I simply disagree. Sure, I am certain there is a percentage (maybe even a majority) of the population that would not pay (if they can get away with it) even if it's one dollar. But there are plenty of people (like myself) that are willing to pay if the price is right. If bought several of those shareware programs. Some said paid whatever you feel it's worth, others have very nominal fees.
What's the magically number? Can't help you determine that. I am sure that is very subjective to the individual and the program.
Just personal experience - I was working for the dept of Student Life when I was in school at a NJ state university. I don't think any student ever took the school to court while I was there (hey, who knows, maybe they would have won - everybody here seem to think so, I sincerely doubt it) but I know very well the school's legal position, and I've seen them enforce it. I used to have these "philosophical" discussions with the staff all the time...
RTFR (read the f* responses) - I know, we've diverged from the article very early on and are talking more about general "students rights on campus" issues.
Apparently, you can't. Once again, a dorm room is not a rental property. You don't have all (if any) the rights of a tenant. All the students on here that think they do are doing a whole lot of wishful thinking with very little basis in reality.
Never mind satellite dishes, on most dorms you can't even use pushpins! And by the way, as a side note (it's completely irrelevant to the current discussion), satellite dish thing has some very strict limitations - only out your window or on your balcony. So if you're apparment faces the wrong way, you're SOL.
The water are definetely murkier at state universities and the rules may vary from state to state in terms of how "public" they really are. But public property or not, I would be willing to bet good money that I am not allowed (by law or otherwise) to just go walk around the dorms at the local state university (unless I am student living in that dorm that is) under the grounds that it's public property so even public property (like the Grand Canyon) can put serious limitations on what you can do there.
I see nothing in that language that prevent any private institutions or property owner to regulate what gets installed on their premises.
The language merely says you're breaking no laws and therefore nobody (government or adjacent property owners) can have any beef with you if you install such things on your property. That's fine - you still can't bring your AP in my house, in the dorm, or most likely in your cubbicle at work.
Sorry to rain on your parade, but it's not a lease. You're more like a guest in a very exclusive (yet poorly appointed) hotel. You're a paying guest, and they can kick you out (with or without a refund) if you break the house rules. They can enter your dorm room at any time, wether you're in it or not, and don't have to even tell you they were there. And yes, they can ban all kinds of FCC allowed devices if they want to, just like I can do the same if you visit my house.
You'll find out that laws have limitations, many of them don't apply on private property. It is for example perfectly OK for theater owners to make you check in all electronics devices at the door.
You're right that the student can sue - anybody can sue for right about anything (a sad fact of the US legal system, depending on your perspective). But I sincerely doubt he would win. Universities do have the right to limit the use of perfectly legal objects on their properties - including, but not limited to any device allowed by the FCC, licensed guns, and alcohol. Perhaps if the student can prove that this limitations prevented him from excercicing some unalienable constitutional rights, then maybe he'd have a fighting chance to win (I say a "chance", because BoyScouts are allowed to discriminate based on gender and secual orientation). However, since he could just plug his laptop in instead of using the AP, there is not a darn thing this rule really prevented him from doing and I doubt he'd have a case.
the status of the university is quite a bit different from that of a landlord. Universities have the rights to do a lot of things landlords can do, including intering your dorm room at any time for any reason. They can also kick you off campus pretty much at any time at their discretion. You're not a tenant of that dorm room, you're more of a paying guest (read: less rights that you would in a hotel room).
Yes they can. They can also ban cellphones in their classrooms and require to remove your hats in the cafeteria. They can prevent you from installing a satellite dish to the dorm (eventhough there are rules that allow apartment dwellers to do so with some limitations), they can also prevent you from getting your own cable connection or phone connection. They have the rights to enforce their own rules of conduct on their campus/property. If you are living on campus you are not a tenant as much as you are a guest. Living in campus is not a right, it's a choice and priviledge. If you choose to live on campus, you have to follow their rules of conduct or get kicked off from the dorm.
By the way, I also have that right to require these things when you're in my house.
factual, yes, objective, not really. All documentaries have a story to tell and will present facts to illustrate their points. News are supposed to be factual AND objective, not documentaries.
So let me get this straight, you don't want to see, and therefore it should not be on TV????
Dude, there are a lot of things on TV I don't want to see, I just change the channel, I don't go about boycotting networks and proclaiming holy wars to the media. Nobody forces you to watch a certain channel at a given time, just like nobody forced you to walk into that movie theater.
And by the way, nobody said this "movie" would air in place of Worldnews Tonight with Peter Jennings. I doubt that any network would disguise it as "news". Heck, even Michael Moore doesn't - he's very upfront about the fact that this is not by any stretch of imagination an unbiased piece of work.
I personally would love to have it on network TV. I want to see it just to know what all the fuss is about (and I am intelligent enough not to take it as facts or news, even without a disclaimer) but would not pay for it in the theater, and it's unlikely I would rent it either.
Really? Because I work for a fortune 500 (not a software company) and we do just that: download the ISO and install it on whatever the HP servers come preloaded with. We have in-house experts in all operating systems we use, and to my knowledge never rely on the vendor for anything but hardware failures (and even then, we usually have the spares on hand, and do the replacement ourselves). We will buy support contracts for things like Oracle databases, but even there, we have an excellent DBA staff which is pretty self reliant.
I think you're attempting to project the way your company works to the rest of the corporate world... Not every company hires phone operators instead of IT staff.
Huh... Apple requires you to download iTunes to browse their music store. There is no web-based Apple music store at all. You think that's better than MS requiring IE???
I've seen quotes - a sentence here and there - between quotes. I have not seen (and I am an avid slashdot reader) the whole text being lifted from an article without attribution. Perhaps I have not looked hard enough.
emtboy9 writes "..." is not covered by fair use. Fair use doesn't cover giving emtboy9 credit for something he didn't write. Emtboy9 didn't write anything.
emtboy9's writeup is not much of a writeup. It's word for word the first 3 paragraph of the article without giving CNet credit for it. That's kind of a no-no to me.
I can think of a few apps that embed Gecko. Firefox is one of them (I know, it's also a Mozilla foundation project so it doesn't count). AOL's Compuserve embeds Gecko. ActiveState's Komodo embeds Gecko. A bunch of other programs on Linux embeds Gecko.
That unfortunately goes without saying. Poorly written contracts, just like poorly written laws (isn't that all of them?) are subject to interpretation and are often overturned because of other laws or the constitution. You wouldn't have such an overloaded court system if that wasn't the case.
Sorry for replying to my own post - I forgot to say something important. Even if I bought your theory, it would explain that the zone is reprogrammable, it would not explain the "zone 0" (no zone at all).
DVD drives for the PC are reprogrammable, but they look themselves to a zone after a few changes, and I've never seen a "zone 0" available on them.
While the chips inside the player are generic, the players are usually made for a specific market (i.e. North American market - region 1). It is not that hard (or expensive) for a manufacturer to permanently lock a player to a single region at the factory, and in fact, most manufacturers do so. There are very few (any?) reputable consumer electronics for which you can reprogram the zones (a few earlier generation players from panasonics and others, but they've learned from their mistakes so to speak).
Your scenario is bogus. It would not be profitable to reship the player anywhere for players that retail between $30-$100. Also zone is not the only thing that makes these players somewhat incompatible between markets. There is voltage, plugs, TV system (PAL, Secam, NTSC, etc), languages (manuals usually contain one or two languages, and the OSD is also usually in 1 to 3 languages) and packaging. In fact, the player I bought even has the zone number printed on the box (not on a label)! There goes your theory of being able to reship them right there.
Saving a few bucks is not what these manufacturers are going after. They are going after those customers in the market for a region free player. Wether they actually leak the codes to do so, or they make it so trivial to guess - not sure which. But they fully realize this "feature" is the edge they need over their competition.
And don't get wrong, I am not pro MPAA at all. I own one of those, and I am very happy that they found this little loophole in their contracts that allows them to do so: as a belgian, married to a Taiwanese and living in the US, a zone free DVD is essential. I just realize that they've broken their contracts in spirit, if not in law.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, it would still be extortion.
I simply disagree. Sure, I am certain there is a percentage (maybe even a majority) of the population that would not pay (if they can get away with it) even if it's one dollar. But there are plenty of people (like myself) that are willing to pay if the price is right. If bought several of those shareware programs. Some said paid whatever you feel it's worth, others have very nominal fees.
What's the magically number? Can't help you determine that. I am sure that is very subjective to the individual and the program.
Just personal experience - I was working for the dept of Student Life when I was in school at a NJ state university. I don't think any student ever took the school to court while I was there (hey, who knows, maybe they would have won - everybody here seem to think so, I sincerely doubt it) but I know very well the school's legal position, and I've seen them enforce it. I used to have these "philosophical" discussions with the staff all the time...
RTFR (read the f* responses) - I know, we've diverged from the article very early on and are talking more about general "students rights on campus" issues.
Apparently, you can't. Once again, a dorm room is not a rental property. You don't have all (if any) the rights of a tenant. All the students on here that think they do are doing a whole lot of wishful thinking with very little basis in reality.
Never mind satellite dishes, on most dorms you can't even use pushpins! And by the way, as a side note (it's completely irrelevant to the current discussion), satellite dish thing has some very strict limitations - only out your window or on your balcony. So if you're apparment faces the wrong way, you're SOL.
The water are definetely murkier at state universities and the rules may vary from state to state in terms of how "public" they really are. But public property or not, I would be willing to bet good money that I am not allowed (by law or otherwise) to just go walk around the dorms at the local state university (unless I am student living in that dorm that is) under the grounds that it's public property so even public property (like the Grand Canyon) can put serious limitations on what you can do there.
I see nothing in that language that prevent any private institutions or property owner to regulate what gets installed on their premises.
The language merely says you're breaking no laws and therefore nobody (government or adjacent property owners) can have any beef with you if you install such things on your property. That's fine - you still can't bring your AP in my house, in the dorm, or most likely in your cubbicle at work.
I understand the specific article, I was replying to previous posts (arguably off topic) which were about university dorms.
Sorry to rain on your parade, but it's not a lease. You're more like a guest in a very exclusive (yet poorly appointed) hotel. You're a paying guest, and they can kick you out (with or without a refund) if you break the house rules. They can enter your dorm room at any time, wether you're in it or not, and don't have to even tell you they were there. And yes, they can ban all kinds of FCC allowed devices if they want to, just like I can do the same if you visit my house.
You'll find out that laws have limitations, many of them don't apply on private property. It is for example perfectly OK for theater owners to make you check in all electronics devices at the door.
university != landlord
It's more like an exclusive hotel manager with very restrictive rules of conducts on premises.
You're right that the student can sue - anybody can sue for right about anything (a sad fact of the US legal system, depending on your perspective). But I sincerely doubt he would win. Universities do have the right to limit the use of perfectly legal objects on their properties - including, but not limited to any device allowed by the FCC, licensed guns, and alcohol. Perhaps if the student can prove that this limitations prevented him from excercicing some unalienable constitutional rights, then maybe he'd have a fighting chance to win (I say a "chance", because BoyScouts are allowed to discriminate based on gender and secual orientation). However, since he could just plug his laptop in instead of using the AP, there is not a darn thing this rule really prevented him from doing and I doubt he'd have a case.
the status of the university is quite a bit different from that of a landlord. Universities have the rights to do a lot of things landlords can do, including intering your dorm room at any time for any reason. They can also kick you off campus pretty much at any time at their discretion. You're not a tenant of that dorm room, you're more of a paying guest (read: less rights that you would in a hotel room).
Yes they can. They can also ban cellphones in their classrooms and require to remove your hats in the cafeteria. They can prevent you from installing a satellite dish to the dorm (eventhough there are rules that allow apartment dwellers to do so with some limitations), they can also prevent you from getting your own cable connection or phone connection. They have the rights to enforce their own rules of conduct on their campus/property. If you are living on campus you are not a tenant as much as you are a guest. Living in campus is not a right, it's a choice and priviledge. If you choose to live on campus, you have to follow their rules of conduct or get kicked off from the dorm.
By the way, I also have that right to require these things when you're in my house.
factual, yes, objective, not really. All documentaries have a story to tell and will present facts to illustrate their points. News are supposed to be factual AND objective, not documentaries.
So let me get this straight, you don't want to see, and therefore it should not be on TV????
Dude, there are a lot of things on TV I don't want to see, I just change the channel, I don't go about boycotting networks and proclaiming holy wars to the media. Nobody forces you to watch a certain channel at a given time, just like nobody forced you to walk into that movie theater.
And by the way, nobody said this "movie" would air in place of Worldnews Tonight with Peter Jennings. I doubt that any network would disguise it as "news". Heck, even Michael Moore doesn't - he's very upfront about the fact that this is not by any stretch of imagination an unbiased piece of work.
I personally would love to have it on network TV. I want to see it just to know what all the fuss is about (and I am intelligent enough not to take it as facts or news, even without a disclaimer) but would not pay for it in the theater, and it's unlikely I would rent it either.
Really? Because I work for a fortune 500 (not a software company) and we do just that: download the ISO and install it on whatever the HP servers come preloaded with. We have in-house experts in all operating systems we use, and to my knowledge never rely on the vendor for anything but hardware failures (and even then, we usually have the spares on hand, and do the replacement ourselves). We will buy support contracts for things like Oracle databases, but even there, we have an excellent DBA staff which is pretty self reliant.
I think you're attempting to project the way your company works to the rest of the corporate world... Not every company hires phone operators instead of IT staff.
Huh... Apple requires you to download iTunes to browse their music store. There is no web-based Apple music store at all. You think that's better than MS requiring IE???
I've seen quotes - a sentence here and there - between quotes. I have not seen (and I am an avid slashdot reader) the whole text being lifted from an article without attribution. Perhaps I have not looked hard enough.
emtboy9 writes "..." is not covered by fair use. Fair use doesn't cover giving emtboy9 credit for something he didn't write. Emtboy9 didn't write anything.
You could just look at the time stamps of the message and notice that mine was first. Not that I care, just FYI.
emtboy9's writeup is not much of a writeup. It's word for word the first 3 paragraph of the article without giving CNet credit for it. That's kind of a no-no to me.
I can think of a few apps that embed Gecko. Firefox is one of them (I know, it's also a Mozilla foundation project so it doesn't count). AOL's Compuserve embeds Gecko. ActiveState's Komodo embeds Gecko. A bunch of other programs on Linux embeds Gecko.
That unfortunately goes without saying. Poorly written contracts, just like poorly written laws (isn't that all of them?) are subject to interpretation and are often overturned because of other laws or the constitution. You wouldn't have such an overloaded court system if that wasn't the case.
Sorry for replying to my own post - I forgot to say something important. Even if I bought your theory, it would explain that the zone is reprogrammable, it would not explain the "zone 0" (no zone at all).
DVD drives for the PC are reprogrammable, but they look themselves to a zone after a few changes, and I've never seen a "zone 0" available on them.
While the chips inside the player are generic, the players are usually made for a specific market (i.e. North American market - region 1). It is not that hard (or expensive) for a manufacturer to permanently lock a player to a single region at the factory, and in fact, most manufacturers do so. There are very few (any?) reputable consumer electronics for which you can reprogram the zones (a few earlier generation players from panasonics and others, but they've learned from their mistakes so to speak).
Your scenario is bogus. It would not be profitable to reship the player anywhere for players that retail between $30-$100. Also zone is not the only thing that makes these players somewhat incompatible between markets. There is voltage, plugs, TV system (PAL, Secam, NTSC, etc), languages (manuals usually contain one or two languages, and the OSD is also usually in 1 to 3 languages) and packaging. In fact, the player I bought even has the zone number printed on the box (not on a label)! There goes your theory of being able to reship them right there.
Saving a few bucks is not what these manufacturers are going after. They are going after those customers in the market for a region free player. Wether they actually leak the codes to do so, or they make it so trivial to guess - not sure which. But they fully realize this "feature" is the edge they need over their competition.
And don't get wrong, I am not pro MPAA at all. I own one of those, and I am very happy that they found this little loophole in their contracts that allows them to do so: as a belgian, married to a Taiwanese and living in the US, a zone free DVD is essential. I just realize that they've broken their contracts in spirit, if not in law.