Hey. While you're throwing out gross generalizations about victimization and fear, please take *just* a moment to understand that not *everybody* subscribes to your philosophy.
Some people may confront their fears, some people may not, that's why we're called People and *not* uniform biological protocols.
Get over it? RIGHT. Some people will (I have, but then I only watched it on TV), but for many, it will never happen. Traumatic experiences do that, that's why they're fucking called traumatic.
"If MS and IBM decide to enforce RAND, a lot of businesses are gonna just smile and take it you-know-where. I thought the W3C only proposed royalty free standards?"
As of now, only the IETF and W3C *do* propose royalty-free standards. MicroIBM are trying to set up their own for-profit, RAND-based standards groups, but how much credibility and clout they can command from a public that can choose Internet V1 vs. Internet V2 seems to be the bet on this horse race.
"If I were an excutive at one of these companies I would patent technology I spent a millions to develop to make money to cover the cost of developing it. That is what a patent is for."
Two things. First, assuming you're a MicroIBM exec, and you had created and patented TCP/IP, there would be no internet or web because everyone would first have to pay you to even access the net. What these goons are attempting to do since they missed Boat #1 is make sure everyone *does* have to pay them for Boat #2.
Second, you said "Besides given IBMs track record lately they could use there patents to screw Microsoft". Sorry, but these companies are cooperating together to create these 2nd generation standards so that they can screw *US.*
Last, you said "In fact IBM having patents for web services insures competition". It ensures no such thing at all because MicroIBM are working together. The only thing they're trying to compete with are royalty-free Internet standards. They don't want the next-gen Internet to be able to bypass their toll gates like the first-gen Internet did.
It's about time Slashdot stopped sucking up to the nerds crowd and joined industry-standard practices of obfuscating advertisements as news stories. Watch out USA Today!
I for one would love to see more Slashvertisements here since the banner ads explain so little abvout the product I might be clicking through on. Now, when are you going to begin implementing opt-out "Valued Partner" marketing programs?
Whether you agree with the editors or not has nothing to do with what I said - you're not an editor that I'm criticizing. My points were twofold:
1. They are terrific examples of collective thinking - bad companies, good toys. See Blizzard and WCIII, Microsoft and XBox and the MPAA and various films, for some examples. Way to pump up enthusiasm for the consumer goods that fund companies who are pushing for the DMCA and the SSSCA...
2. Keith stated in bold that Slashdot has no collective editorial opinion. I've never seen any series of stories that indicates they have any sense of difference either regarding the company/toys issue. If it shines or sparkles, you can count on the news-posting editor to slobber over it regardless of how their producers behave towards the public.
My point isn't that these companies are praise-worthy (they're not), but that each editor posts what he thinks is important. Yet, the editors posting these stories usually follow the same dichotic company/toy formula. We already HAVE group-think...I don't need to WANT it.
Ahem, you took a lot of words to basically say these 6. If Slashdot has no collective editorial opinion, then why don't they post any stories or reviews that are complimentary to the DMCA, MPAA, RIAA, Microsoft, Rambus, Scientology or other hot-topics that 90%+ of the time get negative news coverage here? Why Keith?
Clearly, since there's zero to little collective opinion between the editors here, you'd certainly expect to see some complimentary news stories about anyone from the group mentioned above.
Frankly, if the Slashdot editors were more collectively minded than they already are, they'd be accused of being an inbred family from Yokel-land, but hey, judge for yourself. Give yourself 30 days and see how many stories from the non-collective Slashdot editors praise any of these groups (the groups, not their toys): DMCA (yeah, I know it's not a group) RIAA MPAA Microsoft Rambus Scientology
The point? If you and other apologists want to make excuses for the editors because they enjoy reviewing the bright and shiny toys of companies that use the DMCA club, cool! But, don't for a minute expect us to believe it's because they're a diverse and non-collective group of minds, because they're not. Big bad companies, BAAAAD! Their bright shiny toys, the DMCA huh?, GOOOOOD! Welcome to the new Slashdot generation.
Anonymous Coward: What the hell is wrong with you people?
Blizzard shuts down innocent websites and programmers, and you guys go promote their fucking products?
How about SHOWING SOME BACKBONE?!?!!
Boycott Blizzard!
If/. has no problem doing product reviews for a company that uses the DMCA like a baseball bat, why not be open about it and do some product reviews for the fine folks at Microsoft, Rambus, the RIAA and Monsanto? They've got a lot of nice, shiny toys too...
Fairness cuts both ways...or should we just give up the pretense of fairness?
You're absolutely correct. We should ban pictures of children under the age of 18 from the Internet, and ban scanners too since they're obviously used by sickos to post children's images to the Internet. Anyone who says we should punish the perverts who do this stuff are clearly deluded - we need to go after the people who make it all possible, starting with Al Gore for even inventing the Internet.
There's a big difference between profiting from your source code and covering your expenses. If I pay two programmers to make program X, plus pay all the other costs associated with producing program X, I'm not going to be freely (as in beer) giving away the program's source code. I can't afford to.
However, if you're willing to pay the $1000-$1500 (at the *very* low end) to help defray my costs of creating program X, I'll be happy to give you the source code. Your payment will help me keep my company solvent, and also signifies that you're serious about contributing back to the source base (or else you wouldn't pay for it).
Hmmm. Between the recent law that will efectively allow Baby Bells to kill off their DSL competition and this decision that shuts competition off from cable networks, I see the great convergence for broadband will be coming sooner rather than later.
Traditionally cable companies provided an optional service - cable TV (not really as critical as the phone). I have to wonder when cable companies will be forced (again) to open up their broadband networks to competition since their technology isn't substantially different to the enduser than DSL is (although usually much faster). If or when that happens, here's hoping that the prices actually go down - so far massive telecom deregulation has had the market effect of raising prices. Gotta love paying $27 a month for basic telephone service with touchtone...
Sorry, but you're taking a lot for granted. First, you need broadband access to effectively use filesharing like Gnutella/Kazaa to get music, and broadband has only hit 15% of U.S. households. The other 85% are effectively out of the loop.
Second, broadband will soon be getting more expensive *and* centralized once Congress passes that bill that will allow the Bells to effectively kill off their competition. That means it will be easier for the entertainment industry to track users by their bandwidth usage and prosecute accordingly.
So, yes, filesharers who are committed to sharing and grabbing files will still be able to do it, but for the other 95% of the public, huh?
Yep, I meant "Vote with your money" as stop supporting these industries by either buying used CDs/DVDs or buying from independent artists. This is about the only effective thing the average person can do without much effort. Anything else besides talking about it and urging your friends to act too requires too much effort for a apathetic public.
Vote with your money
on
Chained Melodies
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
It's the only thing outside of mass street protests that will grab both the entertainment industries' and Congress' attention, and this issue doesn't have enough social relevance yet for people to organize and fund protests.
Go ahead if you want and write your representatives, I hope you enjoy the form letter they send back to you in 4-6 weeks acknowledging that lobbyists' money means more than your letter. If you're serious about making yourself heard, call your Reps offices and make an in-office appointment with all of the ducks lined up for your issue. That way when the Rep votes against you, you're more likely to take it personally and vote their butt out of office.
Of course, bitching about this on Slashdot is absolutely the *BEST* way to fight this issue - so convenient, with karma points at stake to boot! Yea...
This case will be decided for Elcomsoft. If they lose, it means that being on the Internet holds you liable to *any* countries' commercial laws (this is a commercial case) if one of their residents buys one of your businesses' products.
I wonder if U.S. businesses would enjoy being constrained to French, Chinese or Uzbekistani commercial law if a resident there buys their product.
Several things spring to mind. First, why hasn't Eisner gone after Pioneer, the creators of the Mac SuperDrive, otherwise knows as the DVR-AO3? It's their licensed technology that allows Apple to market their machines this way.
This guy has too many holes in his arguments to spend the time necessary to refute each one. Suffice to say, he's an idiot.
OK, flames aside, here's why the SSSCA faces a severe uphill battle. Unlike any of the other points you cite, the SSSCA involves incorporating copy protection into *all* digital equipment, not *just* consumer equipment. Buying high-end Sun servers for your big-ass corporate data center that serves people like GTE, AT&T and GE? Buying industrial strength routers for your 80 location corporate intranet? Buying a cluster of high-end servers to help manage reservations, check-ins, real-time security and departure/arrival times? Do you think these corporations are going to tolerate having copy protection tech built into computer equipment that will never see the light of day regarding mp3s or DivXs?
Wake up. The DMCA, Microsoft, the CDA and CALEA do not effect big business in any perceived meaningful way (If you don't want MS, you can always go Linux/*BSD). Encryption, huh? It's legal and anyone who wants to use it can. Both my employer and I use 2K+ bit encryption on e-mail...
The SSSCA, unlike any of the options above, will be a major headache. You may not like the fact that corporations are more important to Congress than citizens are, but for once it does play to our benefit (unless of course Congress builds mass-scale exemptions into the SSSCA for corporate purchases).
I don't believe the SSSCA will ever come to pass, but it doesn't hurt to hope for the best and expect the worst.
Assuming a worst-case scenario where SSSCA-style laws pass in both Europe and North America, and non-compliant hardware is seized at the borders, what should we as techies do to help the 95% of the public who can't hack? Whatever it is, remember to KISS, KISS, KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid.
A simple hotsheet of all the SSSCA-OK hardware and *what* it will prevent you from doing in simple terms might be a start. A web site that lists all the hardware and makes it easy for people to share information?
I sound like a broken record (aye!, but not a corrupt CD), but the ultimate, most powerful hack sits in people's wallets - cash or credit card. Whatever's done will need to leverage that power for the benefit of the public.
Either Japan has a wildly different culture that has no expectation to legal, personal or consumer privacy, or this company is going to be eviscerated for tracking its customers' behavioral habits (not just purchasing habits).
Then again, I wonder what the safeguards are. If people are opting in to receive this wireless info, no big deal - they chose to receive it. Tracking's a different story, but still, what web site owner doesn't track how much demand they get from an ad or a news story? If they're not opting in, hmmm - sounds spammish.
Last, I wonder if Tsutaya is tracking consumer response to their e-notifications en masse, like matching up web site visitors to their country of origin, or if they're doing microtracking - matching up responses to each individual, each indiv with their own corporate-database-tracked profile? One's OK, the other's nuts. Both are easily and totally possible.
Can't wait til Blockbuster or BestBuy starts doing this! Not...
What we need (IMHO) is new laws that give people back fair use. Right now fair use is based solely on precedents.
This is one option. Another choice is to spend your money on products that don't use Digital Rights Management (DRM), and let your friends and family know which products use these and how they affect them and fair use.
Citizens of the US please start writing to your congressmen (M/F). We need to stand up for our rights immediately. Pretty soon you won't be allowed to own cars, because they make it possible to kill people or escape from the scene of a crime.
This might work, but if you want to make a political difference, MAKE AN APPOINTMENT to visit your representatives' staffs, come prepared with the points you want to make about Bill/Law X, and follow up weekly with phone calls. In-office appointments make a big impact on reps because it signifies that you're very concerned. P.S., it helps to make sure you're a registered voter.
The problem here is that not enough people believe/realise that they are adversly affected by this.
Yep, you're right. Another problem is that techies believe they can bypass any copy protection they meet (they can), but don't care if the other 95% of the public can't hack. The ability to hack is secondary to applying your tech expertise for explaining DRM issues to your non-techie friends and family in terms they can clearly understand and warn others about. One brief example, points 1 and 2.
The ultimate hack isn't technical, it's financial. Anyone can play the financial hack if we warn them...
Well, it's not called "ripping people off," it's called investing. Record companies put up a huge amount of capital to produce records, market bands, and finance tours. Because there's a great deal of risk involved in promoting musicians, the recording industry demands a very high rate of return. Yes, the musicians create the content, but without financial backing, you never would have heard of Metallica. Investing my ass, if anyone but the record labels did what they do, they'd be hauled into court for loansharking and racketeering. Oh wait, that's already happened to them...
Per the high risk of modern music and need for a high return, you're right. In fact, just like small businesses, they're quite risky. Guess what? If I get a loan for my small business, I make 100% of the money that customers pay me, and then I repay 100% of my loan from my proceeds. If I'm a signed musician, I get 7% of the money that customers pay for me, and then I repay 100% of my record company loans from my proceeds. Do you see a problem with this equation??
Band contracts last for a set number of years, and during that time, the record company will spend a gratuitous amount of capital promoting them. WRONG. Contracts last for a set number of *albums* - there is absolutely no year limit. Also, the record company will *not* necessarily spend a given amount of capital promoting the artist - they will typically have X$$ to promote 10 groups out of the 20-30 they signed that year. The others will be cut at the end of the year.
Once that contract expires, the band typically retains the band name, for which a tremendous amount of branding work has been done. If you're one of the 10 out of 30, some branding work has been done. Also, most contracts don't expire, the artist is flat out dumped from the contract. For those contracts that do expire, sure the band retains their band name, but they have no rights to their music or lyrics - the label owns those for at least 35 years at the minimum unless they auction them off to the highest bidder - who then keeps the copyright on the artists' material for the life of the auuthor plus 95 years.
They can take their brand and cash in on it themselves. Riiiiight, you're talking about less than 2% of all acts signed to the major labels by this point. By the way, if they play their songs in concert, they have to pay the label for the rights to play their songs - because the songs don't belong to them. They belong to the label. If they create a Greatest Hits album, 90-93% of that money goes to the label. That's cashing in, right?
The end result is that bands that have longevity You're on a roll now. Through la-la land.
will eventually get to live a fairy-tale existence, riding off into the sunset with millions and millions tucked away into their mutual funds. You mean Waylon Jennings? Merle Haggard? TLC? Guess what, between all of them, they have never received a royalty check despite selling tens of millions of records and CDs.
Let me just say that, while I sympathize with people like Courtney Love, I won't shed a tear if she ends up with $15 million in the bank instead of $35 million. She can probably have her chauffer start clipping coupons out of the Sunday paper to help her make ends meet. Are you a record company shrill? You speak like one. Courtney Love and Hole are not mega sellers, and likely will make less than $1 million net for their careers, divided by 4 members *and* 8-10 years. That comes out to $25,000-$31,000 per year per member before taxes - if they're lucky. 99% of all artists signed to the labels will not see a royalty check - coupons will be a necessity for them.
Personally, I'm looking forward to the internet and technology advances equalizing the revenues of the entertainment industry, as high-quality audio and video content becomes ridiculously cheap to create and distribute. In theory, technology and the internet should force prices down, but many of us know they won't. It will be ridiculously cheap for the LABELS to create and distribute, but those savings will not see their way to either the artist or the consumer. Those ever-cheapening prices *will* help the independent artist who avoids the labels like a plague, thank God.
That's right Taco, congratulations! I'm glad she accepted, for your sake.
Per Disney, make sure you spend a bunch of your money on the people who bought, er, brought you the DMCA and the Sony, er, Sonny Bono Never-Say-Die Copyright Act.
Glad to know older games don't run under XP, even if under emulation mode. Now, will you do everyone a favor and let us know what those games are? Otherwise, your comments won't help anyone.
Please let us know what games you're talking about...Thank you!
I seriously doubt that the Open Source movement or the EFF made any difference, but that big, American multinationals made all the difference. Remember, they require encrypted communications too, and the idea that a competitor or foreign government could pay someone off to secure access to the backdoor would sacre us, because it *might* cost our companies (good and bad) billions, as someone already pointed out.
When big or medium business is threatened by this style of legislation, you can pretty much count on it to die or be severely watered-down or exempted.
You have bought hook, line and sinker into the Geek stereotype if you believe "This is typical geek issue that's being blown way out of proportion."
Replying out of order, you state You can try to bring up other exotic justifications ("making mix CDs"), but they're too irrelevant to bring up. I may be a Geek, but my mom, a Protestant minister, has made about 12 of those "exotic" mix CDs to date from her 200+ CD collection. I know, I had to show her how to do it on her PC. I also have three friends, besides myself, who've made compilation CDs (GASP! from their own CD collection!). I guess these examples are just too irrelevant to bring up...
You state "Heck, if you want to record a friend's copy protected CD on to audio tape, no one is stopping you." Also, if you want to record your own copy-protected CD onto your computer, onto another CD for your office, car or other location, I guess you're screwed even though these are Fair Use rights too, just like dubbing to tape. God forbid anyone wants to duplicate their own property for Personal Use.
You state "The people who are complaining are, as is the norm for these kind of topics, cash-poor students who use ripping as a primary method of getting new music." It wouldn't in a hundred years have Anything to do with the fact that the demographics you describe are also most likely hackers who are -way- ahead of the general public when it comes to tech issues like this, as opposed to say, my mom the minister? The reason Joe Sixpack isn't complaining is because this news is -not- getting widespread, traditional media coverage (yet). That leaves techies...
I can refute every stinking sentence of your Corporate Shill post, but I have to go back to work. I think I'll just slip my Radiohead compilation into the Dell desktop I have to use.
Please try to see both sides of an argument before posting.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey. While you're throwing out gross generalizations about victimization and fear, please take *just* a moment to understand that not *everybody* subscribes to your philosophy.
Some people may confront their fears, some people may not, that's why we're called People and *not* uniform biological protocols.
Get over it? RIGHT. Some people will (I have, but then I only watched it on TV), but for many, it will never happen. Traumatic experiences do that, that's why they're fucking called traumatic.
Peace.
"If MS and IBM decide to enforce RAND, a lot of businesses are gonna just smile and take it you-know-where. I thought the W3C only proposed royalty free standards?"
As of now, only the IETF and W3C *do* propose royalty-free standards. MicroIBM are trying to set up their own for-profit, RAND-based standards groups, but how much credibility and clout they can command from a public that can choose Internet V1 vs. Internet V2 seems to be the bet on this horse race.
"If I were an excutive at one of these companies I would patent technology I spent a millions to develop to make money to cover the cost of developing it. That is what a patent is for."
Two things. First, assuming you're a MicroIBM exec, and you had created and patented TCP/IP, there would be no internet or web because everyone would first have to pay you to even access the net. What these goons are attempting to do since they missed Boat #1 is make sure everyone *does* have to pay them for Boat #2.
Second, you said "Besides given IBMs track record lately they could use there patents to screw Microsoft". Sorry, but these companies are cooperating together to create these 2nd generation standards so that they can screw *US.*
Last, you said "In fact IBM having patents for web services insures competition". It ensures no such thing at all because MicroIBM are working together. The only thing they're trying to compete with are royalty-free Internet standards. They don't want the next-gen Internet to be able to bypass their toll gates like the first-gen Internet did.
It's about time Slashdot stopped sucking up to the nerds crowd and joined industry-standard practices of obfuscating advertisements as news stories. Watch out USA Today!
I for one would love to see more Slashvertisements here since the banner ads explain so little abvout the product I might be clicking through on. Now, when are you going to begin implementing opt-out "Valued Partner" marketing programs?
;-)
Whether you agree with the editors or not has nothing to do with what I said - you're not an editor that I'm criticizing. My points were twofold:
1. They are terrific examples of collective thinking - bad companies, good toys. See Blizzard and WCIII, Microsoft and XBox and the MPAA and various films, for some examples. Way to pump up enthusiasm for the consumer goods that fund companies who are pushing for the DMCA and the SSSCA...
2. Keith stated in bold that Slashdot has no collective editorial opinion. I've never seen any series of stories that indicates they have any sense of difference either regarding the company/toys issue. If it shines or sparkles, you can count on the news-posting editor to slobber over it regardless of how their producers behave towards the public.
My point isn't that these companies are praise-worthy (they're not), but that each editor posts what he thinks is important. Yet, the editors posting these stories usually follow the same dichotic company/toy formula. We already HAVE group-think...I don't need to WANT it.
Slashdot has no collective editorial opinion.
y
Ahem, you took a lot of words to basically say these 6. If Slashdot has no collective editorial opinion, then why don't they post any stories or reviews that are complimentary to the DMCA, MPAA, RIAA, Microsoft, Rambus, Scientology or other hot-topics that 90%+ of the time get negative news coverage here? Why Keith?
Clearly, since there's zero to little collective opinion between the editors here, you'd certainly expect to see some complimentary news stories about anyone from the group mentioned above.
Frankly, if the Slashdot editors were more collectively minded than they already are, they'd be accused of being an inbred family from Yokel-land, but hey, judge for yourself. Give yourself 30 days and see how many stories from the non-collective Slashdot editors praise any of these groups (the groups, not their toys):
DMCA (yeah, I know it's not a group)
RIAA
MPAA
Microsoft
Rambus
Scientolog
The point? If you and other apologists want to make excuses for the editors because they enjoy reviewing the bright and shiny toys of companies that use the DMCA club, cool! But, don't for a minute expect us to believe it's because they're a diverse and non-collective group of minds, because they're not. Big bad companies, BAAAAD! Their bright shiny toys, the DMCA huh?, GOOOOOD! Welcome to the new Slashdot generation.
Anonymous Coward: What the hell is wrong with you people?
/. has no problem doing product reviews for a company that uses the DMCA like a baseball bat, why not be open about it and do some product reviews for the fine folks at Microsoft, Rambus, the RIAA and Monsanto? They've got a lot of nice, shiny toys too...
Blizzard shuts down innocent websites and programmers, and you guys go promote their fucking products?
How about SHOWING SOME BACKBONE?!?!!
Boycott Blizzard!
If
Fairness cuts both ways...or should we just give up the pretense of fairness?
You're absolutely correct. We should ban pictures of children under the age of 18 from the Internet, and ban scanners too since they're obviously used by sickos to post children's images to the Internet. Anyone who says we should punish the perverts who do this stuff are clearly deluded - we need to go after the people who make it all possible, starting with Al Gore for even inventing the Internet.
Rock on brother!
There's a big difference between profiting from your source code and covering your expenses. If I pay two programmers to make program X, plus pay all the other costs associated with producing program X, I'm not going to be freely (as in beer) giving away the program's source code. I can't afford to.
However, if you're willing to pay the $1000-$1500 (at the *very* low end) to help defray my costs of creating program X, I'll be happy to give you the source code. Your payment will help me keep my company solvent, and also signifies that you're serious about contributing back to the source base (or else you wouldn't pay for it).
Of course, YMMV.
Hmmm. Between the recent law that will efectively allow Baby Bells to kill off their DSL competition and this decision that shuts competition off from cable networks, I see the great convergence for broadband will be coming sooner rather than later.
Traditionally cable companies provided an optional service - cable TV (not really as critical as the phone). I have to wonder when cable companies will be forced (again) to open up their broadband networks to competition since their technology isn't substantially different to the enduser than DSL is (although usually much faster). If or when that happens, here's hoping that the prices actually go down - so far massive telecom deregulation has had the market effect of raising prices. Gotta love paying $27 a month for basic telephone service with touchtone...
Sorry, but you're taking a lot for granted. First, you need broadband access to effectively use filesharing like Gnutella/Kazaa to get music, and broadband has only hit 15% of U.S. households. The other 85% are effectively out of the loop.
Second, broadband will soon be getting more expensive *and* centralized once Congress passes that bill that will allow the Bells to effectively kill off their competition. That means it will be easier for the entertainment industry to track users by their bandwidth usage and prosecute accordingly.
So, yes, filesharers who are committed to sharing and grabbing files will still be able to do it, but for the other 95% of the public, huh?
Yep, I meant "Vote with your money" as stop supporting these industries by either buying used CDs/DVDs or buying from independent artists. This is about the only effective thing the average person can do without much effort. Anything else besides talking about it and urging your friends to act too requires too much effort for a apathetic public.
It's the only thing outside of mass street protests that will grab both the entertainment industries' and Congress' attention, and this issue doesn't have enough social relevance yet for people to organize and fund protests.
Go ahead if you want and write your representatives, I hope you enjoy the form letter they send back to you in 4-6 weeks acknowledging that lobbyists' money means more than your letter. If you're serious about making yourself heard, call your Reps offices and make an in-office appointment with all of the ducks lined up for your issue. That way when the Rep votes against you, you're more likely to take it personally and vote their butt out of office.
Of course, bitching about this on Slashdot is absolutely the *BEST* way to fight this issue - so convenient, with karma points at stake to boot! Yea...
This case will be decided for Elcomsoft. If they lose, it means that being on the Internet holds you liable to *any* countries' commercial laws (this is a commercial case) if one of their residents buys one of your businesses' products.
I wonder if U.S. businesses would enjoy being constrained to French, Chinese or Uzbekistani commercial law if a resident there buys their product.
Several things spring to mind. First, why hasn't Eisner gone after Pioneer, the creators of the Mac SuperDrive, otherwise knows as the DVR-AO3? It's their licensed technology that allows Apple to market their machines this way.
This guy has too many holes in his arguments to spend the time necessary to refute each one. Suffice to say, he's an idiot.
If I'm naive, you're clueless. :-)
OK, flames aside, here's why the SSSCA faces a severe uphill battle. Unlike any of the other points you cite, the SSSCA involves incorporating copy protection into *all* digital equipment, not *just* consumer equipment. Buying high-end Sun servers for your big-ass corporate data center that serves people like GTE, AT&T and GE? Buying industrial strength routers for your 80 location corporate intranet? Buying a cluster of high-end servers to help manage reservations, check-ins, real-time security and departure/arrival times? Do you think these corporations are going to tolerate having copy protection tech built into computer equipment that will never see the light of day regarding mp3s or DivXs?
Wake up. The DMCA, Microsoft, the CDA and CALEA do not effect big business in any perceived meaningful way (If you don't want MS, you can always go Linux/*BSD). Encryption, huh? It's legal and anyone who wants to use it can. Both my employer and I use 2K+ bit encryption on e-mail...
The SSSCA, unlike any of the options above, will be a major headache. You may not like the fact that corporations are more important to Congress than citizens are, but for once it does play to our benefit (unless of course Congress builds mass-scale exemptions into the SSSCA for corporate purchases).
Time will tell.
I don't believe the SSSCA will ever come to pass, but it doesn't hurt to hope for the best and expect the worst.
Assuming a worst-case scenario where SSSCA-style laws pass in both Europe and North America, and non-compliant hardware is seized at the borders, what should we as techies do to help the 95% of the public who can't hack? Whatever it is, remember to KISS, KISS, KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid.
A simple hotsheet of all the SSSCA-OK hardware and *what* it will prevent you from doing in simple terms might be a start. A web site that lists all the hardware and makes it easy for people to share information?
I sound like a broken record (aye!, but not a corrupt CD), but the ultimate, most powerful hack sits in people's wallets - cash or credit card. Whatever's done will need to leverage that power for the benefit of the public.
Your mileage may vary...
Either Japan has a wildly different culture that has no expectation to legal, personal or consumer privacy, or this company is going to be eviscerated for tracking its customers' behavioral habits (not just purchasing habits).
Then again, I wonder what the safeguards are. If people are opting in to receive this wireless info, no big deal - they chose to receive it. Tracking's a different story, but still, what web site owner doesn't track how much demand they get from an ad or a news story? If they're not opting in, hmmm - sounds spammish.
Last, I wonder if Tsutaya is tracking consumer response to their e-notifications en masse, like matching up web site visitors to their country of origin, or if they're doing microtracking - matching up responses to each individual, each indiv with their own corporate-database-tracked profile? One's OK, the other's nuts. Both are easily and totally possible.
Can't wait til Blockbuster or BestBuy starts doing this! Not...
What we need (IMHO) is new laws that give people back fair use. Right now fair use is based solely on precedents.
This is one option. Another choice is to spend your money on products that don't use Digital Rights Management (DRM), and let your friends and family know which products use these and how they affect them and fair use.
Citizens of the US please start writing to your congressmen (M/F). We need to stand up for our rights immediately.
Pretty soon you won't be allowed to own cars, because they make it possible to kill people or escape from the scene of a crime.
This might work, but if you want to make a political difference, MAKE AN APPOINTMENT to visit your representatives' staffs, come prepared with the points you want to make about Bill/Law X, and follow up weekly with phone calls. In-office appointments make a big impact on reps because it signifies that you're very concerned. P.S., it helps to make sure you're a registered voter.
The problem here is that not enough people believe/realise that they are adversly affected by this.
Yep, you're right. Another problem is that techies believe they can bypass any copy protection they meet (they can), but don't care if the other 95% of the public can't hack. The ability to hack is secondary to applying your tech expertise for explaining DRM issues to your non-techie friends and family in terms they can clearly understand and warn others about. One brief example, points 1 and 2.
The ultimate hack isn't technical, it's financial. Anyone can play the financial hack if we warn them...
Well, where do I start?
Well, it's not called "ripping people off," it's called investing. Record companies put up a huge amount of capital to produce records, market bands, and finance tours. Because there's a great deal of risk involved in promoting musicians, the recording industry demands a very high rate of return. Yes, the musicians create the content, but without financial backing, you never would have heard of Metallica.
Investing my ass, if anyone but the record labels did what they do, they'd be hauled into court for loansharking and racketeering. Oh wait, that's already happened to them...
Per the high risk of modern music and need for a high return, you're right. In fact, just like small businesses, they're quite risky. Guess what? If I get a loan for my small business, I make 100% of the money that customers pay me, and then I repay 100% of my loan from my proceeds. If I'm a signed musician, I get 7% of the money that customers pay for me, and then I repay 100% of my record company loans from my proceeds. Do you see a problem with this equation??
Band contracts last for a set number of years, and during that time, the record company will spend a gratuitous amount of capital promoting them.
WRONG. Contracts last for a set number of *albums* - there is absolutely no year limit. Also, the record company will *not* necessarily spend a given amount of capital promoting the artist - they will typically have X$$ to promote 10 groups out of the 20-30 they signed that year. The others will be cut at the end of the year.
Once that contract expires, the band typically retains the band name, for which a tremendous amount of branding work has been done.
If you're one of the 10 out of 30, some branding work has been done. Also, most contracts don't expire, the artist is flat out dumped from the contract. For those contracts that do expire, sure the band retains their band name, but they have no rights to their music or lyrics - the label owns those for at least 35 years at the minimum unless they auction them off to the highest bidder - who then keeps the copyright on the artists' material for the life of the auuthor plus 95 years.
They can take their brand and cash in on it themselves.
Riiiiight, you're talking about less than 2% of all acts signed to the major labels by this point. By the way, if they play their songs in concert, they have to pay the label for the rights to play their songs - because the songs don't belong to them. They belong to the label. If they create a Greatest Hits album, 90-93% of that money goes to the label. That's cashing in, right?
The end result is that bands that have longevity
You're on a roll now. Through la-la land.
will eventually get to live a fairy-tale existence, riding off into the sunset with millions and millions tucked away into their mutual funds.
You mean Waylon Jennings? Merle Haggard? TLC? Guess what, between all of them, they have never received a royalty check despite selling tens of millions of records and CDs.
Let me just say that, while I sympathize with people like Courtney Love, I won't shed a tear if she ends up with $15 million in the bank instead of $35 million. She can probably have her chauffer start clipping coupons out of the Sunday paper to help her make ends meet.
Are you a record company shrill? You speak like one. Courtney Love and Hole are not mega sellers, and likely will make less than $1 million net for their careers, divided by 4 members *and* 8-10 years. That comes out to $25,000-$31,000 per year per member before taxes - if they're lucky. 99% of all artists signed to the labels will not see a royalty check - coupons will be a necessity for them.
Personally, I'm looking forward to the internet and technology advances equalizing the revenues of the entertainment industry, as high-quality audio and video content becomes ridiculously cheap to create and distribute.
In theory, technology and the internet should force prices down, but many of us know they won't. It will be ridiculously cheap for the LABELS to create and distribute, but those savings will not see their way to either the artist or the consumer. Those ever-cheapening prices *will* help the independent artist who avoids the labels like a plague, thank God.
What a troll.
That's right Taco, congratulations! I'm glad she accepted, for your sake.
Per Disney, make sure you spend a bunch of your money on the people who bought, er, brought you the DMCA and the Sony, er, Sonny Bono Never-Say-Die Copyright Act.
<rant off>
Good luck! Where's the reception?
Chuck
Glad to know older games don't run under XP, even if under emulation mode. Now, will you do everyone a favor and let us know what those games are? Otherwise, your comments won't help anyone.
Please let us know what games you're talking about...Thank you!
Two words: Vaporware Redux.
When they ship these to electronics stores near me I'll stop smoking crack through the butt of my Tickle Me Elmo.
I seriously doubt that the Open Source movement or the EFF made any difference, but that big, American multinationals made all the difference. Remember, they require encrypted communications too, and the idea that a competitor or foreign government could pay someone off to secure access to the backdoor would sacre us, because it *might* cost our companies (good and bad) billions, as someone already pointed out.
When big or medium business is threatened by this style of legislation, you can pretty much count on it to die or be severely watered-down or exempted.
You have bought hook, line and sinker into the Geek stereotype if you believe "This is typical geek issue that's being blown way out of proportion."
Replying out of order, you state You can try to bring up other exotic justifications ("making mix CDs"), but they're too irrelevant to bring up. I may be a Geek, but my mom, a Protestant minister, has made about 12 of those "exotic" mix CDs to date from her 200+ CD collection. I know, I had to show her how to do it on her PC. I also have three friends, besides myself, who've made compilation CDs (GASP! from their own CD collection!). I guess these examples are just too irrelevant to bring up...
You state "Heck, if you want to record a friend's copy protected CD on to audio tape, no one is stopping you." Also, if you want to record your own copy-protected CD onto your computer, onto another CD for your office, car or other location, I guess you're screwed even though these are Fair Use rights too, just like dubbing to tape. God forbid anyone wants to duplicate their own property for Personal Use.
You state "The people who are complaining are, as is the norm for these kind of topics, cash-poor students who use ripping as a primary method of getting new music." It wouldn't in a hundred years have Anything to do with the fact that the demographics you describe are also most likely hackers who are -way- ahead of the general public when it comes to tech issues like this, as opposed to say, my mom the minister? The reason Joe Sixpack isn't complaining is because this news is -not- getting widespread, traditional media coverage (yet). That leaves techies...
I can refute every stinking sentence of your Corporate Shill post, but I have to go back to work. I think I'll just slip my Radiohead compilation into the Dell desktop I have to use.
Please try to see both sides of an argument before posting.