just be using extracts to identify the software. I mean, why would they want LAME and DeCSS on their CDs? They have no use. We don't need an MP3 encoder because any compressed copies will be already encoded in a DRM format. They really don't need to decode iTunes songs.
If these are small segments, used for identifying and diabling the software, then the copyright defence could be fair use. And there's no way I'll say that copyright shoudl prevent this.
Appraently, a small studio realy can't expect to make a profit on their first game. They don't have to. They need to cover most of their costs. Once they have achieved this, they can make back the shortfall on the next game. The next game needs to be bigger, and make enough of a profit to make up the shortfall from before, but at this point, the company has an existing codebase, a reputation, and of they're lucky a game succesful enough to produce a sequel.
These intangibles are worth quite a lot ot a small game developer.
I would take this with a pinch of salt tohugh. The last company I worked for with this philosophy went bust.
But patent damages aren't quite so insane as copyright damages. Willful infringement is something like 3 times the amount they would have paid. If they win against Sony (which they probably wouldn't, but we can dream), they'll have enough to cover the cost of a licence for everyone who might have downloaded a copy of LAME. And that's only if the judge disagrees that source code is merely a description rather than an implementation.
Sony have knowingly distributed an unknown number of copies of this file. I believe this allows the LAME authors to claim statuory damages of between $250 and $150 000 per infrignement.
Anyone know what an "infringement" is in this case? Is it a single copy or a single work?
"People for years have been explaining to me that in this era of giant screen monitors, we just have to do something about those menu bars way up there at the top of the screen;
Yes we do. Replace them with radial (i.e. pie) menus. These have the same benefit of extending to infinity, but are more closely associated with the window. And can be operated very by other control devices. Either that, or copy from the Amiga. Every application has its own screen (and its own resolution and colour depth). Windows are primarily used for dialogs or partitioning the screen.
and what the hell are you talking about with "some clients do XYZ" im like 100% certain they will use their own client, so your point is irrelevant.
No - I meant just offer a torrent for people to use their own client. True, they can't stop people from downloading once they start, but they can't do that anyway if anyonme downlaods the whole file. But they control the original seed so they know what people are getting.
The NYTimes isn't letting me access it so I don't know what they're using, but I'd have thought a torrent would work perfectly for this, and the fact that they control the seed will mean that they can still have control over the network.
I might as well get in on the tech punditry game and make some wild predictions (then feel smug is they happen to be true).
Clearly Apple want peoplke to install dodgy copies of this on generic PCs but they don't want to admit it. All the geeks in the world will get hold of a pirate copy of OSX, and the appropriate hacks to install it on a generic PC. Suddenly, OSX is a much more mainstream OS, and people see Apples as a viable alternative. A lot of people - especially home users - would buy apples but want the same as everyone else. If OSX is common then it becomes a truly viable alternative.
However, apple knows this is risky as an explicit strategy. MS would do aything is can think of to stop them, the shareholders may object, and it might actually not happen. However, tyhis way Apple will reap the rewards whichever happens either because they hold on to their hardware markup, or because they dratically increase software sales.
Anyone seen this film (or read John Nash's work on Game theory)?
The general principle is that cooperation can produce better results for everyone than competition. Calling this socialism (which appears to be an insult in America) does not make it any less true.
What we need to consider is when cooperating works, and when it doesn't. For most application developement, giving free assistance to others will not actually result in a cost. They will not neccesarily be competing for exactly the same customers and in many cases, the other party is obliged to offer tit-for-tat cooperation. This means the whole industry moves forward faster, costs go down, and the potential number of customers will go up. Everybody wins.
This does not apply neccesarily so well to the IP based commercial software industry, especially when there is a single company dominating the software. But it doesn't have to. Free software has its place, and can bring benefits.
Don't you have to provide the source (or an offer to provide) for the library as well? Actually, I'm not totally sure the LGPL even allows static linking to a closed source binary.
It's unlikely that the GPL would be revoked for Sony's use. The EFF prefer to encourage people to abide by the rules before barring people from using it. And since this could easily be considered accidental infringement, a court is most likely to give Sony the benefit of the doubt if they make an effort to abide by the rules.
Well, yes, those could be used for piracy, but almost all users of Grokster used ot for downloading music, movies, TV shows and computer software. The rest of the examples have "substantial non-infringing use". Grokster had occasional rare non-infringing use. A vast proportion of the use of HTTP and email is non infringing.
I'm not quite at that level of paranoia. I'm not going to reinstall just because I could conceivably have a rootkit. The prctical reason is that it could easily come back without my knowledge, so the only way to be safe is never to play an audio CD in my machine, and reinstall each time I play something. Clearly not a practical option - the logical extreme is not to use the machine for any media or connect it to the internet at all. In whcih case I may as well not have the thing in the first place.
Does anyone know how safely detect and remove this without relying on the Sony download? For some reason, I don't trust it not to install the software if I don't already have it.
Wouldn't simply renaming the ripper software have pretty much the same effect? It looks like the DRM simply compares the executable name with its list of executables and does stuff depending on the name.
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No, but they do have auto-run on for everything, because turning it off requires editing the registry, which 99.97% of Windows users don't even know exists.
Under XP, right click on the CD-ROM drive and select properties, then autoplay. This allows you to disable autoplay of CDs. I don't know whether people know this, but a lot more will know this than about the registry.
The record companies spend a lot of money in producing a protection mechanism that costs a lot of money, prevents some users from playing the discs, and ends up causing severely bad PR for them... And the real beauty is - their DRM doesn't work!
Sure, it may prevent some people from ripping songs from the CD, but anyone who wants to will manage to do get a copy. They'll find software that will do what they want, or if they're completely stuck, they'll just download it from someone who has managed. Professional pirates will be able to make a copy anyway (with or without DRM). Several applications will work in Windows. A lot of the people with the technical ability to know how to rip a CD will turn off autoplay anyway.
I wonder if Sony, or any of the music cartel have actually done any research at all on how effective their technology is at its purpose? Or rather how effective their technology is at increasing sales, which is, after all, what they actually want.
Yeah, they're not as good in many respects, but that's not the point.
They're a lot cheaper, and actually provide direct competition for Lego. People have the right to a choice. Lego is extremey expensive for what it is.
Why can't games be taxed uniquely?
And why does that prevent regulation?
It could just be using extracts to identify the software. I mean, why would they want LAME and DeCSS on their CDs? They have no use. We don't need an MP3 encoder because any compressed copies will be already encoded in a DRM format. They really don't need to decode iTunes songs.
If these are small segments, used for identifying and diabling the software, then the copyright defence could be fair use. And there's no way I'll say that copyright shoudl prevent this.
Appraently, a small studio realy can't expect to make a profit on their first game. They don't have to. They need to cover most of their costs. Once they have achieved this, they can make back the shortfall on the next game. The next game needs to be bigger, and make enough of a profit to make up the shortfall from before, but at this point, the company has an existing codebase, a reputation, and of they're lucky a game succesful enough to produce a sequel.
These intangibles are worth quite a lot ot a small game developer.
I would take this with a pinch of salt tohugh. The last company I worked for with this philosophy went bust.
So do alcohol, gambling and tobacco. We regulate those things. Why not games and religion? (aside from that pesky first amendment)
But patent damages aren't quite so insane as copyright damages. Willful infringement is something like 3 times the amount they would have paid. If they win against Sony (which they probably wouldn't, but we can dream), they'll have enough to cover the cost of a licence for everyone who might have downloaded a copy of LAME. And that's only if the judge disagrees that source code is merely a description rather than an implementation.
Sony have knowingly distributed an unknown number of copies of this file. I believe this allows the LAME authors to claim statuory damages of between $250 and $150 000 per infrignement.
Anyone know what an "infringement" is in this case? Is it a single copy or a single work?
"People for years have been explaining to me that in this era of giant screen monitors, we just have to do something about those menu bars way up there at the top of the screen;
Yes we do. Replace them with radial (i.e. pie) menus. These have the same benefit of extending to infinity, but are more closely associated with the window. And can be operated very by other control devices. Either that, or copy from the Amiga. Every application has its own screen (and its own resolution and colour depth). Windows are primarily used for dialogs or partitioning the screen.
and what the hell are you talking about with "some clients do XYZ" im like 100% certain they will use their own client, so your point is irrelevant.
No - I meant just offer a torrent for people to use their own client. True, they can't stop people from downloading once they start, but they can't do that anyway if anyonme downlaods the whole file. But they control the original seed so they know what people are getting.
The NYTimes isn't letting me access it so I don't know what they're using, but I'd have thought a torrent would work perfectly for this, and the fact that they control the seed will mean that they can still have control over the network.
I might as well get in on the tech punditry game and make some wild predictions (then feel smug is they happen to be true).
Clearly Apple want peoplke to install dodgy copies of this on generic PCs but they don't want to admit it. All the geeks in the world will get hold of a pirate copy of OSX, and the appropriate hacks to install it on a generic PC. Suddenly, OSX is a much more mainstream OS, and people see Apples as a viable alternative. A lot of people - especially home users - would buy apples but want the same as everyone else. If OSX is common then it becomes a truly viable alternative.
However, apple knows this is risky as an explicit strategy. MS would do aything is can think of to stop them, the shareholders may object, and it might actually not happen. However, tyhis way Apple will reap the rewards whichever happens either because they hold on to their hardware markup, or because they dratically increase software sales.
Anyone seen this film (or read John Nash's work on Game theory)?
The general principle is that cooperation can produce better results for everyone than competition. Calling this socialism (which appears to be an insult in America) does not make it any less true.
What we need to consider is when cooperating works, and when it doesn't. For most application developement, giving free assistance to others will not actually result in a cost. They will not neccesarily be competing for exactly the same customers and in many cases, the other party is obliged to offer tit-for-tat cooperation. This means the whole industry moves forward faster, costs go down, and the potential number of customers will go up. Everybody wins.
This does not apply neccesarily so well to the IP based commercial software industry, especially when there is a single company dominating the software. But it doesn't have to. Free software has its place, and can bring benefits.
Don't you have to provide the source (or an offer to provide) for the library as well? Actually, I'm not totally sure the LGPL even allows static linking to a closed source binary.
It's unlikely that the GPL would be revoked for Sony's use. The EFF prefer to encourage people to abide by the rules before barring people from using it. And since this could easily be considered accidental infringement, a court is most likely to give Sony the benefit of the doubt if they make an effort to abide by the rules.
You used to be able to get 600MB CDRs. 650MB was the large capacity version at one time.
Nope. I checked the file sharing networks. Pirates don't seem to be deterred by anything like that.
Which is good news for gamestop. Shame MS don't get anything from this.
Wouldn't it make sense to increase the price to reduce demand to the maximum they can supply, and therefore increase profits?
No doubt Microsoft are simply being benevolent to the gaming community, and any profit is secondary.
Well, yes, those could be used for piracy, but almost all users of Grokster used ot for downloading music, movies, TV shows and computer software. The rest of the examples have "substantial non-infringing use". Grokster had occasional rare non-infringing use. A vast proportion of the use of HTTP and email is non infringing.
Yerrsss... I'd like to be a little more selective than that and only remove it is it's there.
The theory of gravity is just a theory...
No. Sorry. Wrong one. Besides, the onion already dealt with Intelligent falling
Set theory is just a theory. Rigourous mathematical principles be damned!
I'm not quite at that level of paranoia. I'm not going to reinstall just because I could conceivably have a rootkit. The prctical reason is that it could easily come back without my knowledge, so the only way to be safe is never to play an audio CD in my machine, and reinstall each time I play something. Clearly not a practical option - the logical extreme is not to use the machine for any media or connect it to the internet at all. In whcih case I may as well not have the thing in the first place.
Does anyone know how safely detect and remove this without relying on the Sony download? For some reason, I don't trust it not to install the software if I don't already have it.
Wouldn't simply renaming the ripper software have pretty much the same effect? It looks like the DRM simply compares the executable name with its list of executables and does stuff depending on the name.