I live in the Netherlands (pop 15 million, about as much as NYC) and the police over here taps more phones than the whole of the US.
Same thing here in Germany. I suspect that each European country (well, what about the UK?) taps more phone calls than the US. Probably because we had our terrorism experience 30 years ago.
Windows 3.1415926 -- that reminds me of a certain typesetting system whose version numbers are said to converge to \pi. If Microsoft had followed that author's policy of rewarding people who find bugs with their windows versions, they might even have improved Windows before going out of business in warly 1988.
Not being American, but having spent a year of my life there, I initially liked the "patriotic" touch in RMS's response. To me, this sort of rhethorics[1] seemed right for your typical politician on the campaign trail, just like we were able to witness before last year's presidential elections.
RMS, however, doesn't need to win any election by persuading the American patriot in every one of his listeners that he is their friend and that he will fight for their genuinely American interests. He doesn't get enough media exposure for that anyway. The only thing he could do was to show those people who would bother to watch his mostly one-man-campaign how little sense Jim Allchin's remarks make, with a little saticiral twist. And that's just how I understand his duckspeak.
-Hilko
[1] I couldn't imagine just this kind of rhethorics happening in mainstrem politics here in Germany. Not because we aren't a free country, but people seem to take their freedom more for granted, they don't view themselves in a revolutionary state -- not since the 70s, anyway. But I'm getting OT.
I found your article very interesting, on the technical side. However, the computer industry's activities in making future standards should not come as such a big surprise.
You wrote:
The thing that puzzles me most is why the computer and consumer electronics industries haven't told Hollywood to take a hike. Intel's copy protection proposals state, in bold letters, "No content protection = No Hollywood content." This belief is taken as axiomatic by all the players, and appears to be the driving force behind the entire effort. This belief is also false.
The electronics industry can't simply tell Hollywood to take a hike. The entertainment industry will probably have a number of standards to choose from and they will chose to support the standard that most suits their needs. Technical superiority has seldom been the top priority, so what else?
The fact is that the computer and electronics firms are in the driver's seat, and are free to dictate how the new digital formats will work. Hollywood will use whatever format becomes popular, whether it has copy protection or not. They may grumble about it, but they'll use it. The economics afford them little choice.
It is just turing into the opposite. The entertainment industry is climbing onto the driver seat.
Only one standard of distributing "content" over the Net is going to be supported by Hollywood in the long term and being among the first to offer (and market) a working device puts you in a good starting position as a hardware or software maker.
At the moment, everyone in the entertainment industry seems to be concerned with a way to control distribution, so one of their demands for the standard is going to be a scheme for just that.
Since there is a lot of money to be made, hardware and software makers will want to please the entertainment guys.
You are probably right that CDRs and Napster don't account for the kind of losses the music industry claims to suffer from. However, that is today's situation and they are afraid of the "wrong" (in their eyes) use of technology. That Sony VP's statements tell us just how desperate they are.
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I live in the Netherlands (pop 15 million, about as much as NYC) and the police over here taps more phones than the whole of the US.
Same thing here in Germany. I suspect that each European country (well, what about the UK?) taps more phone calls than the US. Probably because we had our terrorism experience 30 years ago.
Windows 3.1415926 -- that reminds me of a certain typesetting system whose version numbers are said to converge to \pi. If Microsoft had followed that author's policy of rewarding people who find bugs with their windows versions, they might even have improved Windows before going out of business in warly 1988.
Not being American, but having spent a year of my life there, I initially liked the "patriotic" touch in RMS's response. To me, this sort of rhethorics[1] seemed right for your typical politician on the campaign trail, just like we were able to witness before last year's presidential elections.
RMS, however, doesn't need to win any election by persuading the American patriot in every one of his listeners that he is their friend and that he will fight for their genuinely American interests. He doesn't get enough media exposure for that anyway. The only thing he could do was to show those people who would bother to watch his mostly one-man-campaign how little sense Jim Allchin's remarks make, with a little saticiral twist. And that's just how I understand his duckspeak.
-Hilko
[1] I couldn't imagine just this kind of rhethorics happening in mainstrem politics here in Germany. Not because we aren't a free country, but people seem to take their freedom more for granted, they don't view themselves in a revolutionary state -- not since the 70s, anyway. But I'm getting OT.
You wrote:
The electronics industry can't simply tell Hollywood to take a hike. The entertainment industry will probably have a number of standards to choose from and they will chose to support the standard that most suits their needs. Technical superiority has seldom been the top priority, so what else? It is just turing into the opposite. The entertainment industry is climbing onto the driver seat.Only one standard of distributing "content" over the Net is going to be supported by Hollywood in the long term and being among the first to offer (and market) a working device puts you in a good starting position as a hardware or software maker.
At the moment, everyone in the entertainment industry seems to be concerned with a way to control distribution, so one of their demands for the standard is going to be a scheme for just that.
Since there is a lot of money to be made, hardware and software makers will want to please the entertainment guys.
You are probably right that CDRs and Napster don't account for the kind of losses the music industry claims to suffer from. However, that is today's situation and they are afraid of the "wrong" (in their eyes) use of technology. That Sony VP's statements tell us just how desperate they are.
-Hilko