Trying to hold someone to a contract they didn't see, let alone freely agree to is ludicrous. The US is the only country that has such stupid laws, and these laws came about only because of the wide-scale bribery of politicians. They may call it lobbying, but large ammounts of cash trade hands, that's a bribe...
The EULA is completely without power, anywhere, except where the UCITA is in effect, that's why they were so eager to bribe politicians to pass it.
Because the DMCA was written specifically to protect things like CSS, content 'access' control system. Writing a new server would be like figuring out how to make your own DVD from scratch...
Nope. Their EULA isn't legally binding (unless you're in one of the stupid states where the government was briber to pass the UCITA). So you can do whatever you want, with regards to reverse engineering, etc. The DMCA doesn't apply either because you're not cracking content protection systems.
Extortion is simple when I demand payment for you to allow you to do something you're legally entitled to do.
If I demand $100 or I'll beat you senseless, that's extortion. If I demand you buy a 'Sidewalk License' or I'll kill your dog, that's extortion. If I sell you a product and then after you pay, offer to sell you the unmentioned activation key for another payment, that's extortion...
Tires aren't server emulators, but the analogy is a good one quite valid in this case.
Michelin tires don't work exclusively with Ford trucks, but if Ford made a truck that took a new type of tire, I'm sure Michelin would make tires for it, if they thought it would sell, regardless of other companies making a similar car. That means those tires would work exclusively with Ford trucks, and it's irrelevant.
And by your standards, Michelin tires DO encourage the theft of Ford trucks. If Ford was the sole maker of tires, you could bet they'd be a LOT more expensive than they are now. The fact that Michelin (and other companies) make tires drives down the total cost of ownership for a truck, and especially the maintenance cost. Now it's cheaper for someone to steal a truck, the maintenance cost is more reasonable...
But that's all irrelevant. Making a product that works with someone else's service is completely legal. Writing contract that after-sale forbid that and tying continues product support to that contract, is illegal.
Server emulators are *completely* legal. Contracts which forbid them are a best void, at worst, attempts at fraud...
Nothing is ripped from anything, I don't understand what you're saying. You use exactly the same client, displaying the same graphics. Nothing is new except the IP you connect to. And as all the same graphics and everything are used, being part of the client not the server, it doesn't matter.
And, I'd like to point out that 'ripping' graphics and sounds out of your copy of Everquest is perfectly legal. If there's an image you'd like to use as a background, go for it. Unless you distribute the images, you're not violating their copyright. They might have an EULA that says otherwise, but it's not legally binding in any way and is actually outright illegal in some ways. (To write a warranty like that for a physical product would get the government and consumer protection groups cracking down *so* quickly...)
Any after-the-fact agreement like that is void, it's extortion. They sell you a product which they claim will do certain things, then they say it'll only do that if you follow a bunch of rules they didn't mention before you paid...
And there's NOTHING illegal about taking advantage of someone else's work in such a way. Is Michelin breaking the law in making tires for Ford trucks?
The software you buy can be used for anything you desire, with the exception of certain copyright restrictions. Microsoft can't tell you that you can't run certain types of programs on their OS, or that you must run it on certain hardware only, etc.
Neither does any program provider have any legal leg to stand on when they declare you can't use an emulated server instead of theirs. Selling the emulated service is perfectly legal.
Network protocols aren't 'creative works' and can't be copyrighted.
Hey, whoever moderated the above post is doing a pretty crappy job.
Instead of moderating Jellicle down, you should moderated Kaa down, for posting an inciteful (not insightful) post on a topic he hadn't read anything about, clearly not even the links in the story.
At least ten posts point out Kaa's argument is completely unrelated to the facts of the situation, yet he receives a +5 score and people who point this out get a 0 Flamebait score for daring to point out that Kaa was talking out of his ass.
If you are a moderator who contributed to this situation, then you're a part of the Slashdot problem, where trolls and idiots get highly moderated while the people with something to say are ignored.
Try to think when handing out moderation verdicts, and read in Oldest First, not Highest Score order, and don't filter out 0 score posts, otherwise you're harming much more then you're helping.
Actually, only the software companies are of the opinion that you're 'renting' a license from them. Everyon eelse, courts, etc, are of the opinion that software is like a book and you can do anything to a program you can do to a book.
The UCITA says otherwise, but it's only in effect in some states and is obviously the product of extensive bribery. For the rest of the world, this bullshit about licensing is just something else to laugh at the software companies for.
You own that software, and have the legal right to use it in any copyright-law compatible manner you see fit. Any license that says otherwise is void, at best, and perhaps grounds to sue for fraud. (If you, for instance, disclaim responsibilities in a warranty that you can't disclaim, you can be sued by a customer.)
So go and buy a 10-user license of NT server and use it to serve files on a 50-computer network, it's not breaking any law or any contract.
>I private Jerry Goldsmith's CDs with a clear conscious, now that I can pay him.
You are aware that you're actually not buying the music, you're tipping the artist, right? It's a small distinction to rational people, but it'll get the lawyers in a huff... To claim your tip gives you the right to the music will probably get them to sue fairtunes.com..
If they think fairtunes.com is selling music, or telling people that they are, even with a 'wink wink, nudge nudge' kind of thing, they'll haul them into court so fast and break them.
Keep tipping the artist, but stop claiming that it has anything to do with purchasing the song.
You're just lucky, not better at doing anything...
I bought a P3-600E recently.. When I got it setup I noticed the temperature was in the 80s (Celcius) from the on-die sensor. This was without tweaking, with the regular fan, running properly, in an open case.
This was *way* too hot, the CPU warning sensor from the motherboard went off every now and then which didn't make me feel it was terribly safe.
So I went out and got a good fan, an Alpha PEP66, then the temperature rarely went over 38C, which is high, but is fairly normal considering the on-die sensors are a bit higher.
So I overclocked... My CPU wasn't stable with the retail Intel fan/heatsink at its rated speed. But with a good cooler, not only was it stable at its rated speed, it was able to run at 800... I actually got it a bit faster but dropped it back to keep everything in spec considering I've got some cheap PCI cards.:(
So, your stuff isn't overclocking just because its all older and doesn't draw as much power into as small an area, not because your reluctance to overclock actually helps it.
Bullshit. They more stole than invented and the only thing they contributed were useless court battles.
And as for why companies are paying... Maybe you don't get out much, but it's trivial for one company to get an injunction against another even without a real leg to stand on, that could cost millions per day to the victim company. Of course they pay them off. It's like paying protection money to the mob, you know they won't protect you, but you also know bad things will happen if you don't play along.
They're not an "intellectual property company", they're a bunch of thieves looking for any way to steal for a company that actually develops something. But, I suppose you'll support them, you sound like someone who holds some of their stock.
Exactly, backups, where needed, aren't against the law.
What remains to be seen, is if it's against the law for companies to provide media you can't backup... In some cases, obviously not, they can provide a DVD game and it's not their fault it costs a lot to back up a DVD, but if they provide a CD with special laser marks burned into it and the game refuses to play off of any other disk, does that unfairly circumvent your right to make a backup copy.
I think it does, and that software companies shot themselves in the foot when they started ignoring requests to replace damaged media... That leaves no choice but to be stuck with a useless product or to make a backup as soon as it's received (or to make a copy of another identical program, as a backup for your broken one.)
For you, as a US resident, using a crack is completely legal, unless you fall afoul of the DMCA or the UCITA.
The DMCA will get you anywhere in the USA, but shouldn't get because the crack has a usefull purpose beyond breaking copy protection, it allows function on computer where the copy protection doesn't work. Considering the companies rarely do anything about this, they've lost the right to complain (I think, though a judge could be bribed to say otherwise.) Reverse engineering to facilitate compatibility is specifically allowed under the DMCA.
But, if you're in one of the states that ratified the UCITA, using a.CAB viewer on the install files is probably a violation of the 'No Reverse Engineering' clause...
So, it depends on where you live and if you have legitimates copies of the games... If you own legit copies and just crack them to play them better or get around a broken CD check, the DMCA can't touch you. If you sell the cracks as such, or are pirating, they can likely get you for another charge under the DMCA as well as regular copyright law.
The UCITA though, makes nearly everything illegal and provides that the software doesn't need to work, so by living in those states, you basically agree that buying an empty box that claims to contain software is just fine...
God you're fucking dumb, no wonder you're hiding as an AC.
To reprint a 'signed and numbered lithograph' would be fraud, for reasons completely seperate from the copyright issue. If you're too stupid to come up with an analogy that works, don't use them.
If you research any of the history behind copyright law, you'll see it's a two-sided law. You get protection for your work, but ONLY if it's released later into the public domain.
There is no stated provision for allowing someone to copy an abandoned but still copyrighted work, but why do you really think it's bad?
What reason, that anyone could care about, could the author have to let something sit unreleased and probably go completely missing? And if they just want to keep people from playing older games so they'll be more likely to buy new ones, why should we care what they want?
Their 'property rights' are being enforced by our tax money... Every FBI agent tracking down some warez dealer is being payed for by the taxes of the citizens, doesn't this mean we own a little bit of that copyrighted work, that we should stand to collect when the copyright expires? But the movie studios would rather destroy old works, and software companies would rather nobody could play old games, instead of allowing the people that which they payed for.
If they're not living up to their end of the copyright laws, don't bother living up to your end... It's a pretty simple thing.
They demand protection, payed for by our tax money to keep piracy down, in compliance with copyright law, but they refuse to repay that tax money with their creative works later, that's a direct violation of that social contract, imho.
But it's only one of the more blatant. Usually they just write one-sided laws that they don't want to break and then pay some corrupt politicians to pass them. Not hard to be cynical.
Starcraft and Broodwars are the worst I've seen. They install fine, but then they'll never recognize the CD in my system. I have two cd readers, and I installed from both, and it didn't work either time. When I downloaded their CD tester it declared my CD drivers were invalid, that I'd have to buy a new one to play their game...
So I went off to astalavista.box.sk and downloaded a crack.
I'll *never* buy a Blizzard game again, the email I sent them complaining about how their copy protection system kept me from playing their game went completely unanswered. I guess once they sell it, they don't care if it works or not... that doesn't get them anymore sales.
And it's not like I have an old PC, all the components are new. The oldest is my 2x DVD drive, the 48x CD drive I just got months ago. (And I tried to use my old SC/BW CDs in the new system.)
So, seeing as how much fun it was to be able to play without throwing the CD in, I went and cracked all of my games. Nothing currently requires the CD in the drive. It's wonderful.
(And in doing so, I researched a bit of the law... It's not illegal in any way to crack software. The exception being if you live in the USA, in a state that has ratified the UCITA, where the 'no reverse engineering or modification' clause is binding.)
So, take a lesson from this and simply crack all your games. Not only do they work better but you don't have to mess with keeping the CDs handy.
(Even Q3A cracked, and allows me to play online (with my legit CD Key)... I was impressed.)
Laws also need an easier review process where if a case comes up that is against the spirit of the law but follows the letter of the law, that law could be rewritten.
This isn't to say that we should all follow the spirit of laws and never the letter, but today it's seeming that the spirit of the law is lost...
The RIAA mde one little wording change to a barely-related bill and classified recordings as works-for-hire.
Disney/MPAA/etc are extending copyrights until they're past the lifetime of the average citizen. (Currently 75 years, male life expectancy is 73 in the USA, last I heard...) If something was written when you were born, it'd still be copyrighted the day you died, in an average case.
The DMCA was supposed to stop piracy, but was written in such a way that it makes any attempt to circumvent the illegal sale restrictions (region coding, forced commercials, etc) illegal.
It's hard to have any respect for the laws when they're obviously written for the sole benefit of the people who pay to have them written.
Copyright was a balance, between restricting the rights of the people and helping them via encouraging more works to be created.
Not being allowed to copy something during a reasonable ammount of time lets a publisher make money by doing that copying and selling. Like a patent, it was a temporary monopoly to encourage further development. But copyrights have changed a lot since the early days, growing longer and longer, and being seen as an absolute right instead of a trade-off.
Disney and other large companies have pushed to have insanely long copyrights and would undoubtedly go for ones that wouldn't ever expire if they thought they could get away with it. But what would be the other side in this tradeoff? The public pays the FBI who enforce copyright, the public are the ones against whom this copyright is being enforced. Where's the balance?
Then, as you say, when copyright is used to stifle publication, it's serving exactly opposite of what it was intended to do.
Copyright laws need to be completely revamped, to where they help content creators only as much as they help content consumers. Unless both sides get something out of it, it's not fair to expect one side to give up a lot of rights to give the other side a government enforced monopoly.
Selling the pictures, or the right to view the pictures would be.
There may or may not be fair-use protection for the users of the pictures, considering they wrote an article about the upcoming hardware.
They could have been completely safe if they'd hired an artist to draw the cubes, from the pictures, and simply displayed an artist's rendition. This completly gets around copyright issues (because it's not the same picture) and would let them display it.
The simple fact that there's an upcoming product could never be considered a trade secret, there's nothing there that a trade is based on. Trade secrets are things like the Coke-a-cola formula, how they get the caramel into the milk chocolate, etc.
That said, the legal climate these days allows suing with no rational basis and because even in malicious lawsuits, in civil court, the defendant has to pick up the tab which means that big companies always win.
IMHO There should be a HUGE punishment for malicious lawsuits, maybe 10% of a company's gross profits, or something. And yeah, that's designed to put the majority of offenders out of business after one or two obviously stupid lawsuits.
What I'm waiting for, as soon as their proprietary storage format is documented is people to start posting timings for various networks commercials...
On The Simpsons, on FOX, tonight, the commercials start at exactly 134,293ms into the show, and continue until 218,134ms... Then a program on the TiVo could transfer these timing codes from the PC via the serial cable and actually strip the commercials out, making for a smaller recorded show.
It's pretty simply to remove chunks on an MPEG file, requiring at most a new keyframe for each cut... Not rocket science.
I'd be pissed if Ford voided my whole warranty because I made a change to a specific part of the car... If I change the engine and then take it in for bodywork, the warranty should still apply. But if they don't support the engine, that's no problem with me, I wouldn't switch engines without being able to fix it or having a mechanic who would. And it's not a Ford part, I wouldn't expect otherwise.
Actually, there are consumer protection laws in a lot of places about what warranties can be voided because of... For instance, a clause saying you can't open your PC without voiding the warranty... it's not valid. Your PC is consumer repairable, that's the way PCs are, so they can't void your warranty for using it the way you're supposed to. It'd be like Ford voiding the whole warranty because you repainted.
For a TiVo, which isn't a user-modifiable part (the power supply isn't shielded, etc) I can see them voiding the whole hardware warranty.
But I'd sue them if they wrote a patch in the next software release to test for certain drive serial #s only and die on modified units...
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So, if I buy a car and then use third-party parts for the car (tires, spark plugs, etc) can the car company sue me?
Nobody is 'taking' anything from Verant, they're just choosing not to continue using a redundant service.
Trying to hold someone to a contract they didn't see, let alone freely agree to is ludicrous. The US is the only country that has such stupid laws, and these laws came about only because of the wide-scale bribery of politicians. They may call it lobbying, but large ammounts of cash trade hands, that's a bribe...
The EULA is completely without power, anywhere, except where the UCITA is in effect, that's why they were so eager to bribe politicians to pass it.
Because the DMCA was written specifically to protect things like CSS, content 'access' control system. Writing a new server would be like figuring out how to make your own DVD from scratch...
Nope. Their EULA isn't legally binding (unless you're in one of the stupid states where the government was briber to pass the UCITA). So you can do whatever you want, with regards to reverse engineering, etc. The DMCA doesn't apply either because you're not cracking content protection systems.
Extortion is simple when I demand payment for you to allow you to do something you're legally entitled to do.
If I demand $100 or I'll beat you senseless, that's extortion. If I demand you buy a 'Sidewalk License' or I'll kill your dog, that's extortion. If I sell you a product and then after you pay, offer to sell you the unmentioned activation key for another payment, that's extortion...
Tires aren't server emulators, but the analogy is a good one quite valid in this case.
Michelin tires don't work exclusively with Ford trucks, but if Ford made a truck that took a new type of tire, I'm sure Michelin would make tires for it, if they thought it would sell, regardless of other companies making a similar car. That means those tires would work exclusively with Ford trucks, and it's irrelevant.
And by your standards, Michelin tires DO encourage the theft of Ford trucks. If Ford was the sole maker of tires, you could bet they'd be a LOT more expensive than they are now. The fact that Michelin (and other companies) make tires drives down the total cost of ownership for a truck, and especially the maintenance cost. Now it's cheaper for someone to steal a truck, the maintenance cost is more reasonable...
But that's all irrelevant. Making a product that works with someone else's service is completely legal. Writing contract that after-sale forbid that and tying continues product support to that contract, is illegal.
Server emulators are *completely* legal. Contracts which forbid them are a best void, at worst, attempts at fraud...
Nothing is ripped from anything, I don't understand what you're saying. You use exactly the same client, displaying the same graphics. Nothing is new except the IP you connect to. And as all the same graphics and everything are used, being part of the client not the server, it doesn't matter.
And, I'd like to point out that 'ripping' graphics and sounds out of your copy of Everquest is perfectly legal. If there's an image you'd like to use as a background, go for it. Unless you distribute the images, you're not violating their copyright. They might have an EULA that says otherwise, but it's not legally binding in any way and is actually outright illegal in some ways. (To write a warranty like that for a physical product would get the government and consumer protection groups cracking down *so* quickly...)
Any after-the-fact agreement like that is void, it's extortion. They sell you a product which they claim will do certain things, then they say it'll only do that if you follow a bunch of rules they didn't mention before you paid...
And there's NOTHING illegal about taking advantage of someone else's work in such a way. Is Michelin breaking the law in making tires for Ford trucks?
The software you buy can be used for anything you desire, with the exception of certain copyright restrictions. Microsoft can't tell you that you can't run certain types of programs on their OS, or that you must run it on certain hardware only, etc.
Neither does any program provider have any legal leg to stand on when they declare you can't use an emulated server instead of theirs. Selling the emulated service is perfectly legal.
Network protocols aren't 'creative works' and can't be copyrighted.
Hey, whoever moderated the above post is doing a pretty crappy job.
Instead of moderating Jellicle down, you should moderated Kaa down, for posting an inciteful (not insightful) post on a topic he hadn't read anything about, clearly not even the links in the story.
At least ten posts point out Kaa's argument is completely unrelated to the facts of the situation, yet he receives a +5 score and people who point this out get a 0 Flamebait score for daring to point out that Kaa was talking out of his ass.
If you are a moderator who contributed to this situation, then you're a part of the Slashdot problem, where trolls and idiots get highly moderated while the people with something to say are ignored.
Try to think when handing out moderation verdicts, and read in Oldest First, not Highest Score order, and don't filter out 0 score posts, otherwise you're harming much more then you're helping.
Actually, only the software companies are of the opinion that you're 'renting' a license from them. Everyon eelse, courts, etc, are of the opinion that software is like a book and you can do anything to a program you can do to a book.
The UCITA says otherwise, but it's only in effect in some states and is obviously the product of extensive bribery. For the rest of the world, this bullshit about licensing is just something else to laugh at the software companies for.
You own that software, and have the legal right to use it in any copyright-law compatible manner you see fit. Any license that says otherwise is void, at best, and perhaps grounds to sue for fraud. (If you, for instance, disclaim responsibilities in a warranty that you can't disclaim, you can be sued by a customer.)
So go and buy a 10-user license of NT server and use it to serve files on a 50-computer network, it's not breaking any law or any contract.
>I private Jerry Goldsmith's CDs with a clear conscious, now that I can pay him.
You are aware that you're actually not buying the music, you're tipping the artist, right? It's a small distinction to rational people, but it'll get the lawyers in a huff... To claim your tip gives you the right to the music will probably get them to sue fairtunes.com..
If they think fairtunes.com is selling music, or telling people that they are, even with a 'wink wink, nudge nudge' kind of thing, they'll haul them into court so fast and break them.
Keep tipping the artist, but stop claiming that it has anything to do with purchasing the song.
(And, don't you mean 'pirate', not 'private'?)
You're just lucky, not better at doing anything... I bought a P3-600E recently.. When I got it setup I noticed the temperature was in the 80s (Celcius) from the on-die sensor. This was without tweaking, with the regular fan, running properly, in an open case. This was *way* too hot, the CPU warning sensor from the motherboard went off every now and then which didn't make me feel it was terribly safe. So I went out and got a good fan, an Alpha PEP66, then the temperature rarely went over 38C, which is high, but is fairly normal considering the on-die sensors are a bit higher. So I overclocked... My CPU wasn't stable with the retail Intel fan/heatsink at its rated speed. But with a good cooler, not only was it stable at its rated speed, it was able to run at 800... I actually got it a bit faster but dropped it back to keep everything in spec considering I've got some cheap PCI cards. :(
So, your stuff isn't overclocking just because its all older and doesn't draw as much power into as small an area, not because your reluctance to overclock actually helps it.
Bullshit. They more stole than invented and the only thing they contributed were useless court battles.
And as for why companies are paying... Maybe you don't get out much, but it's trivial for one company to get an injunction against another even without a real leg to stand on, that could cost millions per day to the victim company. Of course they pay them off. It's like paying protection money to the mob, you know they won't protect you, but you also know bad things will happen if you don't play along.
They're not an "intellectual property company", they're a bunch of thieves looking for any way to steal for a company that actually develops something. But, I suppose you'll support them, you sound like someone who holds some of their stock.
Exactly, backups, where needed, aren't against the law.
What remains to be seen, is if it's against the law for companies to provide media you can't backup... In some cases, obviously not, they can provide a DVD game and it's not their fault it costs a lot to back up a DVD, but if they provide a CD with special laser marks burned into it and the game refuses to play off of any other disk, does that unfairly circumvent your right to make a backup copy.
I think it does, and that software companies shot themselves in the foot when they started ignoring requests to replace damaged media... That leaves no choice but to be stuck with a useless product or to make a backup as soon as it's received (or to make a copy of another identical program, as a backup for your broken one.)
I live in Canada.
.CAB viewer on the install files is probably a violation of the 'No Reverse Engineering' clause...
For you, as a US resident, using a crack is completely legal, unless you fall afoul of the DMCA or the UCITA.
The DMCA will get you anywhere in the USA, but shouldn't get because the crack has a usefull purpose beyond breaking copy protection, it allows function on computer where the copy protection doesn't work. Considering the companies rarely do anything about this, they've lost the right to complain (I think, though a judge could be bribed to say otherwise.) Reverse engineering to facilitate compatibility is specifically allowed under the DMCA.
But, if you're in one of the states that ratified the UCITA, using a
So, it depends on where you live and if you have legitimates copies of the games... If you own legit copies and just crack them to play them better or get around a broken CD check, the DMCA can't touch you. If you sell the cracks as such, or are pirating, they can likely get you for another charge under the DMCA as well as regular copyright law.
The UCITA though, makes nearly everything illegal and provides that the software doesn't need to work, so by living in those states, you basically agree that buying an empty box that claims to contain software is just fine...
no rational? how about the fact that they own it, they paid for its development, its distribution?
And everyone in the country kicked in tax money to pay for its protection, under the assumption that it would eventually go into the public trust.
If the developer doesn't work towards this goal, I don't see why the public should work towards protecting their copyright.
God you're fucking dumb, no wonder you're hiding as an AC.
To reprint a 'signed and numbered lithograph' would be fraud, for reasons completely seperate from the copyright issue. If you're too stupid to come up with an analogy that works, don't use them.
If you research any of the history behind copyright law, you'll see it's a two-sided law. You get protection for your work, but ONLY if it's released later into the public domain.
There is no stated provision for allowing someone to copy an abandoned but still copyrighted work, but why do you really think it's bad?
What reason, that anyone could care about, could the author have to let something sit unreleased and probably go completely missing? And if they just want to keep people from playing older games so they'll be more likely to buy new ones, why should we care what they want?
Their 'property rights' are being enforced by our tax money... Every FBI agent tracking down some warez dealer is being payed for by the taxes of the citizens, doesn't this mean we own a little bit of that copyrighted work, that we should stand to collect when the copyright expires? But the movie studios would rather destroy old works, and software companies would rather nobody could play old games, instead of allowing the people that which they payed for.
If they're not living up to their end of the copyright laws, don't bother living up to your end... It's a pretty simple thing.
They demand protection, payed for by our tax money to keep piracy down, in compliance with copyright law, but they refuse to repay that tax money with their creative works later, that's a direct violation of that social contract, imho.
But it's only one of the more blatant. Usually they just write one-sided laws that they don't want to break and then pay some corrupt politicians to pass them. Not hard to be cynical.
In a more perfect world, whiners like you would report to the proper suicide booths as a public service.
Starcraft and Broodwars are the worst I've seen. They install fine, but then they'll never recognize the CD in my system. I have two cd readers, and I installed from both, and it didn't work either time. When I downloaded their CD tester it declared my CD drivers were invalid, that I'd have to buy a new one to play their game...
... that doesn't get them anymore sales.
So I went off to astalavista.box.sk and downloaded a crack.
I'll *never* buy a Blizzard game again, the email I sent them complaining about how their copy protection system kept me from playing their game went completely unanswered. I guess once they sell it, they don't care if it works or not
And it's not like I have an old PC, all the components are new. The oldest is my 2x DVD drive, the 48x CD drive I just got months ago. (And I tried to use my old SC/BW CDs in the new system.)
So, seeing as how much fun it was to be able to play without throwing the CD in, I went and cracked all of my games. Nothing currently requires the CD in the drive. It's wonderful.
(And in doing so, I researched a bit of the law... It's not illegal in any way to crack software. The exception being if you live in the USA, in a state that has ratified the UCITA, where the 'no reverse engineering or modification' clause is binding.)
So, take a lesson from this and simply crack all your games. Not only do they work better but you don't have to mess with keeping the CDs handy.
(Even Q3A cracked, and allows me to play online (with my legit CD Key)... I was impressed.)
Laws also need an easier review process where if a case comes up that is against the spirit of the law but follows the letter of the law, that law could be rewritten.
This isn't to say that we should all follow the spirit of laws and never the letter, but today it's seeming that the spirit of the law is lost...
The RIAA mde one little wording change to a barely-related bill and classified recordings as works-for-hire.
Disney/MPAA/etc are extending copyrights until they're past the lifetime of the average citizen. (Currently 75 years, male life expectancy is 73 in the USA, last I heard...) If something was written when you were born, it'd still be copyrighted the day you died, in an average case.
The DMCA was supposed to stop piracy, but was written in such a way that it makes any attempt to circumvent the illegal sale restrictions (region coding, forced commercials, etc) illegal.
It's hard to have any respect for the laws when they're obviously written for the sole benefit of the people who pay to have them written.
Exactly!
Copyright was a balance, between restricting the rights of the people and helping them via encouraging more works to be created.
Not being allowed to copy something during a reasonable ammount of time lets a publisher make money by doing that copying and selling. Like a patent, it was a temporary monopoly to encourage further development. But copyrights have changed a lot since the early days, growing longer and longer, and being seen as an absolute right instead of a trade-off.
Disney and other large companies have pushed to have insanely long copyrights and would undoubtedly go for ones that wouldn't ever expire if they thought they could get away with it. But what would be the other side in this tradeoff? The public pays the FBI who enforce copyright, the public are the ones against whom this copyright is being enforced. Where's the balance?
Then, as you say, when copyright is used to stifle publication, it's serving exactly opposite of what it was intended to do.
Copyright laws need to be completely revamped, to where they help content creators only as much as they help content consumers. Unless both sides get something out of it, it's not fair to expect one side to give up a lot of rights to give the other side a government enforced monopoly.
Nope.
Selling the pictures, or the right to view the pictures would be.
There may or may not be fair-use protection for the users of the pictures, considering they wrote an article about the upcoming hardware.
They could have been completely safe if they'd hired an artist to draw the cubes, from the pictures, and simply displayed an artist's rendition. This completly gets around copyright issues (because it's not the same picture) and would let them display it.
The simple fact that there's an upcoming product could never be considered a trade secret, there's nothing there that a trade is based on. Trade secrets are things like the Coke-a-cola formula, how they get the caramel into the milk chocolate, etc.
That said, the legal climate these days allows suing with no rational basis and because even in malicious lawsuits, in civil court, the defendant has to pick up the tab which means that big companies always win.
IMHO There should be a HUGE punishment for malicious lawsuits, maybe 10% of a company's gross profits, or something. And yeah, that's designed to put the majority of offenders out of business after one or two obviously stupid lawsuits.
What I'm waiting for, as soon as their proprietary storage format is documented is people to start posting timings for various networks commercials...
On The Simpsons, on FOX, tonight, the commercials start at exactly 134,293ms into the show, and continue until 218,134ms... Then a program on the TiVo could transfer these timing codes from the PC via the serial cable and actually strip the commercials out, making for a smaller recorded show.
It's pretty simply to remove chunks on an MPEG file, requiring at most a new keyframe for each cut... Not rocket science.
I'd be pissed if Ford voided my whole warranty because I made a change to a specific part of the car... If I change the engine and then take it in for bodywork, the warranty should still apply. But if they don't support the engine, that's no problem with me, I wouldn't switch engines without being able to fix it or having a mechanic who would. And it's not a Ford part, I wouldn't expect otherwise.
Actually, there are consumer protection laws in a lot of places about what warranties can be voided because of... For instance, a clause saying you can't open your PC without voiding the warranty... it's not valid. Your PC is consumer repairable, that's the way PCs are, so they can't void your warranty for using it the way you're supposed to. It'd be like Ford voiding the whole warranty because you repainted.
For a TiVo, which isn't a user-modifiable part (the power supply isn't shielded, etc) I can see them voiding the whole hardware warranty.
But I'd sue them if they wrote a patch in the next software release to test for certain drive serial #s only and die on modified units...
In games that support it, do video in a window and drag the window across all the monitors. Should work, but be a bit slower than fullscreen mode.