I was thinking about that. What seems to be the truly evil aspect of all of this is that Eidos essentially allowed Looking Glass' creditors to eat them alive, them got to buy large chunks or their intellectual property at firesale prices. That's not something I'd personally like to see happen more often.
Wait, wait, wait...I thought you said you'd be boycotting Slashdot? How can you do that if you're planning on posting duplicates of this lameass flame?
This is offtopic and deserves to me moderated down. I just felt that it needed to be said.
I am deeply saddened by the increasingly low quality of the trolls and offtopic posts on Slashdot. It seems like an eternity since the golden age of Slashdot trolls. That was the time before Trollmastah had retired and before the lameness filter had been implemented, which pretty much killed off Oog. People try to raise Oog from the dead, but it just ain't happening. I remember when osm was still posting about "Open-sourced copyrighted undistributable Natalie Portman and Drew Barrymore naked and petrified" or some such nonsense, which were actually really funny at the time. I remember the days before osm's fake legal trouble, which pretty much marked the end of his posting on Slashdot, when he would post new, hillarious Natalie Portman fantasies on what seemed like a pretty regular basis. There were others, of course, but my mind is getting weak in my old age.
These days, though, it seems like we've entered a dark age for those of us who set our thresholds to -1. If one ventures into the nether regions of Slashdot now, what do they see? Shit like the parent post, and "30 Ways To Be Offensive At A Funeral," and (God help us) the Beer Guy, whose idiotic spamming alone provides a good reason to browse at 0 or 1. Where have all the great ones gone?
There is some hope for the future of trolls on Slashdot, though. People like Anti Porn and osg have recently shown me that trolling is not an entirely lost art. But they alone cannot save Slashdot. Already, the spamming is so bad that it actually requires effort to find the diamonds in the rough. Clearly, a solution must be found soon, or the -1 region of Slashdot will be lost to us forever.
And therein lies the rub: Napster has a choice whether to do what the law says it should, or to ignore the law so that your song may still be traded freely. I'm not necessarily saying that it's what Napster should do; what I am saying is that for Napster to say, "We have no way to hinder people trying to use our service to copy copyrighted materials" is a blatant lie. Maybe the only solution available is inelegant, and maybe it would screw with a couple of innocent bystanders, but it could be done.
Dammit, I only realized that problem after I had posted. But still, that kind of thing is rare enough that it wouldn't be that much of an issue. Workarounds can be devised. Also, it should be notedd that it's hardly restraint of trade if a private corporation chooses not to help you trade your files. Overall, though, you make a good point.
What business? How in God's name do these people make money?
But more importantly, it is really, really easy to stop the distribution of 90% of the copyrighted works on Napster. If you blocked any file with the word "Metallica" in its filename, that would make it so much more difficult to trade Metallica's works that most people would no longer bother. Remember, people don't steal because they're evil, people steal because it's easy.
Look, maybe that's not the best approach to take here. With the vast resources of the RIAA, they could easily afford to sue one out of every thousand Napster users.
You say, one out of every thousand, who cares? But that's all the show of force necessary to end this party. Suddenly people are afraid to log onto Napster because they're worried about getting caught up in the next mass-lawsuit. Can you imagine that? Yes, I know that if you know what you're doing, it's easy to be totally anonymous, but those people without the technical expertise to make themselves so could be in serious trouble if the RIAA does choose to act, not against Napster, but against its users.
Slashdot Mirror
I was thinking about that. What seems to be the truly evil aspect of all of this is that Eidos essentially allowed Looking Glass' creditors to eat them alive, them got to buy large chunks or their intellectual property at firesale prices. That's not something I'd personally like to see happen more often.
What is that, perl?
Man, your sig is a crime against humanity. You should fix it.
As of right now, it serves very little purpose. But just imagine X running on your wrist!
In that case, the most appropriate question to ask would be: why are you still here?
Wait, wait, wait...I thought you said you'd be boycotting Slashdot? How can you do that if you're planning on posting duplicates of this lameass flame?
Dude, why you be trollin'? That ain't cool.
No, no, NO!!!! Guys like TRoLL are not what legends are made of. You want legends, look up osm and Trollmastah's old posts.
Steve Woston, is that you?
No, I was talking about Open Source Girl, who I recently saw post an osm-like story about that girl who played Rogue in the X-Men movie.
This is offtopic and deserves to me moderated down. I just felt that it needed to be said.
I am deeply saddened by the increasingly low quality of the trolls and offtopic posts on Slashdot. It seems like an eternity since the golden age of Slashdot trolls. That was the time before Trollmastah had retired and before the lameness filter had been implemented, which pretty much killed off Oog. People try to raise Oog from the dead, but it just ain't happening. I remember when osm was still posting about "Open-sourced copyrighted undistributable Natalie Portman and Drew Barrymore naked and petrified" or some such nonsense, which were actually really funny at the time. I remember the days before osm's fake legal trouble, which pretty much marked the end of his posting on Slashdot, when he would post new, hillarious Natalie Portman fantasies on what seemed like a pretty regular basis. There were others, of course, but my mind is getting weak in my old age.
These days, though, it seems like we've entered a dark age for those of us who set our thresholds to -1. If one ventures into the nether regions of Slashdot now, what do they see? Shit like the parent post, and "30 Ways To Be Offensive At A Funeral," and (God help us) the Beer Guy, whose idiotic spamming alone provides a good reason to browse at 0 or 1. Where have all the great ones gone?
There is some hope for the future of trolls on Slashdot, though. People like Anti Porn and osg have recently shown me that trolling is not an entirely lost art. But they alone cannot save Slashdot. Already, the spamming is so bad that it actually requires effort to find the diamonds in the rough. Clearly, a solution must be found soon, or the -1 region of Slashdot will be lost to us forever.
I have conclusive evidence that the man on the grassy knoll was in fact Signal 11!
I know that I shouldn't do this, that it's offtopic and I'm being irresponsible and my karma is going to go down the drain, but:
You IDIOT! How could you leave off Natalie Portman!?
And therein lies the rub: Napster has a choice whether to do what the law says it should, or to ignore the law so that your song may still be traded freely. I'm not necessarily saying that it's what Napster should do; what I am saying is that for Napster to say, "We have no way to hinder people trying to use our service to copy copyrighted materials" is a blatant lie. Maybe the only solution available is inelegant, and maybe it would screw with a couple of innocent bystanders, but it could be done.
Dammit, I only realized that problem after I had posted. But still, that kind of thing is rare enough that it wouldn't be that much of an issue. Workarounds can be devised. Also, it should be notedd that it's hardly restraint of trade if a private corporation chooses not to help you trade your files. Overall, though, you make a good point.
What business? How in God's name do these people make money?
But more importantly, it is really, really easy to stop the distribution of 90% of the copyrighted works on Napster. If you blocked any file with the word "Metallica" in its filename, that would make it so much more difficult to trade Metallica's works that most people would no longer bother. Remember, people don't steal because they're evil, people steal because it's easy.
Look, maybe that's not the best approach to take here. With the vast resources of the RIAA, they could easily afford to sue one out of every thousand Napster users.
You say, one out of every thousand, who cares? But that's all the show of force necessary to end this party. Suddenly people are afraid to log onto Napster because they're worried about getting caught up in the next mass-lawsuit. Can you imagine that? Yes, I know that if you know what you're doing, it's easy to be totally anonymous, but those people without the technical expertise to make themselves so could be in serious trouble if the RIAA does choose to act, not against Napster, but against its users.
In a battle to the death between you and Dvorack, which one of you would win?