Internet speeds are plenty fast for trading BD rips... Even at full quality they are only about 30Mbps on average
I think you meant to say they average 30 gigabytes. Sure, this torrent of Pirates of the Caribbean At World's End is 30.38 gigabytes.
So 30.38 gig is 31,109.12 megabytes. If you are really getting continuous download speeds of 10 Mbps, that works out to 1221 kilobytes per second, or 1.2 megabytes per second. 31,109.12/1.2=25924 seconds, or a little over seven hours.
Not bad I suppose if you are getting those speeds. You could get it while you sleep.
The local cable monopoly provider gushes in the marketing materials for their "Extreme" package "With an extremely fast download speed of up to 10 Mbps..." which - again - would be 1221 kilobytes per second, but I have that package and I never see speeds like that. What I do get is pretty consistent 150 - 300 KB/s, with bursts of up to 450 KB/s, usually at the beginning of the transfer. Other's mileage may vary, but I would be surprised to see 1221 KB/sec sustained for the duration of a 30 gig download, my ISP's marketing propaganda notwithstanding.
Oh, and they cap me at something like 100 GB of throughput per month. The (slower) DSL alternative I was using before gave me more (I think 200, maybe?) but even that would get you fewer than seven movies per month, if you did nothing else on the Internet.
Storing them would be costly, too, unless you delete them as soon as you watch them, or burn them to discs (are there even burners out there yet? I'm not really up on the subject). I don't know. Maybe there are faster options with higher caps that I am not aware of, but I don't think it's quite there.
That's quite a different standard than the US, I imagine.
Quite. US television and movies are full of "product placements," which are really just commercials I suppose. Was the idea behind bleeping out brand names on Dutch TV to avoid diluting the brand value of the names?
They don't censor "Fucking hypocrite". But the do for some reason censor "Foot in mouth and head up ass, so whatcha talking bout?"
I don't know where you live, but in Canada, they'll let fuck go as long as it isn't used in a sexual manner. So "Who the fuck are you?" is okay, but "I wanna fuck you like an animal" gets bleeped. Maybe "head up ass" is being taken as a sexual reference.
American Idiot and Holiday were both censored on commercial radio here; strange that you heard 'fag' in one but not the other. Maybe someone let the wrong version in to the library at the radio station.
They are defiantly not as common as they used to be, but I still see them once in a while. My laptop started doing it pretty regular a couple of months back, but it was due for a re-image anyway. It hasn't happened since I refreshed the system.
In a weird way, I kinda miss the blue screen
You are a masochist;)
Yeah, I really miss that condescending message: "Because Windows was shut down improperly, one or more of your disk drives may have errors on it. To avoid seeing this message again, always shut down your computer by selecting Shut Down from the Start Menu." Thanks for the tip, Microsoft. About as helpful as "Did you forget your password?"
I've had X lockups that prevented ctl-alt-f* from working. The gpp wasn't a complete troll, sometimes the virtual consoles are not available. That's why I always run an ssh server on my machines, so I can get access to a command line from the outside if necessary.
So anyone who expresses a point of view different from yours is a "zealot" from a "combative fan base." I guess you would be happier if we all just used IE in Windows.
It's the lack of adherence to standards that creates extra work for web developers, not choice in browsers.
You can't kill a process in Windows either if it blue screens. OTH, if you CAN'T OPEN A GODDAMN TERMINAL because of a TOTAL SYSTEM LOCKUP in Linux, you can often ssh in to the machine from another one and kill the process that way. Just because your X Windows system has locked up, that doesn't mean the system is unusable.
Has a road EVER gone back to being normal after getting converted to a toll road?
I don't know about roads that were converted to toll roads, but a toll recently came off a highway near where I live, ostensibly because the highway had been paid for. Of course, the upcoming election and governing party's poor performance in the polls played no role.
What, he's not allowed to LEARN something? professing to not know something, then trying to learn it, is a contradiction??
No, but responding to an ad that states correctly that McCain is a computer illiterate with an article headlined "Obama Ad Ridicules McCain over War Injuries" is the very definition of a straw man.
At least he knew what he was ignorant of, and evidently set out to rectify that.
Right. So we're clear on the fact that the reason McCain can not use a computer is due to his lack of knowledge in this area, and not (strictly, at least) due to his war injuries.
I work with seniors on developing their computer skills. Nearly everyone over 55 or so adamantly asserts that they know nothing about computers, even when they are reasonably proficient at everyday tasks. They FEEL ignorant because computerese is a foreign tongue, but they get the job done nevertheless.
It's not just people over 55, a lot of people will protest that they "don't know computers" when it's simply the case that they have not used them enough to become comfortable. McCain's injuries, for example, may not prevent him from using one, but may make him slow and uncomfortable enough that it's just easier to get someone else to do it for him.
My dad is McCain's age, and has been using a computer for years, and you're right - he is proficient enough with everyday tasks. It's the finer points that trip him up: when to single or double-click, the difference between a file and a folder, where he left his glasses...
If McCain's injuries are acting as a disincentive for him to learn to use a computer, that's an accessibility issue, and one that could likely be solved if he is sufficiently motivated. If he is not sufficiently motivated, all the training in the world is not going to help.
But going back to the original point I was responding to, the Obama ad truthfully stated that - by his own admission - McCain does not know how to use a computer. To suggest that the ad amounts to ridiculing McCain over his war injuries is simply exploitation of those injuries, and shows a real lack of respect for both candidates.
The article you linked to suggests that McCain's war injuries are the reason he can not use the Internet. This contradicts his own observations on his lack of computer literacy. From The Huffington Post:
The Drudge Report and several conservative blogs are working themselves into a lather over the new Obama ad noting that John McCain doesn't know how to use a computer.
Their claim is that McCain is simply unable to use a computer because of his POW injuries, citing a March 2000 article in the Boston Globe that states, with no supporting evidence...
McCain's severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes.
Of course, this directly contradicts what McCain and his campaign manager have said. McCain told the New York Times in July:
I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself. I don't expect to be a great communicator, I don't expect to set up my own blog, but I am becoming computer literate to the point where I can get the information that I need.
I've already declared today "Global Anti-Proprietary Software Day." I will be launching several global initiatives aimed at raising awareness of the damage to software innovation that Microsoft and other proprietary vendors have caused. Fortunately, promoting alternatives to proprietary software is also a method of combating software "piracy," so I'm sure Microsoft won't mind sharing their day with me.
Criminals will go back to using payphones and face to face meetings to discuss their criminal activities
That's getting harder to do in some places. They're nowhere near as ubiquitous as they once were. The lower numbers also make it easier to keep the remaining payphones under constant surveillance (if they take away your expectation of privacy on your own cel phone, the very notion of an expectation of privacy at a public payphone becomes absurd).
The great part is they have the tax payer's back to pay for it all.
So, yes, criminals and - oddly - regular citizens will have to go back to face-to-face conversations to ensure privacy (assuming there are no listening device in that randomly chosen Starbucks they're having their face-to-face conversation in).
So, in answer to your question, nothing will change. We will continue to get whatever stories happen to be in the geek press posted to the front page (sometimes more than once!), and people with axes to grind will continue to whine that Slashdot is either giving too much attention to the target of their derision, or not enough to their platform of choice.
You just did what his daughter did. You told him if he can't see the difference, he must be blind. But you didn't actually tell him what these differences are, and why they make the ipod "better." You're like a spouse who says "if you don't know what you did wrong, I'm not going to tell you."
Fair use is when you cite or refer to something that's relevant to what you're publishing on, not when you co-opt something for a propaganda film.
If you were making a documentary about John Lennon, or about the mindset of the 1970s, or about the structure of pop songs, it would be perfectly "fair" to play a snippet of the song. But that doesn't mean you can play a snippet in any context you want.
From the article linked to in the summary:
There should never have been any doubt the filmmakers who were sued here had every right to use a short segment of a song for the purpose of criticizing it and the views it represents.
I haven't seen the movie, but it sounds to me like they were doing exactly what you suggested the purpose of fair use is: playing a short piece of the song for the purpose of criticizing it. The fact that you don't agree with the producer's "propaganda" has no relevance to the issue of whether or not they were exercising fair use.
You were modded Funny but it's actually an Insightful post.
Here's another idea, I think from Steve Rambam:
When you do need to give more or less accurate info to someone, give yourself a different middle initial, or add an some minor change to your address that wouldn't trip up the mailman. Keep track of which companies or government agencies got what middle initial, or a -B appended to your house number. It may not do you much good, but if you ever receive a piece of SPAM or junkmail addressed that way, you'll know who is responsible.
I visited the iReport site for the first time when I saw this story. Other than a "what's on CNN" type video feed, I didn't see much else that would lead me to believe it was affiliated with CNN. Even the "about" link states:
"The views and content on this site are solely those of the iReport.com contributors. CNN makes no guarantees about the content or the coverage on iReport.com!"
So I think they are being pretty careful to avoid putting the "CNN" stamp on anything that is reported on this site. If the URL was ireport.cnn.com or something, I think people would be justifiably confused.
I guess it shouldn't surprise anyone that Wall Street reacted so quickly on a rumour posted by some anonymous person on a public forum. I don' think it besmirches "citizen journalists," any more than the average supermarket gossip rag besmirches regular journalists. You will always find examples of abuse; that's where the "healthy skeptisism" part comes in.
I think it speaks volumes about the people on Wall Street though.
Because it posts original articles? So does Slashdot...
Oh really? Other than the book reviews and journal postings you mentioned - which qualifies Slashdot as a successful blog - I haven't seen much in the way of original articles since Katz left. Even what he did was more along the lines of an opinion piece. Not what I would call "news."
How about Google? That really -is- just links. Would you consider that a news site, though?
I see, we're getting caught up in words.
If Google gathers together news articles produced by other sources, and presents them as a collection of news from top agencies, they are an aggregator. I don't really consider them a "news site," because they don't (as far as I know) employ reporters who go out and gather news. They don't produce original news content. If they put a New York Times story on their front page, it is my impression of the Times' credibility that will determine whether or not I take what is reported as factual.
"I have no expectation that Slashdot will take any steps to verify the facts in them." Why would you expect any differently of any other site?
Well, I think CNN and the Washington Post other sites whose business is to sell eyeballs to advertisers are probably pretty careful about protecting themselves from libel suits, and spend a non-trivial sum of money checking the things they report as facts. They may not always get it right, and we may not always agree that they represent those facts objectively, but their reputation heavily influences the amount they are able to charge people to advertise in the dead-tree versions of their publications.
So yes, I think some sites put a lot more effort in to verifying facts than your average "citizen journalism" blog.
You should do the same for everything from a geocities website to some random forum to Slashdot to iReport to CNN to AP & Reuters.
Because the geocities website and random forum put the same resources in to checking the accuracy of what they report as CNN and Reuters? Nice try. Let's compromise with "maintain a healthy skepticism."
Neither is having something posted on iReport, CNN's main page, or even reported by AP / Reuters.
True, but I'll put AP, Reuters and even CNN's record up against some random blog any day, because they have earned at least some credibility. So have some blogs, and more will. You make a name for yourself by having a reputation for always being right, because you always check your facts. Get caught running with something you weren't sure of just to get attention and your credibility will be shot. That's what the big news sites have that the random blog doesn't - a reputation worth protecting.
Riiiight, much as how/. should have a big disclaimer saying that most things aren't 100% verified, or Engadget, or any other news site.
Slashdot isn't a "news site." Slashdot simply links to stories at other sites and gives it's users a forum to discuss them. I have no expectation that Slashdot will take any steps to verify the facts in them. I still need to consider the source of the story Slashdot links to, any evidence provided to back up the story's claims, and my good 'ol bullshit detector. Having something posted on Slashdot isn't a seal of accuracy.
Also, how are they going to take control of changes you already made?
I took that as meaning they would take control from him. He can not make any use of any code he has written for the project outside of the work he does for them, including code he wrote prior to the agreement, and anything he writes after it.
I would never in a millions years give a regular Joe any distro other than Ubuntu
Me neither, mostly because when examples are given in magazines like LJ and on sites/how-tos written in the last couple of years, the author unfailingly chooses Ubuntu for the examples. In the past, Red Hat, Debian and Slackware have all enjoyed that spot, but now it's Ubuntu.
It just wouldn't make sense at this time to start a person new to Linux on anything else.
Well, it's not so much that the people at the CBC are dumb, as they are on a budget and the people who own the rights to the Hockey Night in Canada theme song think they deserve a lot more money than the CBC is prepared to pay for a renewal of the license for the song.
The CBC wanted to own the theme outright, but made a low-ball offer. Dolores Claman and her publisher offered to instead extend the existing deal, which gave them roughly $500 per three-hour broadcast. The CBC responded by announcing the contest to find a new theme and broke off negotiations.
I think they honestly (arrogantly) believed the rights holders would cave in. They also had their panties in a bunch because of the ongoing suit by Claman alleging the CBC used the song without permission (read without paying for it) on other programs, as well as rebroadcasts of HNIC in other countries.
When they later publicly offered to resume negotiations - to "save the theme for Canadians" - Claman responded by announcing the deal with CTV.
The CBC is welcome to use whatever negotiation tactics they choose. I'm a supporter of public television in general, and specifically the CBC (especially for their news and - yup - hockey broadcasts). But over the years the have shown a spectacular lack of understanding of what attracts viewers to HNIC. They employed similar "hardball" tactics when negotiating Don Cherry's contract last year.
Again, they are welcome to do so, but Don Cherry and the traditional theme were two big attractions for a lot of their viewers. Now they've lost one of those, and if they continue to step on the throat of the "golden goose," they're going to find themselves on the outside looking in. Without the revenue generated by hockey (especially playoff hockey) it's unlikely they would be able to maintain the high standards in their news department.
And that's a damn shame. The CBC belongs to the public. They are showing bad stewardship of a Canadian institution. But that's another rant.
Of course, if we had sane copyright laws, that wouldn't be an issue, because the song is old enough that the copyright should have expired by now.
I agree with you in principle about the length of copyright terms, but the CBC benefits from the current copyright laws just as much as Claman is, so I can't really condemn her for seeking fair market value when negotiating a deal.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow. Who's your provider?
I think you meant to say they average 30 gigabytes. Sure, this torrent of Pirates of the Caribbean At World's End is 30.38 gigabytes.
So 30.38 gig is 31,109.12 megabytes. If you are really getting continuous download speeds of 10 Mbps, that works out to 1221 kilobytes per second, or 1.2 megabytes per second. 31,109.12/1.2=25924 seconds, or a little over seven hours.
Not bad I suppose if you are getting those speeds. You could get it while you sleep.
The local cable monopoly provider gushes in the marketing materials for their "Extreme" package "With an extremely fast download speed of up to 10 Mbps ..." which - again - would be 1221 kilobytes per second, but I have that package and I never see speeds like that. What I do get is pretty consistent 150 - 300 KB/s, with bursts of up to 450 KB/s, usually at the beginning of the transfer. Other's mileage may vary, but I would be surprised to see 1221 KB/sec sustained for the duration of a 30 gig download, my ISP's marketing propaganda notwithstanding.
Oh, and they cap me at something like 100 GB of throughput per month. The (slower) DSL alternative I was using before gave me more (I think 200, maybe?) but even that would get you fewer than seven movies per month, if you did nothing else on the Internet.
Storing them would be costly, too, unless you delete them as soon as you watch them, or burn them to discs (are there even burners out there yet? I'm not really up on the subject). I don't know. Maybe there are faster options with higher caps that I am not aware of, but I don't think it's quite there.
Quite. US television and movies are full of "product placements," which are really just commercials I suppose. Was the idea behind bleeping out brand names on Dutch TV to avoid diluting the brand value of the names?
I don't know where you live, but in Canada, they'll let fuck go as long as it isn't used in a sexual manner. So "Who the fuck are you?" is okay, but "I wanna fuck you like an animal" gets bleeped. Maybe "head up ass" is being taken as a sexual reference.
American Idiot and Holiday were both censored on commercial radio here; strange that you heard 'fag' in one but not the other. Maybe someone let the wrong version in to the library at the radio station.
They are defiantly not as common as they used to be, but I still see them once in a while. My laptop started doing it pretty regular a couple of months back, but it was due for a re-image anyway. It hasn't happened since I refreshed the system.
You are a masochist ;)
Yeah, I really miss that condescending message: "Because Windows was shut down improperly, one or more of your disk drives may have errors on it. To avoid seeing this message again, always shut down your computer by selecting Shut Down from the Start Menu." Thanks for the tip, Microsoft. About as helpful as "Did you forget your password?"
I've had X lockups that prevented ctl-alt-f* from working. The gpp wasn't a complete troll, sometimes the virtual consoles are not available. That's why I always run an ssh server on my machines, so I can get access to a command line from the outside if necessary.
So anyone who expresses a point of view different from yours is a "zealot" from a "combative fan base." I guess you would be happier if we all just used IE in Windows.
It's the lack of adherence to standards that creates extra work for web developers, not choice in browsers.
You can't kill a process in Windows either if it blue screens. OTH, if you CAN'T OPEN A GODDAMN TERMINAL because of a TOTAL SYSTEM LOCKUP in Linux, you can often ssh in to the machine from another one and kill the process that way. Just because your X Windows system has locked up, that doesn't mean the system is unusable.
I don't know about roads that were converted to toll roads, but a toll recently came off a highway near where I live, ostensibly because the highway had been paid for. Of course, the upcoming election and governing party's poor performance in the polls played no role.
No, but responding to an ad that states correctly that McCain is a computer illiterate with an article headlined "Obama Ad Ridicules McCain over War Injuries" is the very definition of a straw man.
Right. So we're clear on the fact that the reason McCain can not use a computer is due to his lack of knowledge in this area, and not (strictly, at least) due to his war injuries.
It's not just people over 55, a lot of people will protest that they "don't know computers" when it's simply the case that they have not used them enough to become comfortable. McCain's injuries, for example, may not prevent him from using one, but may make him slow and uncomfortable enough that it's just easier to get someone else to do it for him.
My dad is McCain's age, and has been using a computer for years, and you're right - he is proficient enough with everyday tasks. It's the finer points that trip him up: when to single or double-click, the difference between a file and a folder, where he left his glasses ...
If McCain's injuries are acting as a disincentive for him to learn to use a computer, that's an accessibility issue, and one that could likely be solved if he is sufficiently motivated. If he is not sufficiently motivated, all the training in the world is not going to help.
But going back to the original point I was responding to, the Obama ad truthfully stated that - by his own admission - McCain does not know how to use a computer. To suggest that the ad amounts to ridiculing McCain over his war injuries is simply exploitation of those injuries, and shows a real lack of respect for both candidates.
The article you linked to suggests that McCain's war injuries are the reason he can not use the Internet. This contradicts his own observations on his lack of computer literacy. From The Huffington Post:
I've already declared today "Global Anti-Proprietary Software Day." I will be launching several global initiatives aimed at raising awareness of the damage to software innovation that Microsoft and other proprietary vendors have caused. Fortunately, promoting alternatives to proprietary software is also a method of combating software "piracy," so I'm sure Microsoft won't mind sharing their day with me.
That's getting harder to do in some places. They're nowhere near as ubiquitous as they once were. The lower numbers also make it easier to keep the remaining payphones under constant surveillance (if they take away your expectation of privacy on your own cel phone, the very notion of an expectation of privacy at a public payphone becomes absurd).
The great part is they have the tax payer's back to pay for it all.
So, yes, criminals and - oddly - regular citizens will have to go back to face-to-face conversations to ensure privacy (assuming there are no listening device in that randomly chosen Starbucks they're having their face-to-face conversation in).
Not to troll, but is it more so than trusting your data to proprietary software?
Start? As the saying goes, you must be new here. I'm sure at least some of these made fp:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/16/1246240&from=rss
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/30/1540203
http://mobile.slashdot.org/mobile/08/08/19/1222226.shtml
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/16/1246240&from=rss
http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/04/1953225&from=rss
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/21/2036240&from=rss
http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/12/0518244&from=rss
So, in answer to your question, nothing will change. We will continue to get whatever stories happen to be in the geek press posted to the front page (sometimes more than once!), and people with axes to grind will continue to whine that Slashdot is either giving too much attention to the target of their derision, or not enough to their platform of choice.
You just did what his daughter did. You told him if he can't see the difference, he must be blind. But you didn't actually tell him what these differences are, and why they make the ipod "better." You're like a spouse who says "if you don't know what you did wrong, I'm not going to tell you."
From the article linked to in the summary:
I haven't seen the movie, but it sounds to me like they were doing exactly what you suggested the purpose of fair use is: playing a short piece of the song for the purpose of criticizing it. The fact that you don't agree with the producer's "propaganda" has no relevance to the issue of whether or not they were exercising fair use.
Sharing all the world
You were modded Funny but it's actually an Insightful post.
Here's another idea, I think from Steve Rambam:
When you do need to give more or less accurate info to someone, give yourself a different middle initial, or add an some minor change to your address that wouldn't trip up the mailman. Keep track of which companies or government agencies got what middle initial, or a -B appended to your house number. It may not do you much good, but if you ever receive a piece of SPAM or junkmail addressed that way, you'll know who is responsible.
I visited the iReport site for the first time when I saw this story. Other than a "what's on CNN" type video feed, I didn't see much else that would lead me to believe it was affiliated with CNN. Even the "about" link states:
"The views and content on this site are solely those of the iReport.com contributors. CNN makes no guarantees about the content or the coverage on iReport.com!"
So I think they are being pretty careful to avoid putting the "CNN" stamp on anything that is reported on this site. If the URL was ireport.cnn.com or something, I think people would be justifiably confused.
I guess it shouldn't surprise anyone that Wall Street reacted so quickly on a rumour posted by some anonymous person on a public forum. I don' think it besmirches "citizen journalists," any more than the average supermarket gossip rag besmirches regular journalists. You will always find examples of abuse; that's where the "healthy skeptisism" part comes in.
I think it speaks volumes about the people on Wall Street though.
Oh really? Other than the book reviews and journal postings you mentioned - which qualifies Slashdot as a successful blog - I haven't seen much in the way of original articles since Katz left. Even what he did was more along the lines of an opinion piece. Not what I would call "news."
I see, we're getting caught up in words.
If Google gathers together news articles produced by other sources, and presents them as a collection of news from top agencies, they are an aggregator. I don't really consider them a "news site," because they don't (as far as I know) employ reporters who go out and gather news. They don't produce original news content. If they put a New York Times story on their front page, it is my impression of the Times' credibility that will determine whether or not I take what is reported as factual.
Well, I think CNN and the Washington Post other sites whose business is to sell eyeballs to advertisers are probably pretty careful about protecting themselves from libel suits, and spend a non-trivial sum of money checking the things they report as facts. They may not always get it right, and we may not always agree that they represent those facts objectively, but their reputation heavily influences the amount they are able to charge people to advertise in the dead-tree versions of their publications.
So yes, I think some sites put a lot more effort in to verifying facts than your average "citizen journalism" blog.
Because the geocities website and random forum put the same resources in to checking the accuracy of what they report as CNN and Reuters? Nice try. Let's compromise with "maintain a healthy skepticism."
True, but I'll put AP, Reuters and even CNN's record up against some random blog any day, because they have earned at least some credibility. So have some blogs, and more will. You make a name for yourself by having a reputation for always being right, because you always check your facts. Get caught running with something you weren't sure of just to get attention and your credibility will be shot. That's what the big news sites have that the random blog doesn't - a reputation worth protecting.
Slashdot isn't a "news site." Slashdot simply links to stories at other sites and gives it's users a forum to discuss them. I have no expectation that Slashdot will take any steps to verify the facts in them. I still need to consider the source of the story Slashdot links to, any evidence provided to back up the story's claims, and my good 'ol bullshit detector. Having something posted on Slashdot isn't a seal of accuracy.
I took that as meaning they would take control from him. He can not make any use of any code he has written for the project outside of the work he does for them, including code he wrote prior to the agreement, and anything he writes after it.
Me neither, mostly because when examples are given in magazines like LJ and on sites/how-tos written in the last couple of years, the author unfailingly chooses Ubuntu for the examples. In the past, Red Hat, Debian and Slackware have all enjoyed that spot, but now it's Ubuntu.
It just wouldn't make sense at this time to start a person new to Linux on anything else.
The CBC wanted to own the theme outright, but made a low-ball offer. Dolores Claman and her publisher offered to instead extend the existing deal, which gave them roughly $500 per three-hour broadcast. The CBC responded by announcing the contest to find a new theme and broke off negotiations.
I think they honestly (arrogantly) believed the rights holders would cave in. They also had their panties in a bunch because of the ongoing suit by Claman alleging the CBC used the song without permission (read without paying for it) on other programs, as well as rebroadcasts of HNIC in other countries.
When they later publicly offered to resume negotiations - to "save the theme for Canadians" - Claman responded by announcing the deal with CTV.
The CBC is welcome to use whatever negotiation tactics they choose. I'm a supporter of public television in general, and specifically the CBC (especially for their news and - yup - hockey broadcasts). But over the years the have shown a spectacular lack of understanding of what attracts viewers to HNIC. They employed similar "hardball" tactics when negotiating Don Cherry's contract last year.
Again, they are welcome to do so, but Don Cherry and the traditional theme were two big attractions for a lot of their viewers. Now they've lost one of those, and if they continue to step on the throat of the "golden goose," they're going to find themselves on the outside looking in. Without the revenue generated by hockey (especially playoff hockey) it's unlikely they would be able to maintain the high standards in their news department.
And that's a damn shame. The CBC belongs to the public. They are showing bad stewardship of a Canadian institution. But that's another rant.
I agree with you in principle about the length of copyright terms, but the CBC benefits from the current copyright laws just as much as Claman is, so I can't really condemn her for seeking fair market value when negotiating a deal.