They can do whatever they want...
on
Nazis on Napster
·
· Score: 3
They're a business. It's not censorship if they decide they don't want to carry (or "sell") some given item. We as consumers have a right to not associate with that business that we find operates in a means detrimental to free speech.
Put your money where your mouth is. This is the reason I won't shop at Walmart. They've made a business decision not to carry CDs with "parental advisory" stickers on them (which is completely hypocritical since they have no problem selling "R-rated" movies), so I've made a consumer decision not to give them my money.
There are plenty of places online to buy music that some people find "offensive", and until such music is outlawed (which WOULD be censorship), there will always be such places. If there is demand, someone somewhere will meet those demands.
You assume that every single synapse of every single neuron is doing something useful during every single synapse firing cycle.
Of course, IANANS (I am not a neural scientist), but I would expect a far smaller percentage of the brain to be active and/or doing useful work at any given time. If that's true, Seti@Home may have already achieved a computational rate equal or greater than the useful rate of the human brain.
Except that all of the calculations I've seen on the energy consumption of the Seti@Home project assume that people have their computers on for this purpose. I've completed about 3000 units, not one of which was done when the PC wouldn't have been sitting there doing nothing anyway (an no, neither my unix workstation or my PC has a suspend function).
I suspect that the vast majority of users are the same and that the added energy use by those who are not is insignificant.
The Napster lawyers are claiming "fair use!" as their defense for facilitating music trading. This puts the fair use statutes in a very bad light.
Then along comes a case like this, and indeed the future of fair use hangs in the balance. But those who are going the make the final decision, the Supreme Court, see fair use statutes being badly abused.
Even if DeCSS is a perfectly legitmate way for an individual to exercise their fair use rights, the feeling of the courts is bound to be "enough is enough."
My biggest complaint about Napster, their users, and others who openly copy/share/steal copyrighted materials is that their actions are bound to force the hand of the copyright holders, congress, and the courts. And that seems to be happening.
Yea, good luck returning a game to the store because you didn't agree with the EULA inside. Most stores have a policy of only exchanging software for the same title once it's been opened.
How many of these silicon valley people go out jogging at lunch? Or hit the stationary bikes in the exercise room? LOTS!
Why not set them up on some power generating treadmills and bikes and let their exercise do something useful... like a bunch of little high-tech gerbils.
How are things financially for the band now that you're off a major label and releasing music on independent labels and through emusic.com? Do you feel like you have more control over the artistic process now than before?
Knowing what you know now, if you were a new band starting out, would you be going after major label support or would you use these new distribution methods?
Thanks!
-S (who's seen TMBG about 12 times but was horribly dissapointed he missed the recent Boston, MA show because he had a horrible flu bug)
Once that digital representation is converted back to analog, all bets are off
I disagree. Some of the technologies that SDMI presented are certainly "in the noise", but others not.
For some, after subtraction, the remaining watermark file was in the -65db (average RMS) range (technology C and technology F), one was about -42db (technology B), and one was about -31db (technology C). FWIW, the original music sample was about -12db.
Certainly ones like A and B will be harder to get rid of, but they are likely the most audible (especially A which seemed to use a scheme of phase-change in which to bury the watermark. It sounded OK in stereo mode, but the presense of the watermark completely messed up Dolby Pro-Logic surround steering on it).
By doing a bitwise comparison of two different "SDMI-approved" players, anyone of even moderate programming talent could identify the "new" watermark the players were adding and either eliminate it, or make it untracable by filling it with random data.
SDMI provided.wav samples (44.1 KHz, 16 bit - Same as CD). A pair were exactly the same except one was watermarked. The challenge was to remove a watermark of the same watermarking technology from a 3rd piece of music.
And believe me, it's NOT trivial. Many of the technologies are certainly beyond "anyone with even moderate programming talent".
Furthermore, the watermark isn't just a couple of bits thrown in the file. It was an analog signal hidden with the music and it seemed to repeat, somtimes at random intervals, throughout the file. It's impervious to a "bit dropped here" or "a skip there". I don't think the "refuse to play" issue is an issue at all. If it sees the correct watermark throughout the file, it plays. If it sees that the file is filled with ones that it doesn't like, it doesn't play. I think it would be easy enough to keep it from barfing on the occasional "bad" watermark caused by dropped bits, scratches, or skips.
If you capture the analog output, there is no way that the watermark could be preserved
That is completely false. The watermark is imbedded in the ANALOG signal. There are several technologies that SDMI is proposing, and I'll be honest, I couldn't hear them all on the samples they provided with and without the watermarking. Some were audible, but perhaps those are the harder ones to break. The quality of the original works wasn't that great to begin with, so maybe that had something to do with it. I'd imagine that it'd be easier to bury a non-audible watermark in "busy" music than it would something that's soft and simple.
The watermark is designed to survive digital conversion and compression. And some of the technolgies do survive. I did some of my own testing of the "sample" files that SDMI made available. I subtracted the "watermarked" from the "unwatermarked" files leaving just the watermark. Then I compressed the files with various schemes (mp3 file compression to different bit rates), and again sutracted the watermarked from the unwatermarked files. This leaves behind a post-compression watermark. I then compared this to the uncompressed watermark. And in most cases, they were, both visually and audibly, similar enough that I could imagine that the watermark may have survived.
In theory perceptual coding (which.mp3 compression is) should get rid of non-audible parts of the files. The fact that the watermarks did remain to some extent shows that they are, at least in theory, audible.
I think a lot of people here are missing the point. They're not going to encrypt every CD with a unique number, but they WILL make you register your SDMI compliant play-back device (hardware or software).
Now maybe the original work you bought at the store has a watermark in the music. If your SDMI compliant device does not see said watermark, it won't play.
And if it DOES see the watermark, an ADDITIONAL watermark containing your unique registration information is added to the OUTPUT device, be it a digital out or analog out.
Now you capture that output (record it to tape, rip it to.mp3, or whatever) and then pass it around the internet... and BAM! They've gotcha!
From that file, they'll be able to read the watermark (assuming you haven't done a credible job destroying it while still maintaining the sound quality of the music) and they know EXACTLY who's equipment the file was produced on... and since you've registered that equipment (or software), they know exactly who YOU are.
Now go back to my 2nd paragraph. To make this even more ugly, maybe your SDMI compliant playback device will only play "clean" originals or copies from your own SDMI compliant devices. Try to play back some song that you copied from a buddy and his registration code is buried in the watermark. Bzzzzt. Invalid code. Will not play.
This is evil, evil technology. The way to stop it is the same way we stopped DIVX. Educate your friends and family. And don't buy SDMI compliant devices (hardware AND software).
Be honest now... how many of you are planning on chartering a boat to take you out near the estimated crash-down site in the hopes of picking up some souvenirs???
You could probably even pay for the expidition by Ebay'ing some of the junk you pick up...
I don't see any anomoly at all. Buchanan got ~1% in many counties. He got ~1% in Palm Beach County.... and given the heavy Reform Party activity there recently, this doesn't seem strange at all.
You can't have a re-vote unless it's the whole country, and that isn't going to happen.
It throws the whole thing off if the people from Palm Beach County know ahead of time that the election hinges on their vote.
I've heard it suggested that only those people who voted before be allowed to vote again. OK, so will all of those Nader supporters vote for Nader again? Or will the switch their vote to Gore because they know that the election lies in the balance?
It's done. Count the votes and lets move on. If a few thousand people in Palm Beach County screwed up, then that's just something they'll have to live with. They had ample time and opportunity to familiarize themselves with the ballot before stepping into the booth.
If the situation were reversed and it were Gore winning and Bush's followers whining then I would be equally pissed. We're not children, guys. You screwed up. Accept it. Try again next time.
I agree, and part of me thinks that if it were reversed, the Bush followers wouldn't be crying and screaming like the Gore followers are. Would the republicans have someone like Jessee Jackson down there trying to rile up the masses? Unfortunatly, I think what were seeing here is liberalism in motion...
No personal responsibility. Government will take care of me. I can be an idiot with no consequences.
Interesting stuff. But do you remember those exercises in grade school (well of course you do. That seems to be your field of expertise).
Which picture doesn't belong...?
Which box is shaped like this when you unfold it...?
What is the next number in the series????
There's a reason they teach those things early in life.
There is only one possibility that would allow you to vote for any one candidate.
In the Gestalt Grouping, if you think the 2nd hole is for the Democratic Party, then how would you vote for the Reform Party? If you say it's the hole next to the Republican Party, then how do you vote for the Republican Party.
For the Linear Visual Search, how you vote for everyone else would be different from how you'd vote for the Republicans. And the Reform party and the Republican party would be the same hole. How can that be? And what about the Natural Law Party? That leaves a hole at the bottom with no possibility of it being punched. Then why is it there?
In the Numeric Mapping case, how would someone vote for the Green Party? The 4th hole down? That's no where near the Green Party box. What about the Reform Party? That's the first one on the right side. Choose the first hole? That's the Republican Party hole.
There is exactly and only ONE way that this ballot could be inturpreted. It can not be inturpreted in any other way.
I live in MA and the ballot was also straightforward. But I stood there... for a good 10 minutes or so. I read every word. Twice. Three times. I checked every possible way I could mess up what was being asked of me. I'm only one person in a state that will absolutely positively vote for the democratic presidential candidate no matter what, but I did not take my voting lightly at all.
I can honestly say that I'd rather have Bush win, but if Gore wins it won't be the end of the world as some conservatives seem to think. And if Bush wins, it won't be the end of the world as some liberals think. And I do believe that if the opposite were happening (votes accidentally being given to someone else other than Bush), I'd be saying the same thing. You have the responsibility. Don't take it lightly. And don't leave that booth until you are satisfied that what you're doing is correct.
It's not reasonable. Period. Unless they show that there was willful misconduct and election fraud (which I've seen no evidence of there being), I can't see how they can allow them to vote again.
Imagine all of the Nader supporters going back to the polls... but THIS time, they know just how incredibly important their vote is for getting a liberal into the White House. I could all but guarantee you that the Nader vote shrinks to close to zero and those votes go to Gore. This would be true at the county level, state level, or national level.
Good graphic of the ballot. And I fail to see how anyone could screw that up. It's not like there's a row of holes on the right side of the ballot to confuse things. They're right down the middle.
If someone screwed up because they were too dense, well too bad.
Yes, the picture of the ballot could be confusing, but where are the instructions? ABCnews.com conveniently left that part out.
Without looking at the instructions, I'm guessing you connect the line with the arrow next to the candidate? Or punch a hole in there, or something? Seems pretty straightforward to me. They're even numbered top to bottom. I don't see how people could vote for Buchanan accidentally. There's only one arrow next to each candidate.
There are some number of states, about half I think, where the electoral college MUST by law vote for the candidate that the people of those stats have chosen.
BUT, in the other states, there is no such law. Those people in the electoral college have promised that they will vote along with the popular votes of those states, but they are not legally compelled to do so.
It's close enough. Someone in the electoral college could actually change their vote and throw the election...
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They're a business. It's not censorship if they decide they don't want to carry (or "sell") some given item. We as consumers have a right to not associate with that business that we find operates in a means detrimental to free speech.
Put your money where your mouth is. This is the reason I won't shop at Walmart. They've made a business decision not to carry CDs with "parental advisory" stickers on them (which is completely hypocritical since they have no problem selling "R-rated" movies), so I've made a consumer decision not to give them my money.
There are plenty of places online to buy music that some people find "offensive", and until such music is outlawed (which WOULD be censorship), there will always be such places. If there is demand, someone somewhere will meet those demands.
-S
So what happens to the quaterly system that all of the worlds financial markets depend on?
-S
You assume that every single synapse of every single neuron is doing something useful during every single synapse firing cycle.
Of course, IANANS (I am not a neural scientist), but I would expect a far smaller percentage of the brain to be active and/or doing useful work at any given time. If that's true, Seti@Home may have already achieved a computational rate equal or greater than the useful rate of the human brain.
-S
Except that all of the calculations I've seen on the energy consumption of the Seti@Home project assume that people have their computers on for this purpose. I've completed about 3000 units, not one of which was done when the PC wouldn't have been sitting there doing nothing anyway (an no, neither my unix workstation or my PC has a suspend function).
I suspect that the vast majority of users are the same and that the added energy use by those who are not is insignificant.
-S
Wow.
-S
The Napster lawyers are claiming "fair use!" as their defense for facilitating music trading. This puts the fair use statutes in a very bad light.
Then along comes a case like this, and indeed the future of fair use hangs in the balance. But those who are going the make the final decision, the Supreme Court, see fair use statutes being badly abused.
Even if DeCSS is a perfectly legitmate way for an individual to exercise their fair use rights, the feeling of the courts is bound to be "enough is enough."
My biggest complaint about Napster, their users, and others who openly copy/share/steal copyrighted materials is that their actions are bound to force the hand of the copyright holders, congress, and the courts. And that seems to be happening.
-S
Yea, good luck returning a game to the store because you didn't agree with the EULA inside. Most stores have a policy of only exchanging software for the same title once it's been opened.
-S
How many of these silicon valley people go out jogging at lunch? Or hit the stationary bikes in the exercise room? LOTS!
Why not set them up on some power generating treadmills and bikes and let their exercise do something useful... like a bunch of little high-tech gerbils.
-S
How are things financially for the band now that you're off a major label and releasing music on independent labels and through emusic.com? Do you feel like you have more control over the artistic process now than before?
Knowing what you know now, if you were a new band starting out, would you be going after major label support or would you use these new distribution methods?
Thanks!
-S (who's seen TMBG about 12 times but was horribly dissapointed he missed the recent Boston, MA show because he had a horrible flu bug)
I disagree. Some of the technologies that SDMI presented are certainly "in the noise", but others not.
For some, after subtraction, the remaining watermark file was in the -65db (average RMS) range (technology C and technology F), one was about -42db (technology B), and one was about -31db (technology C). FWIW, the original music sample was about -12db.
Certainly ones like A and B will be harder to get rid of, but they are likely the most audible (especially A which seemed to use a scheme of phase-change in which to bury the watermark. It sounded OK in stereo mode, but the presense of the watermark completely messed up Dolby Pro-Logic surround steering on it).
-S
SDMI provided .wav samples (44.1 KHz, 16 bit - Same as CD). A pair were exactly the same except one was watermarked. The challenge was to remove a watermark of the same watermarking technology from a 3rd piece of music.
And believe me, it's NOT trivial. Many of the technologies are certainly beyond "anyone with even moderate programming talent".
Furthermore, the watermark isn't just a couple of bits thrown in the file. It was an analog signal hidden with the music and it seemed to repeat, somtimes at random intervals, throughout the file. It's impervious to a "bit dropped here" or "a skip there". I don't think the "refuse to play" issue is an issue at all. If it sees the correct watermark throughout the file, it plays. If it sees that the file is filled with ones that it doesn't like, it doesn't play. I think it would be easy enough to keep it from barfing on the occasional "bad" watermark caused by dropped bits, scratches, or skips.
-S
That is completely false. The watermark is imbedded in the ANALOG signal. There are several technologies that SDMI is proposing, and I'll be honest, I couldn't hear them all on the samples they provided with and without the watermarking. Some were audible, but perhaps those are the harder ones to break. The quality of the original works wasn't that great to begin with, so maybe that had something to do with it. I'd imagine that it'd be easier to bury a non-audible watermark in "busy" music than it would something that's soft and simple.
The watermark is designed to survive digital conversion and compression. And some of the technolgies do survive. I did some of my own testing of the "sample" files that SDMI made available. I subtracted the "watermarked" from the "unwatermarked" files leaving just the watermark. Then I compressed the files with various schemes (mp3 file compression to different bit rates), and again sutracted the watermarked from the unwatermarked files. This leaves behind a post-compression watermark. I then compared this to the uncompressed watermark. And in most cases, they were, both visually and audibly, similar enough that I could imagine that the watermark may have survived.
In theory perceptual coding (which .mp3 compression is) should get rid of non-audible parts of the files. The fact that the watermarks did remain to some extent shows that they are, at least in theory, audible.
-S
I think a lot of people here are missing the point. They're not going to encrypt every CD with a unique number, but they WILL make you register your SDMI compliant play-back device (hardware or software).
.mp3, or whatever) and then pass it around the internet... and BAM! They've gotcha!
Now maybe the original work you bought at the store has a watermark in the music. If your SDMI compliant device does not see said watermark, it won't play.
And if it DOES see the watermark, an ADDITIONAL watermark containing your unique registration information is added to the OUTPUT device, be it a digital out or analog out.
Now you capture that output (record it to tape, rip it to
From that file, they'll be able to read the watermark (assuming you haven't done a credible job destroying it while still maintaining the sound quality of the music) and they know EXACTLY who's equipment the file was produced on... and since you've registered that equipment (or software), they know exactly who YOU are.
Now go back to my 2nd paragraph. To make this even more ugly, maybe your SDMI compliant playback device will only play "clean" originals or copies from your own SDMI compliant devices. Try to play back some song that you copied from a buddy and his registration code is buried in the watermark. Bzzzzt. Invalid code. Will not play.
This is evil, evil technology. The way to stop it is the same way we stopped DIVX. Educate your friends and family. And don't buy SDMI compliant devices (hardware AND software).
-S
Be honest now... how many of you are planning on chartering a boat to take you out near the estimated crash-down site in the hopes of picking up some souvenirs???
You could probably even pay for the expidition by Ebay'ing some of the junk you pick up...
-S
I guess I can look at this two ways...
1) Oh God, there's gonna be a MASSIVE amount of spam coming from domains with characters outside of the standard 37.
2) I can block anything and everything coming from domains with characters outside of the standard 37.
-S
I don't see any anomoly at all. Buchanan got ~1% in many counties. He got ~1% in Palm Beach County.... and given the heavy Reform Party activity there recently, this doesn't seem strange at all.
-S
How the hell would they know? Were they unsure when they left the booth? If so, why did they leave? Whey didn't they ask for help.
It sounds to me like a high number of people trying to "help the cause" regardless of whether they really think they made a mistake or not.
-S
You can't have a re-vote unless it's the whole country, and that isn't going to happen.
It throws the whole thing off if the people from Palm Beach County know ahead of time that the election hinges on their vote.
I've heard it suggested that only those people who voted before be allowed to vote again. OK, so will all of those Nader supporters vote for Nader again? Or will the switch their vote to Gore because they know that the election lies in the balance?
It's done. Count the votes and lets move on. If a few thousand people in Palm Beach County screwed up, then that's just something they'll have to live with. They had ample time and opportunity to familiarize themselves with the ballot before stepping into the booth.
-S
I agree, and part of me thinks that if it were reversed, the Bush followers wouldn't be crying and screaming like the Gore followers are. Would the republicans have someone like Jessee Jackson down there trying to rile up the masses? Unfortunatly, I think what were seeing here is liberalism in motion...
No personal responsibility. Government will take care of me. I can be an idiot with no consequences.
-S
Interesting stuff. But do you remember those exercises in grade school (well of course you do. That seems to be your field of expertise).
Which picture doesn't belong...?
Which box is shaped like this when you unfold it...?
What is the next number in the series????
There's a reason they teach those things early in life.
There is only one possibility that would allow you to vote for any one candidate.
In the Gestalt Grouping, if you think the 2nd hole is for the Democratic Party, then how would you vote for the Reform Party? If you say it's the hole next to the Republican Party, then how do you vote for the Republican Party.
For the Linear Visual Search, how you vote for everyone else would be different from how you'd vote for the Republicans. And the Reform party and the Republican party would be the same hole. How can that be? And what about the Natural Law Party? That leaves a hole at the bottom with no possibility of it being punched. Then why is it there?
In the Numeric Mapping case, how would someone vote for the Green Party? The 4th hole down? That's no where near the Green Party box. What about the Reform Party? That's the first one on the right side. Choose the first hole? That's the Republican Party hole.
There is exactly and only ONE way that this ballot could be inturpreted. It can not be inturpreted in any other way.
I live in MA and the ballot was also straightforward. But I stood there... for a good 10 minutes or so. I read every word. Twice. Three times. I checked every possible way I could mess up what was being asked of me. I'm only one person in a state that will absolutely positively vote for the democratic presidential candidate no matter what, but I did not take my voting lightly at all.
I can honestly say that I'd rather have Bush win, but if Gore wins it won't be the end of the world as some conservatives seem to think. And if Bush wins, it won't be the end of the world as some liberals think. And I do believe that if the opposite were happening (votes accidentally being given to someone else other than Bush), I'd be saying the same thing. You have the responsibility. Don't take it lightly. And don't leave that booth until you are satisfied that what you're doing is correct.
-S
It's not reasonable. Period. Unless they show that there was willful misconduct and election fraud (which I've seen no evidence of there being), I can't see how they can allow them to vote again.
Imagine all of the Nader supporters going back to the polls... but THIS time, they know just how incredibly important their vote is for getting a liberal into the White House. I could all but guarantee you that the Nader vote shrinks to close to zero and those votes go to Gore. This would be true at the county level, state level, or national level.
-S
Good graphic of the ballot. And I fail to see how anyone could screw that up. It's not like there's a row of holes on the right side of the ballot to confuse things. They're right down the middle.
If someone screwed up because they were too dense, well too bad.
-S
Yes, the picture of the ballot could be confusing, but where are the instructions? ABCnews.com conveniently left that part out.
Without looking at the instructions, I'm guessing you connect the line with the arrow next to the candidate? Or punch a hole in there, or something? Seems pretty straightforward to me. They're even numbered top to bottom. I don't see how people could vote for Buchanan accidentally. There's only one arrow next to each candidate.
-S
There are some number of states, about half I think, where the electoral college MUST by law vote for the candidate that the people of those stats have chosen.
BUT, in the other states, there is no such law. Those people in the electoral college have promised that they will vote along with the popular votes of those states, but they are not legally compelled to do so.
It's close enough. Someone in the electoral college could actually change their vote and throw the election...
-S
If my math is right, that means that less than 29% of the registered voters actually voted for Bill Clinton in 1992.
No matter what happens this year, the President will have a greater mandate than Clinton did in 1992.
-S