Who keeps picking out windmills for RIAA to tilt at? Their legal attack strategist needs to put down the crack pipe and step away from his desk.
Seriously... --
The RIAA's biggest mistake is picking up the role of angry bull elephant. When an angry bull elephant starts attacking the village with intent to cause as much harm as possible, the villagers are quick to; 1 Run and hide. 2 Put up defenses. 3 Directly attack the threat.
In short.. Number 1 is trade offline with the sneaker net. USB drives, USB music players, CD and DVD burners are now the choice for moving massive amounts of data without risk. Number 2 is the online resource to pool knowledge such as the Ray Beckman site and those who are fighting instead of rolling over and paying the settlement supprt center. and 3.. Counter suits, RICO suits, Anti-Trust suits, Class Action Suits, and artists openly slamming them such as the recent tour where the artist told the crowd to steal the music. Artists are going independent. The RIAA is badly wounded, angry, dangerous, and is being dealt with in response. The PR is in the trash. They need to change or die. Even the congress is looking at changing copyright law.
I read as much news on line as the next geek (many hours a day). However...
100% in agreement on that one. With an online resource, the old news is a link away unlike any offline reader. For example, if you are following the RIAA lawsuits, you have an instant list of the past and related documents. The Media Sentry testimony is old news, but when the points are in the current case, you can review the testimony. A prime example is the IP spoofing and such in the recent mega award. IP spoofing is possible as well as piggybacking on an unsecured access point. The jury found that is not probable because of the lack of a router or wireless access point and the user names showed the probability that this was not plausible. Old news is as important as new news. Having it readily available online is very important.
I mean, the un-important entertainment stuff is in the top stories on the entertainment media news networks. Yahoo is news that doesn't matter. Under top stories is a story about a dancing cockatoo and some dispute over a dog. That's real news? Does it matter? It's entertainment and little else. Why is any of this in NATIONAL news?
Even if they let you get it for free by putting a 0 in the price box,
A much more likely case is the suspicion of the users in the latest round of DRM and watermarking. The what if I purchase from them directly for $0? OMG, they now have my IP address. What if the songs are watermarked with my IP address and later they show up on P-P networks? Will I face a massive lawsuit. Will I be bombed with massive advertising?
An annon file does not carry these risks. Personally I am not familiar with Radiohead's music. The above concerns are the primary reason I didn't download their stuff either for free from them or from a P-P service. There was a non-zero risk of being submitted to data-mining in a non-annon way. They never made any claim they did not collect any identity from the "Purchase".
If 222,000 is to be expressed with eight significant digits of accuracy, then it should be expressed as 222000.00. If I would need to multiply 222,000 by pi for some reason, I would multiply by 3.14. However, 222000.00 would get multiplied by 3.1415926. That's the purpose of significant digits.
Could you explain something? If I have two contractors to pay.. 2 is a precise number and not subject to rounding and multiply it by 222,000, then do I get to round to one significant digit and only pay $400,000? The amount of $222,000.00 is the result of multiplying an exact number of award per song by the exact number of songs. None of the numbers is a non-precise amount. None of the numbers have an in-accuracy. Both numbers are accurate with zero range.
Pi is often rounded at some significant number. When multiplying a precise number against a non-presision number, the result takes on the precision of the non-precision number. For example buying $25.00 worth of gas at $25/gallon will yield about 12.5 gallons of gas give or take the measurement accuracy of the tools used. Paying 10 people $25 each for weeding your garden each week will net you a precise bill of $250.00 as there is no rounding off any least significant digit as the numbers of workers and the amount of dollars is not subject to rounding.
Your example of rounding Pi is simply cutting off the known precision of the number reducing it's accuracy while still providing a reasonably accurate result.
Otherwise it's hard to beat the convenience of Dead Tree Format.
For many things, the dead tree format is obsolete. The obvious is simply missed. Newspapers and other formats for distributing the current events is old by the time it's printed. Get a newspaper if you want yesterday's news. Go online (a form of e-paper) and read Google News, Yahoo news, MSN news, API, etc. An offline publication in either a dead tree format or e-paper format is by defenition a record of history, sometimes as recent as a day or two ago.
But if you are confident that Open Source is the best way to develop software (as we at the Open Source Initiative are), then you can see why Microsoft would both attack Open Source and seek to use it.
Legal immunity. In a legal battle the carnage of the ex-Windows programs would be the end of Microsoft. They don't dare enter battle. It's like the global nuke arms race. They don't dare pull the trigger as the destruction to themselves would be swift and complete.
They are getting a little body armor out of the deal. They need it.
222,000 is a rounded figure. It has three significant digits
I agree if you were talking about measuring gasoline for a delivery tanker where mechanical accuracy of the meter, expansion and contraction of the container and contents from changes in temprature, and some product evaporation, but in paying a fine being short a few dollars is not the same as being short or over a few gallons in 222,000.00 delivered. In the gas delivery an error of 50 gallons is a measurement error and below the threshold of 0.1%. In paying for a product or taxes, the missing or extra $50 is not a measurement error. It is an integer.
151.20 actually has more significant digits than 222,000.
This is an integer measurement. The unprinted.00 is part of the significant number and is not a product of rounding. The exact ammount of the fine as an integer is 220,000.00. Each digit is a significant digit. Last time I checked the award does contain more significant digits. The presence of a zero does not mean it was rounding measurement error. It is an integer award to the penny.
Doesnt matter, Vonage and all VOIP Providers must be CALEA Complient or huge fines are given.
correction Vontage and all US VOIP Providers must
There fixed it. From you link.. "The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) is a United States wiretapping law passed in 1994 "
Vontage is US based. Where is Ekiga which ships with Ubuntu based? http://ekiga.org/index.php?rub=3&pos=0&faqpage=x149.html "1.1.4. What is it compatible with? Ekiga is compatible with any software, device or router supporting SIP or H.323. It includes SwissVoice, CISCO, SNOM,... IP Phones, but also software like Windows Messenger, Netmeeting, SJPhone, Eyebeam, X-Lite,... or also the Asterisk popular IPBX, as well as any other commercial or Open Source IPBX."
How many of these supported services is directly under CALEA?
Vontage may be CALEA Complient. Not everyone is under US rule. Not all VOIP service is commercialy provided.
Not a problem for the end users. If it isn't for sale on any legal channel, many will fail to see a copyright violation as theft as it isn't stopping any legal sale of any kind.
Examples of others who started down this treck was Disney who will never release movies on Videotape, along with George Lucas and the first Star Wars film release.
The Music industry is also condemmed to repeat hsitory as they failed to learn from it.
Comcast does not store emails any longer than the subscriber chooses keeps them.
You left out the part where a subscriber may elect to not use Comcast mail at all and elect to use another providers service such as Hotmail or Yahoo mail. Comcast does not have any record of these. It's hard to retrieve records that don't exist. I fall in that catagory. I don't use my ISP's email at all.
Quick and dirty is if you receive all services from Comcast. However if you only subscribed to Internet and used Broadvoice, Skype, or Vontage, and used email from some small obscure server somewhere, the one stop shop is now a find all the scattered pieces.
Can Comcast put a pen recorder on a Vontage VOIP connection? I think that might not be permitted as it is now 3rd party traffic and may be an illegal wiretap of a Vontage customer. A look at the keeper of the phone number assignments would indicate a Vontage phone number is not a Comcast subscriber number.
There is nothing incriminating in my email beyond sending stupid YouTube links to a buddy or bitching to the wife about who chooses whats for dinner.
My stock trades are not incriminating either, but they are not sent plaintext. They are also not sent on my ISP mail servers. Sometimes data security is simply data security to prevent mis-use in the wrong hands. There is nothing incriminating, but my credit card order details is not to be made public.
There is a reason to encrypt some sensitive data. ID theft of credit card information is just one of the many reasons.
absolutely will not purchase any music in any form. Until the bands start distributing via a company that is DRM less, and passes MAJORITY of the moneys back to the bands.
Don't forget that part about using a label who is a member of a trade association suing people in mass. I know you didn't mention it as unimportant as they don't pay their artists much.
Let's play with the math just for grins. Let's use the stocks mentioned in my last post. Let's buy them all 1 year ago including the good, bad and ugly. We will place buy orders for 5% less and sell at %20 over what we bought at.
Here is the portfolio. Intel, AMD, SCO Microsoft and VM Ware.. The symbols are INTC AMD SCOX MSFT & VMW. That's 5 stocks. Toss $50 at each a year ago and set a buy order at 5% under the price.. How did we do?
Intel was at about 21.5. 5% less is $20.425. In short we bought the stock as it's 52 week range is 18.75 - 26.58... Did we sell it? Yes, it sold at a profit of 4.085 per share. Since in round figures we bought 2.5 shares we earned about $10 bucks.
AMD.. It's range was 11.27 - 25.69 It started at $25.69 and headed down. Did we buy it at 5% less.. Yes. Did it sell.. No not yet. Time to wait this one out. Did we lose all our money.. No. We have an unrealized loss. The loss becomes real only if we sell at a loss. This is why I'm not buying and haven't bought AMD. If it starts trending up and is showing some market traction again, I may invest. So at the end of the year I've invested $45 for about 2 shares which are currently worth about $22 bucks. Not a total loss, but I'm not taking the loss and the investment in this one is only $50. If I think it may turn up, it might be time to put in another buy order for this year and try to snag 5 shares for $50 instead of just 2 like we did earlier... May be promising, but this is one to watch. It's in the middle of a fire sale..
Next on the list is SCO.. It's 52 week range was 0.15 - 3.11. Great, if we were not watching the company and gambeling, we would have bought a bunch of shares for about 3 bucks each. Did they sell? Nope. Are we likely to sell? Nope.. Good thing we didn't get greedy and plug in more than $50. Care t buy more in the fire sale? Nope... There is no hope... Stick a fork in it. It's done.
Next on the list is Microsoft, the stagnet stock. Did we make any money? It's 52 week range was only 26.60 - 31.84. 52 weeks ago the price was about 28.5 and rising. Sticking to the buy order, we put in the buy order at $27.075. It looks like we bought it several months later at our price. Did we sell it? At 32.49, we haven't sold it yet, but the price is within $1 of our sell price. It may sell soon.
Last on the list is VM ware. It has only been out for a couple months, so using the same formula, did we buy it? 51.50 - 114.88 is the 52 week range. It opened near $52, dipped slightly and took off. We wouldn't have gotten in on the ground floor, so no we haven't bought it. Remember the pattern blazed by Red Hat mentioned in my other comments? VMW peaked at $114.88 and are now on the way back down. They are trading under $100 right now. I'm glad I didn't buy it just before the peak to ride it down.
So how did I do. I made good on one. INTC I am real close to making good on a second MSFT Totally blew a gamble SCOX and AMD will require a long wait for either a recovery or going bust. If I bailed right now I could get 1/2 my money back.
If I avoided the risky stocks, how did I do.. with No SCO, and no AMD while Intel is kingpin on the Core 2 Duo. I won in Intel. I missed buying VM ware low and I can cash Microsoft at a profit today or wait for a small wiggle to hit my sell price.
Was that hard? Keep an eye on AMD.. If they show any real sign of recovery or Intel starts to falter, jump on AMD. It could be a nice ride up but for now.. sit tight. Watch for stocks that move. You can't make money on stocks that don't move. Buy low. Sell high, and watch out for hyperactive stocks like the IPO of Red Hat and VM Ware. They move way too quickly to ride them safely.
There you have it. It does not require watching the stock everyday. It doesn't require super commissions for lots of small buy and sell orders. It does require patience, solid investing and more patience. Again, buy low, sell high. Use a fixed inv
So tell us, oh wise one, because we're all dying to know: given that you can't time the market, and that "low" and "high" are relative terms in this context, how do you tell when the market is low or high?
The short answer is you can't tell if it is high or low. The big answer is who cares? If the market simply refuses to budge ever, then you can't earn money. In short there is no way to gain or lose except through commissions.
Incidentally, please make sure you indicate your credentials (or lack thereof) in posts where you might be seen as giving financial advice.
OK. I graduated High School in 1975. I watched my father invest for 30 years (Now entirely debt free, owns home, cars, boat free and clear and has a net worth of 1/2 million) and 10 years ago I got started. I started late, but I've done well.
A lot of impressionable young people read this forum, and the last thing they need is to go off on some wild investing spree because some guy who got lucky posted about how easy it is to make money on the stock market.
My formula is simple, invest steadily. Let's take two ficticious stocks at $20 a share right now. Over 4 years one doubles and the other drops in half. For sake of argument, eliminate peaks and valleys. Toss $50 at each stock every year at the same time.
Today we bought 2-1/2 shares of each and set a sell price for those shares at $30. Next year when the stocks are at $25 and $17.50, we buy $50 worth of each. The $25 shares we set to sell at $35 and the $17.50 shares we set to sell at $22.50, etc until 4 years later we buy $50 of each at $40.00/ per share and $10.00 per share. As an exersise for the reader, How many share auto sold? How many shares do I now hold and what is it's net worth. Did I make any money. Now add some fluctuations to the same trends so the stock dipped and peaked about 10% above and below the steady trend. Now when would my stock have sold. Instead of just buying shares on the fixed purchase date, how many shares would I have bought with the fluctuations mentioned if I simply placed buy orders for $50 of the stock at 5% less than that day's trading price. Do I still have a good chance of getting the same stock for 5% less. What are my chances of missing buying the stock because it went up instead of down. Leave the buy order sit for an entire year. Chances are gook I'll get my buy price. The same holds true for my sell prices. I set them 10-100% over the purchase price. A look at the history and how the company is doing depends on setting a conservative or aggressive target.
Take any stock from 5 years ago. The market had a bubble which burst. It's a market that is moving. You can't make money in a market that doesn't move. Pick 20 stocks at random. Plug in the numbers from the above buy low, and set a sell price. Chances are very good you will have some stock bought at near a peak. By using a fixed money amount, your purchase of these shares is automatically limited. By setting purchase prices below current market prices and waiting, you can pick up deals on market scares. (We have had a few wonderful ones in the last quarter and I picked up some bargains just by having the buy order sitting there waiting). If you do some market evaluations, avoid being greedy (nailed by Enron for example) and avoid buying lots of high and fast rising stock (that's the time to sell, sell sell) you can do much better than random picks.
Most stocks using the above will earn money. Picking companies carefully, you can do much better. Oh and stay out of day trading and junk stock.
You will always be disappointed in the ones you miss. Get over it. I don't have Google or VM Ware. They are already too high and rising. If I had any, I'd have sold them long ago. They are just too rich for me. Microsoft can't grow much and may have a turn, so I'm not buying MSFT. Look at it over the last year. It is pretty stagnant. Stocks that don't move can't earn you money unless you are in it ju
Sure, you can make more by playing the fluctuations, but very few people can do this well
Short term day traders run into this labor intensive risky trading style. I simply stick to buy low, sell high. I buy stock on a down period, set a sell order price and simply wait. It works well for me and takes a lot of risk out. It is true that I have some stock that remains unsold and will be that way for a long time. Other investments have long made up for the few stocks that have failed to perform. When the price is low, I buy lots of shares. When the price is high, I buy few shares. If the high priced stock climbs, I make a profit (example see VM Ware symbol VMW).
and has done well out of the rising stock market in recent years,
and has done well out of the fluctuating stock market in recent years. There, fixed it for you. To buy low and sell high, it has to be low sometimes. Profit comes from using the peaks as well as the drops. Just remember Buy LOW and Sell HIGH and you should do well. The other thing to do is avoid companies in trouble. SCO is low at the moment, but I'm not touching it.
The stock market doesn't crash. They have fantastic fire sales with great prices. Get in on the rush.
In poker for instance, you aren't playing against the house.
Except in lottery poker and online poker. A friendly neighborhood game is not the same as online gambling, including international gambling where the rules and honesty of the game might not be above board.
they're interested in having some chance -- small as it is -- of winning a life-changing amount, and they're willing to spend $50 to have that chance.
True. And over time these are the people who throw away their chance of investing and building life changing wealth. Some people throw away $50/week on some gambling addiction. I have invested in the stock market. I have the option of setting selling prices on the stock I purchased. The Buy low and sell high is the only way to get ahead. It is true some stock will be unsold as they are bad investments much like a farmer understands that not every seed will grow. With a little variety and watching for a good season is less exciting than buying an instant gratification chance. If you care to compare the numbers.. I just sold a bunch of stock last week when it hit my $26/share sell order. I bought at $13. I have a $40,066 check to show for it. This was not luck of the draw. The market has had a downturn where I increased my purchases. I set my sell price. It sold within sixty cents of it's 52 week high. Not bad for this year. I have more stock with sell orders pending, just waiting. The difference in waiting in stock is I don't have to pay every day for a new chance to win. I pay once and wait till it does win. I know I's boring, but it keeps the lights on. In the stock market, every sale is a winner. I have about $10,000 worth of stock that will probably never win. This is a small drop in the bucket compared to a $50/week expired lottery ticket collection. They can't even cash those out to cut the loss. They are %100 loss. My $10,000 stock market loss is offset by the $140,000 wins that grow. The lottery is the other way around. You spend, you lose, you spend again, you lose again, think maybe next time and so try again. I like the market better. I buy at say $20 and leave it with a sell order at $35 and wait. My odds are much better in spite of the stock bought at $40 and sitting at $20. I can wait, or take a sale at $20 to cut my loss at 50%. I have no stock that has gone to zero unlike most lottery tickets.
I don't know who will win the battle, but I know who will lose. It's another tax on the ignorant. If you are not the house, you lose. We studied odds in our statistics class and focused on gambling games with a study as it relates to Statistical Process Control. Playing as an end user shows the process trending down every time in a loss direction. The conclusion is that this is not profitable and needs to be discarded as a viable process.
Tracking gambling over time will quickly show it is a losing game every time. The shorter time you play, the wider the outcome. Each game has a wide range of outcome. Averaged over time, the dependable outcome becomes very narrow until none of the overall odds is above even as the bell curve spread becomes narrower and narrower.
Every science museum has a probability display. They dump a bunch of balls down a bunch of peggs and the result is a predictable bell curve. Allow each time the game runs for the 2 outside bins to empty onto the floor. Only one to four balls are lost each game. At the end of the year, how many balls do you expect to remain in the game? Over time they all lose.
All gambling games are funded off the winnings. No gambling game in existence continues to exist if they lose to the player over time. With this simple knowledge, people still play to win. Dumb.
The copyright for the school pictures usually lies with the person who paid for them. They are considered 'works for hire'. The group shots probably belong to the school, but it would depend on the contract they signed.
Some of the shots were traditional school pictures. These may have been works for hire, but have you read the fine print on any of the kids school pictures lately. They don't seem to be works for hire as they threaten death to your firstborn if you even think of scanning one and e-mailing it to your long lost great aunt.
Other shots which were most likely traditional studio work is formal family portraits and such of the family growing up. These in particular are the photos which would bankrupt me at $5,000 per violation. Between the brides family and the groom, there were a bunch of these. Other pro photos included Winner's circle photos (He raced cars) and studio photos of babies and pre-school toddlers. I no longer have the show, but figure a 15 minute show with an average slide transition of once a second. Some persisted for several seconds and other's piled on a page in rapid progression. Of the snapshots I would guess about 5% were pro. The show had about 900 photos. About 45 were pro, not counting the school portraits. Just scanning the phots at $5,000 per photo is a $220,000 violation. Add in the 4 songs, the public performance, and then printing 20 copies of all that on DVD's and then passing them out. Oh the horror of it. Now do two more weddings....
The music however is an issue, the performance is legal under the mandatory licensing laws (you did pay ASCAP didn't you?), however the permanent copy is an issue - subject to a 3K minimum penalty.
What's so special about the music? Only 4 works were infringed. How is public display of commercial photographs and copying them any less protected?
ASCAP.. One wedding a year for 3 years.. Have you looked into getting the license. I looked into it and found it impossible.
I found a whole bunch of junk on reporting copyright violations, sharing the profits of song witers and performers and even how to join ASCAP so I can register my works and pay dues. Finding the page to license the 4 music tracks for the public performance is very difficult to find.
Off to BMI.. Maybe I can find the rate to play 4 songs at a wedding.. http://www.bmi.com/
Aha, a link in the small print at the bottom of the page. Need a license? http://www.bmi.com/licensing/?link=footer About Us Music speaks to the heart. Music also plays an important role in thousands of businesses--from radio, television and cable broadcasts, to streaming music over the internet, to live and recorded music used in restaurants, hotels and retail stores. BMI Licensing clears the performing rights for thousands of business which rely on music to entertain customers and increase profits.
What does this mean for your business? BMI saves you money! BMI represents over 350,000 creators of music, the songwriters, composers and publishers of more than 6.5 million musical works! Licensing makes the process simple, easy and cost-effective to obtain the musical clearance you need.
Aah Ha.. Now we are getting someplace. Lets find the rat
Whoa, whoa buddy. This is slashdot. No one here is ever going to get close to a bride and second, I can't even understand this without a proper car analogy.
It happens. When there is a bride there is often a groom. the groom knows a couple geeks.. You know the guys that like gadgets and can work miracles with computers, is good with photos and music and such.. Check it out, engaged couples do talk to each other unlike married couples. The bride had a wonderful idea and heard of a geek that could make it happen and even had the equipment including a scanner and projector.
Ok time for a geeky car analogy. I bought a new car. It was licensed for private home use only. Any public display or copying of the car is prohibited. I understand why they don't want me to copy someone else's car and want me to buy my own copy, but I have trouble with it not having a license to drive it to work in a public place where it can be seen or heard by others. This restriction on use severely cut into my desire to collect cars.
so in your copying anylog, permission would not be given because Ms. Pariser believes that there are available copies of most titles available at competitive prices for you to purchase.
My point is why do I have to have the timing of the show screwed up by waiting for random CD access times. The 4 songs were on 4 CDs. The slide show was running in sync with the music much like the ever popular Christmas light show that was done to Wizards in Winter by TSO last year. The only way to reach that level of sync is to rip to hard drive. DRM files simply don't sync to a PowerPoint presentation as Microsoft Media Player simply won't play any DRM track purchased from Apple. (the show was years ago before the legal DRM free tracks appeared.) I may be wrong, but I don't think Itunes be embedded in a PowerPoint slide show. This measure would only cover being able to sync the CD to the slide show. This new license doesn't even touch the public performance at the wedding and reception. It does not even touch the crime of scanning the photographs into digital form so they can be shown on screen and again copied in duplicate on DVD's. Oh the crime of it all. Lock me up and throw away the key.
which leads me to this question...when did we get to the point in our world when we don't own the things that we buy?
Good question.. I hope the congress is going to work on that.
essentially what we're dealing with is a group that is becoming more greedy and seething at the thought of users doing what they want with the media they purchase.
I noticed that long time ago. I wanted to collect records and CD's and run the diso (many years ago) for receptions, school dances, and such. The wording on the back simply said "Licensed for home use only. Any copying or public performance is prohibited" These simple words restricting my use of the product is why I simply bought very little music. I couldn't use it. In the Disco years, I instead collected lights and ran the lightshow. I was perfectly legal running a public performance using the lights I purchased. Since most people did sound and few invested in lights, it was never hard to find a gig. It was best to work directly with the establishment instead of the DJ. Joining the DJ meant splitting the check as the venue would rarely see the added benefit from the extra part of the show. Offering the show as a light show, then it became a separate artist. A bonus as a separate artist, is if there was an ASCAP or BMI bust, I had nothing to do with the music or it's licensing.
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Who keeps picking out windmills for RIAA to tilt at? Their legal attack strategist needs to put down the crack pipe and step away from his desk.
Seriously...
--
The RIAA's biggest mistake is picking up the role of angry bull elephant. When an angry bull elephant starts attacking the village with intent to cause as much harm as possible, the villagers are quick to;
1 Run and hide.
2 Put up defenses.
3 Directly attack the threat.
In short.. Number 1 is trade offline with the sneaker net. USB drives, USB music players, CD and DVD burners are now the choice for moving massive amounts of data without risk. Number 2 is the online resource to pool knowledge such as the Ray Beckman site and those who are fighting instead of rolling over and paying the settlement supprt center. and 3.. Counter suits, RICO suits, Anti-Trust suits, Class Action Suits, and artists openly slamming them such as the recent tour where the artist told the crowd to steal the music. Artists are going independent. The RIAA is badly wounded, angry, dangerous, and is being dealt with in response. The PR is in the trash. They need to change or die. Even the congress is looking at changing copyright law.
I read as much news on line as the next geek (many hours a day). However...
100% in agreement on that one. With an online resource, the old news is a link away unlike any offline reader. For example, if you are following the RIAA lawsuits, you have an instant list of the past and related documents. The Media Sentry testimony is old news, but when the points are in the current case, you can review the testimony. A prime example is the IP spoofing and such in the recent mega award. IP spoofing is possible as well as piggybacking on an unsecured access point. The jury found that is not probable because of the lack of a router or wireless access point and the user names showed the probability that this was not plausible. Old news is as important as new news. Having it readily available online is very important.
The Recording industry vs the people is much more important than the Yahoo headline news most any day.
http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/
http://news.yahoo.com/
I mean, the un-important entertainment stuff is in the top stories on the entertainment media news networks. Yahoo is news that doesn't matter.
Under top stories is a story about a dancing cockatoo and some dispute over a dog. That's real news? Does it matter? It's entertainment and little else. Why is any of this in NATIONAL news?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071018/ap_on_fe_st/odd_dancing_cockatoo;_ylt=AsqNO.bEkPvxhYtiBiy3z6.s0NUE
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071018/ap_on_en_tv/people_degeneres;_ylt=Aqhd_MV_fCo68v1cgksbX3Os0NUE
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071018/ap_on_en_tv/people_degeneres;_ylt=Aqhd_MV_fCo68v1cgksbX3Os0NUE
Even if they let you get it for free by putting a 0 in the price box,
A much more likely case is the suspicion of the users in the latest round of DRM and watermarking. The what if I purchase from them directly for $0? OMG, they now have my IP address. What if the songs are watermarked with my IP address and later they show up on P-P networks? Will I face a massive lawsuit. Will I be bombed with massive advertising?
An annon file does not carry these risks. Personally I am not familiar with Radiohead's music. The above concerns are the primary reason I didn't download their stuff either for free from them or from a P-P service. There was a non-zero risk of being submitted to data-mining in a non-annon way. They never made any claim they did not collect any identity from the "Purchase".
If 222,000 is to be expressed with eight significant digits of accuracy, then it should be expressed as 222000.00. If I would need to multiply 222,000 by pi for some reason, I would multiply by 3.14. However, 222000.00 would get multiplied by 3.1415926. That's the purpose of significant digits.
Could you explain something? If I have two contractors to pay.. 2 is a precise number and not subject to rounding and multiply it by 222,000, then do I get to round to one significant digit and only pay $400,000? The amount of $222,000.00 is the result of multiplying an exact number of award per song by the exact number of songs. None of the numbers is a non-precise amount. None of the numbers have an in-accuracy. Both numbers are accurate with zero range.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accuracy_and_precision Man, that brings back memories of my math class from 35 years ago..
Pi is often rounded at some significant number. When multiplying a precise number against a non-presision number, the result takes on the precision of the non-precision number. For example buying $25.00 worth of gas at $25/gallon will yield about 12.5 gallons of gas give or take the measurement accuracy of the tools used. Paying 10 people $25 each for weeding your garden each week will net you a precise bill of $250.00 as there is no rounding off any least significant digit as the numbers of workers and the amount of dollars is not subject to rounding.
Your example of rounding Pi is simply cutting off the known precision of the number reducing it's accuracy while still providing a reasonably accurate result.
Otherwise it's hard to beat the convenience of Dead Tree Format.
For many things, the dead tree format is obsolete. The obvious is simply missed. Newspapers and other formats for distributing the current events is old by the time it's printed. Get a newspaper if you want yesterday's news. Go online (a form of e-paper) and read Google News, Yahoo news, MSN news, API, etc. An offline publication in either a dead tree format or e-paper format is by defenition a record of history, sometimes as recent as a day or two ago.
But if you are confident that Open Source is the best way to develop software (as we at the Open Source Initiative are), then you can see why Microsoft would both attack Open Source and seek to use it.
Legal immunity. In a legal battle the carnage of the ex-Windows programs would be the end of Microsoft. They don't dare enter battle. It's like the global nuke arms race. They don't dare pull the trigger as the destruction to themselves would be swift and complete.
They are getting a little body armor out of the deal. They need it.
222,000 is a rounded figure. It has three significant digits
I agree if you were talking about measuring gasoline for a delivery tanker where mechanical accuracy of the meter, expansion and contraction of the container and contents from changes in temprature, and some product evaporation, but in paying a fine being short a few dollars is not the same as being short or over a few gallons in 222,000.00 delivered. In the gas delivery an error of 50 gallons is a measurement error and below the threshold of 0.1%. In paying for a product or taxes, the missing or extra $50 is not a measurement error. It is an integer.
151.20 actually has more significant digits than 222,000.
.00 is part of the significant number and is not a product of rounding. The exact ammount of the fine as an integer is 220,000.00. Each digit is a significant digit. Last time I checked the award does contain more significant digits. The presence of a zero does not mean it was rounding measurement error. It is an integer award to the penny.
This is an integer measurement. The unprinted
33-1/3 LPs?
Bad example. Many audiophiles prefer them.
http://www.soundstagedirect.com/?gclid=CO7PyIaLk48CFQSOggodJwmgew
But these are different than encrypting your email because you think the Feds might be watching.
How is the feds going to know any different? Often the only clue is the reciepent is orders@ameritrade.com or Ghadactv8st@gmail.com
Doesnt matter, Vonage and all VOIP Providers must be CALEA Complient or huge fines are given.
... IP Phones, but also software like Windows Messenger, Netmeeting, SJPhone, Eyebeam, X-Lite, ... or also the Asterisk popular IPBX, as well as any other commercial or Open Source IPBX."
correction Vontage and all US VOIP Providers must
There fixed it. From you link..
"The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) is a United States wiretapping law passed in 1994 "
Vontage is US based. Where is Ekiga which ships with Ubuntu based?
http://ekiga.org/index.php?rub=3&pos=0&faqpage=x149.html
"1.1.4. What is it compatible with?
Ekiga is compatible with any software, device or router supporting SIP or H.323. It includes SwissVoice, CISCO, SNOM,
How many of these supported services is directly under CALEA?
Vontage may be CALEA Complient. Not everyone is under US rule. Not all VOIP service is commercialy provided.
No AC/DC on iTunes, last time I checked.
Not a problem for the end users. If it isn't for sale on any legal channel, many will fail to see a copyright violation as theft as it isn't stopping any legal sale of any kind.
Examples of others who started down this treck was Disney who will never release movies on Videotape, along with George Lucas and the first Star Wars film release.
The Music industry is also condemmed to repeat hsitory as they failed to learn from it.
Comcast does not store emails any longer than the subscriber chooses keeps them.
You left out the part where a subscriber may elect to not use Comcast mail at all and elect to use another providers service such as Hotmail or Yahoo mail. Comcast does not have any record of these. It's hard to retrieve records that don't exist. I fall in that catagory. I don't use my ISP's email at all.
Quick and dirty is if you receive all services from Comcast. However if you only subscribed to Internet and used Broadvoice, Skype, or Vontage, and used email from some small obscure server somewhere, the one stop shop is now a find all the scattered pieces.
Can Comcast put a pen recorder on a Vontage VOIP connection? I think that might not be permitted as it is now 3rd party traffic and may be an illegal wiretap of a Vontage customer. A look at the keeper of the phone number assignments would indicate a Vontage phone number is not a Comcast subscriber number.
There is nothing incriminating in my email beyond sending stupid YouTube links to a buddy or bitching to the wife about who chooses whats for dinner.
My stock trades are not incriminating either, but they are not sent plaintext. They are also not sent on my ISP mail servers. Sometimes data security is simply data security to prevent mis-use in the wrong hands. There is nothing incriminating, but my credit card order details is not to be made public.
There is a reason to encrypt some sensitive data. ID theft of credit card information is just one of the many reasons.
absolutely will not purchase any music in any form. Until the bands start distributing via a company that is DRM less, and passes MAJORITY of the moneys back to the bands.
Don't forget that part about using a label who is a member of a trade association suing people in mass. I know you didn't mention it as unimportant as they don't pay their artists much.
Let's play with the math just for grins. Let's use the stocks mentioned in my last post. Let's buy them all 1 year ago including the good, bad and ugly. We will place buy orders for 5% less and sell at %20 over what we bought at.
Here is the portfolio. Intel, AMD, SCO Microsoft and VM Ware.. The symbols are INTC AMD SCOX MSFT & VMW. That's 5 stocks. Toss $50 at each a year ago and set a buy order at 5% under the price.. How did we do?
Intel was at about 21.5. 5% less is $20.425. In short we bought the stock as it's 52 week range is 18.75 - 26.58... Did we sell it? Yes, it sold at a profit of 4.085 per share. Since in round figures we bought 2.5 shares we earned about $10 bucks.
AMD.. It's range was 11.27 - 25.69 It started at $25.69 and headed down. Did we buy it at 5% less.. Yes. Did it sell.. No not yet. Time to wait this one out. Did we lose all our money.. No. We have an unrealized loss. The loss becomes real only if we sell at a loss. This is why I'm not buying and haven't bought AMD. If it starts trending up and is showing some market traction again, I may invest. So at the end of the year I've invested $45 for about 2 shares which are currently worth about $22 bucks. Not a total loss, but I'm not taking the loss and the investment in this one is only $50. If I think it may turn up, it might be time to put in another buy order for this year and try to snag 5 shares for $50 instead of just 2 like we did earlier... May be promising, but this is one to watch. It's in the middle of a fire sale..
Next on the list is SCO.. It's 52 week range was 0.15 - 3.11. Great, if we were not watching the company and gambeling, we would have bought a bunch of shares for about 3 bucks each. Did they sell? Nope. Are we likely to sell? Nope.. Good thing we didn't get greedy and plug in more than $50.
Care t buy more in the fire sale? Nope... There is no hope... Stick a fork in it. It's done.
Next on the list is Microsoft, the stagnet stock. Did we make any money? It's 52 week range was only 26.60 - 31.84. 52 weeks ago the price was about 28.5 and rising. Sticking to the buy order, we put in the buy order at $27.075. It looks like we bought it several months later at our price. Did we sell it? At 32.49, we haven't sold it yet, but the price is within $1 of our sell price. It may sell soon.
Last on the list is VM ware. It has only been out for a couple months, so using the same formula, did we buy it? 51.50 - 114.88 is the 52 week range. It opened near $52, dipped slightly and took off. We wouldn't have gotten in on the ground floor, so no we haven't bought it. Remember the pattern blazed by Red Hat mentioned in my other comments? VMW peaked at $114.88 and are now on the way back down. They are trading under $100 right now. I'm glad I didn't buy it just before the peak to ride it down.
So how did I do. I made good on one. INTC I am real close to making good on a second MSFT Totally blew a gamble SCOX and AMD will require a long wait for either a recovery or going bust. If I bailed right now I could get 1/2 my money back.
If I avoided the risky stocks, how did I do.. with No SCO, and no AMD while Intel is kingpin on the Core 2 Duo. I won in Intel. I missed buying VM ware low and I can cash Microsoft at a profit today or wait for a small wiggle to hit my sell price.
Was that hard? Keep an eye on AMD.. If they show any real sign of recovery or Intel starts to falter, jump on AMD. It could be a nice ride up but for now.. sit tight. Watch for stocks that move. You can't make money on stocks that don't move. Buy low. Sell high, and watch out for hyperactive stocks like the IPO of Red Hat and VM Ware. They move way too quickly to ride them safely.
There you have it. It does not require watching the stock everyday. It doesn't require super commissions for lots of small buy and sell orders. It does require patience, solid investing and more patience. Again, buy low, sell high. Use a fixed inv
So tell us, oh wise one, because we're all dying to know: given that you can't time the market, and that "low" and "high" are relative terms in this context, how do you tell when the market is low or high?
The short answer is you can't tell if it is high or low. The big answer is who cares? If the market simply refuses to budge ever, then you can't earn money. In short there is no way to gain or lose except through commissions.
Incidentally, please make sure you indicate your credentials (or lack thereof) in posts where you might be seen as giving financial advice.
OK. I graduated High School in 1975. I watched my father invest for 30 years (Now entirely debt free, owns home, cars, boat free and clear and has a net worth of 1/2 million) and 10 years ago I got started. I started late, but I've done well.
A lot of impressionable young people read this forum, and the last thing they need is to go off on some wild investing spree because some guy who got lucky posted about how easy it is to make money on the stock market.
My formula is simple, invest steadily. Let's take two ficticious stocks at $20 a share right now. Over 4 years one doubles and the other drops in half. For sake of argument, eliminate peaks and valleys. Toss $50 at each stock every year at the same time.
Today we bought 2-1/2 shares of each and set a sell price for those shares at $30. Next year when the stocks are at $25 and $17.50, we buy $50 worth of each. The $25 shares we set to sell at $35 and the $17.50 shares we set to sell at $22.50, etc until 4 years later we buy $50 of each at $40.00/ per share and $10.00 per share. As an exersise for the reader, How many share auto sold? How many shares do I now hold and what is it's net worth. Did I make any money. Now add some fluctuations to the same trends so the stock dipped and peaked about 10% above and below the steady trend. Now when would my stock have sold. Instead of just buying shares on the fixed purchase date, how many shares would I have bought with the fluctuations mentioned if I simply placed buy orders for $50 of the stock at 5% less than that day's trading price. Do I still have a good chance of getting the same stock for 5% less. What are my chances of missing buying the stock because it went up instead of down. Leave the buy order sit for an entire year. Chances are gook I'll get my buy price. The same holds true for my sell prices. I set them 10-100% over the purchase price. A look at the history and how the company is doing depends on setting a conservative or aggressive target.
Take any stock from 5 years ago. The market had a bubble which burst. It's a market that is moving. You can't make money in a market that doesn't move. Pick 20 stocks at random. Plug in the numbers from the above buy low, and set a sell price. Chances are very good you will have some stock bought at near a peak. By using a fixed money amount, your purchase of these shares is automatically limited. By setting purchase prices below current market prices and waiting, you can pick up deals on market scares. (We have had a few wonderful ones in the last quarter and I picked up some bargains just by having the buy order sitting there waiting). If you do some market evaluations, avoid being greedy (nailed by Enron for example) and avoid buying lots of high and fast rising stock (that's the time to sell, sell sell) you can do much better than random picks.
Most stocks using the above will earn money. Picking companies carefully, you can do much better. Oh and stay out of day trading and junk stock.
You will always be disappointed in the ones you miss. Get over it. I don't have Google or VM Ware. They are already too high and rising. If I had any, I'd have sold them long ago. They are just too rich for me. Microsoft can't grow much and may have a turn, so I'm not buying MSFT. Look at it over the last year. It is pretty stagnant. Stocks that don't move can't earn you money unless you are in it ju
Sure, you can make more by playing the fluctuations, but very few people can do this well
Short term day traders run into this labor intensive risky trading style. I simply stick to buy low, sell high. I buy stock on a down period, set a sell order price and simply wait. It works well for me and takes a lot of risk out. It is true that I have some stock that remains unsold and will be that way for a long time. Other investments have long made up for the few stocks that have failed to perform. When the price is low, I buy lots of shares. When the price is high, I buy few shares. If the high priced stock climbs, I make a profit (example see VM Ware symbol VMW).
and has done well out of the rising stock market in recent years,
and has done well out of the fluctuating stock market in recent years. There, fixed it for you. To buy low and sell high, it has to be low sometimes. Profit comes from using the peaks as well as the drops. Just remember Buy LOW and Sell HIGH and you should do well. The other thing to do is avoid companies in trouble. SCO is low at the moment, but I'm not touching it.
The stock market doesn't crash. They have fantastic fire sales with great prices. Get in on the rush.
In poker for instance, you aren't playing against the house.
Except in lottery poker and online poker. A friendly neighborhood game is not the same as online gambling, including international gambling where the rules and honesty of the game might not be above board.
they're interested in having some chance -- small as it is -- of winning a life-changing amount, and they're willing to spend $50 to have that chance.
True. And over time these are the people who throw away their chance of investing and building life changing wealth. Some people throw away $50/week on some gambling addiction. I have invested in the stock market. I have the option of setting selling prices on the stock I purchased. The Buy low and sell high is the only way to get ahead. It is true some stock will be unsold as they are bad investments much like a farmer understands that not every seed will grow. With a little variety and watching for a good season is less exciting than buying an instant gratification chance. If you care to compare the numbers.. I just sold a bunch of stock last week when it hit my $26/share sell order. I bought at $13. I have a $40,066 check to show for it. This was not luck of the draw. The market has had a downturn where I increased my purchases. I set my sell price. It sold within sixty cents of it's 52 week high. Not bad for this year. I have more stock with sell orders pending, just waiting. The difference in waiting in stock is I don't have to pay every day for a new chance to win. I pay once and wait till it does win. I know I's boring, but it keeps the lights on. In the stock market, every sale is a winner. I have about $10,000 worth of stock that will probably never win. This is a small drop in the bucket compared to a $50/week expired lottery ticket collection. They can't even cash those out to cut the loss. They are %100 loss. My $10,000 stock market loss is offset by the $140,000 wins that grow. The lottery is the other way around. You spend, you lose, you spend again, you lose again, think maybe next time and so try again. I like the market better. I buy at say $20 and leave it with a sell order at $35 and wait. My odds are much better in spite of the stock bought at $40 and sitting at $20. I can wait, or take a sale at $20 to cut my loss at 50%. I have no stock that has gone to zero unlike most lottery tickets.
Wanna bet who is going to win?
I don't know who will win the battle, but I know who will lose. It's another tax on the ignorant. If you are not the house, you lose. We studied odds in our statistics class and focused on gambling games with a study as it relates to Statistical Process Control. Playing as an end user shows the process trending down every time in a loss direction. The conclusion is that this is not profitable and needs to be discarded as a viable process.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_process_control
Tracking gambling over time will quickly show it is a losing game every time. The shorter time you play, the wider the outcome. Each game has a wide range of outcome. Averaged over time, the dependable outcome becomes very narrow until none of the overall odds is above even as the bell curve spread becomes narrower and narrower.
Every science museum has a probability display. They dump a bunch of balls down a bunch of peggs and the result is a predictable bell curve. Allow each time the game runs for the 2 outside bins to empty onto the floor. Only one to four balls are lost each game. At the end of the year, how many balls do you expect to remain in the game? Over time they all lose.
All gambling games are funded off the winnings. No gambling game in existence continues to exist if they lose to the player over time. With this simple knowledge, people still play to win. Dumb.
The copyright for the school pictures usually lies with the person who paid for them. They are considered 'works for hire'. The group shots probably belong to the school, but it would depend on the contract they signed.
Some of the shots were traditional school pictures. These may have been works for hire, but have you read the fine print on any of the kids school pictures lately. They don't seem to be works for hire as they threaten death to your firstborn if you even think of scanning one and e-mailing it to your long lost great aunt.
Other shots which were most likely traditional studio work is formal family portraits and such of the family growing up. These in particular are the photos which would bankrupt me at $5,000 per violation. Between the brides family and the groom, there were a bunch of these. Other pro photos included Winner's circle photos (He raced cars) and studio photos of babies and pre-school toddlers. I no longer have the show, but figure a 15 minute show with an average slide transition of once a second. Some persisted for several seconds and other's piled on a page in rapid progression. Of the snapshots I would guess about 5% were pro. The show had about 900 photos. About 45 were pro, not counting the school portraits. Just scanning the phots at $5,000 per photo is a $220,000 violation. Add in the 4 songs, the public performance, and then printing 20 copies of all that on DVD's and then passing them out. Oh the horror of it. Now do two more weddings....
The music however is an issue, the performance is legal under the mandatory licensing laws (you did pay ASCAP didn't you?), however the permanent copy is an issue - subject to a 3K minimum penalty.
What's so special about the music? Only 4 works were infringed. How is public display of commercial photographs and copying them any less protected?
ASCAP.. One wedding a year for 3 years.. Have you looked into getting the license. I looked into it and found it impossible.
http://www.ascap.com/index.html
http://www.ascap.com/about/payment/paymentintro.html
http://www.ascap.com/about/payment/royalties.html
http://www.ascap.com/siteguide.html
I linked to the site as the site is loaded with don't copy notices all over it.
Nothing on this page covers playing a CD in public.
http://www.ascap.com/licensing/generallicensing.html
I found a whole bunch of junk on reporting copyright violations, sharing the profits of song witers and performers and even how to join ASCAP so I can register my works and pay dues. Finding the page to license the 4 music tracks for the public performance is very difficult to find.
Off to BMI.. Maybe I can find the rate to play 4 songs at a wedding..
http://www.bmi.com/
Aha, a link in the small print at the bottom of the page. Need a license?
http://www.bmi.com/licensing/?link=footer
About Us
Music speaks to the heart. Music also plays an important role in thousands of businesses--from radio, television and cable broadcasts, to streaming music over the internet, to live and recorded music used in restaurants, hotels and retail stores. BMI Licensing clears the performing rights for thousands of business which rely on music to entertain customers and increase profits.
What does this mean for your business? BMI saves you money! BMI represents over 350,000 creators of music, the songwriters, composers and publishers of more than 6.5 million musical works! Licensing makes the process simple, easy and cost-effective to obtain the musical clearance you need.
Aah Ha.. Now we are getting someplace. Lets find the rat
Whoa, whoa buddy. This is slashdot. No one here is ever going to get close to a bride and second, I can't even understand this without a proper car analogy.
It happens. When there is a bride there is often a groom. the groom knows a couple geeks.. You know the guys that like gadgets and can work miracles with computers, is good with photos and music and such.. Check it out, engaged couples do talk to each other unlike married couples. The bride had a wonderful idea and heard of a geek that could make it happen and even had the equipment including a scanner and projector.
Ok time for a geeky car analogy. I bought a new car. It was licensed for private home use only. Any public display or copying of the car is prohibited. I understand why they don't want me to copy someone else's car and want me to buy my own copy, but I have trouble with it not having a license to drive it to work in a public place where it can be seen or heard by others. This restriction on use severely cut into my desire to collect cars.
Does that car analogy work?
so in your copying anylog, permission would not be given because Ms. Pariser believes that there are available copies of most titles available at competitive prices for you to purchase.
My point is why do I have to have the timing of the show screwed up by waiting for random CD access times. The 4 songs were on 4 CDs. The slide show was running in sync with the music much like the ever popular Christmas light show that was done to Wizards in Winter by TSO last year. The only way to reach that level of sync is to rip to hard drive. DRM files simply don't sync to a PowerPoint presentation as Microsoft Media Player simply won't play any DRM track purchased from Apple. (the show was years ago before the legal DRM free tracks appeared.) I may be wrong, but I don't think Itunes be embedded in a PowerPoint slide show. This measure would only cover being able to sync the CD to the slide show. This new license doesn't even touch the public performance at the wedding and reception. It does not even touch the crime of scanning the photographs into digital form so they can be shown on screen and again copied in duplicate on DVD's. Oh the crime of it all. Lock me up and throw away the key.
which leads me to this question...when did we get to the point in our world when we don't own the things that we buy?
Good question.. I hope the congress is going to work on that.
essentially what we're dealing with is a group that is becoming more greedy and seething at the thought of users doing what they want with the media they purchase.
I noticed that long time ago. I wanted to collect records and CD's and run the diso (many years ago) for receptions, school dances, and such. The wording on the back simply said "Licensed for home use only. Any copying or public performance is prohibited" These simple words restricting my use of the product is why I simply bought very little music. I couldn't use it. In the Disco years, I instead collected lights and ran the lightshow. I was perfectly legal running a public performance using the lights I purchased. Since most people did sound and few invested in lights, it was never hard to find a gig. It was best to work directly with the establishment instead of the DJ. Joining the DJ meant splitting the check as the venue would rarely see the added benefit from the extra part of the show. Offering the show as a light show, then it became a separate artist. A bonus as a separate artist, is if there was an ASCAP or BMI bust, I had nothing to do with the music or it's licensing.