As I recall, Virgin had a stipulation in their Use Agreement whereby the customer, on failing to use the Virgin web service atleast 10 hours a month, would have to return the unit or pay some $500 if in the first year after "purchase" of the player. The customer never actually owned the player, so I suspect failure to return the unit will see a similar charge on one's credit card bill. The old www.virginconnectme.com site is no longer functioning, so I can't find the old info. Any users get the email from Virgin and can answer definitely?
On the other hand, if anyone had a copy of the license/use agreement to post, I'd be interested to know what kind of financial recourse the user has, considering that Virgin breached it's end of the contract.
How tragic. This article, through combination of/. poster laziness / inattention to detail and/. reader gullibility, has succeeded in proving the satiric point it made about the slashdot institution. It's embarrassing that so many readers didn't get suspicious enough about the nature of the "email" to check it out before posting their anti-M$ tirades or conspiracy theories about how this was a "planned leak." It's also embarrassing that only two or three of those posting messages seemed to read the entire article, including the line where it says:
"Note: This article is a piece of satire meant to brighten your day."
If Bill and M$ didn't have reason to celebrate the ineffectiveness of communities like/. before the article was written, clearly they do now. The irony is unbearable. If we want people to take our opinions as a group seriously, we can't afford gaffes like this one.
Slashdot Mirror
As I recall, Virgin had a stipulation in their Use Agreement whereby the customer, on failing to use the Virgin web service atleast 10 hours a month, would have to return the unit or pay some $500 if in the first year after "purchase" of the player. The customer never actually owned the player, so I suspect failure to return the unit will see a similar charge on one's credit card bill. The old www.virginconnectme.com site is no longer functioning, so I can't find the old info. Any users get the email from Virgin and can answer definitely?
On the other hand, if anyone had a copy of the license/use agreement to post, I'd be interested to know what kind of financial recourse the user has, considering that Virgin breached it's end of the contract.
How tragic. This article, through combination of /. poster laziness / inattention to detail and /. reader gullibility, has succeeded in proving the satiric point it made about the slashdot institution. It's embarrassing that so many readers didn't get suspicious enough about the nature of the "email" to check it out before posting their anti-M$ tirades or conspiracy theories about how this was a "planned leak." It's also embarrassing that only two or three of those posting messages seemed to read the entire article, including the line where it says:
/. before the article was written, clearly they do now. The irony is unbearable. If we want people to take our opinions as a group seriously, we can't afford gaffes like this one.
"Note: This article is a piece of satire meant to brighten your day."
If Bill and M$ didn't have reason to celebrate the ineffectiveness of communities like
now that they're in the limelight, it's time to CYA