What about the right to live your life without being brutally killed?
What makes you think that more gun laws will make me less likely to be brutally killed? The people doing the brutal killings are doing it with illegal guns anyway! You don't get it... the guns are illegal to start with.
Not only that, but attempts to show a correlation between gun laws and crime have consistently failed. Why does the rural state of VT have the most permissive gun laws in the area, yet the least violent crime?
A million people murdered, just so a few groups of rednecks and gun freaks are free to carry their weapons around and shoot at signposts.
Your bigotry is showing here. This isn't about "rednecks and signposts," or "freaks." This is about freedom. The foundation of the US is that the people have the power and right to replace their government, through the use of force if ncessary, when the government is corrupt. If you take away the guns, you take away the last illusion that this right still exists.
It's simple really, some rights are more sacred than others, nothing comes for free and *everything* is a compromise, I really think the USA gov has its priorities wrong
You're entitled to that opinion. Everyone has a scale which shows how much freedom they are willing to sacrifice in exchange for security. Some folks would consent to mandatory daily strip searches in their schools, if it meant one less murder a year. Some want to outlaw tobacco. Others would like to see all drugs legalized, and no gun laws. Most of us fall in the middle somewhere.
Don't take this as flamebait, but just how is the US freer than anywhere else?
It's all a question of theory vs. implementation. At its core, the United States as a Constitution, a Declaration of Independence... a set of principles by which the government was founded. These principles make our government different. Our government was founded by the people, for the people. Whether or not the founding fathers were just as corrupt as the people now isn't the issue -- the issue is the words on paper, and the power they have.
The current implementation of this government may stray quite far from these principles, but the people have the ultimate power to vote out these guys and put people in place who will change that.
It's oh-so-easy to say "All the legislators are corrupt" and ignore the issue from then on. It's so much harder to actually vote for people to replace those corrupt legislators, to find clueful candidates and get them into office, to spread the word that these people exist and are need our support.
I like to hold on to the belief that at its core, the US is a great nation mired in a crappy implementation. If the people get educated, they will eventually correct the implementation.
In reality... as long as their TV shows are on, most of them don't care. And the same corrupt lawmakers will stay in office, and the big businesses will run the government. But if I believe it will stay that way, then they've won. As long as some of the people hold the belief that things can get better, things might get better.
Over the past few years I've seen 2 classes of devices: The cheap (around $150-$200), but powerful Palms/Visors and the expensive WinCE devices. Anything in the middle usually includes wireless (like the Palm VII) and doesn't seem to be as popular.
The other market is the "Executive" market, where folks are willing to shell out an extra hundred dollars for the metal case, just because it looks cooler and/or more professional. From a pure techie point of view, it's silly. But you show your average VP a Visor Deluxe and a Visor Edge, and he's going to buy the Edge. It looks sexier, it's more expensive... it must be better!
Homicide rate by firearms in the United States in 1997: 4.61 deaths per 100k citizens.
Homicide rate in the UK: 0.11 per 100k citizens.
So you suck.
You're suggesting it's worthwhile to sacrifice freedom to save 3 people's lives per 100,000?
I'm not posting this as flamebait, but honestly, give me the freedom rather than the safety, please!
This is an issue my European friends just can't grok... that we understand the cost of our freedoms and accept it (well, some of us do). Unfortunately, more and more of us just see the statistics and would rather live under an iron fist if it meant their kids were safer....
Asking out of curiousity, have you donated to them?
Yes, I have -- but less than 10 bucks. Assuming they keep their donation system up and running, I plan to donate about 25 dollars a year. I'd give it all at once (better for them) but I like the idea I can stop donating if I find the site starts sucking for some reason:-).
I agree almost with what you say. Basically, the near future is not so bleak as people would think.
People have been trading illegal bits (pirated software, digitized music and video, whatever) for a long time. They will still do so, just perhaps not with the ease of Napster. The reason Napster got the attention it did was because of its scope. If you use Aimster, or opennap, or IRC channels, or usenet, or whatever, and trade with a small group of friends/strangers -- nobody is going to notice. File trading on IRC is not going to make the cover of Time. And by extension with that old "7 Degrees of Kevin Bacon" you'll eventually be able to track down all the music you want, by friends-of-friends-of-friends, etc.... Just not instantly.
If something like Napster (huge, open) exists, and is somehow (boggling the mind) regulated to only trade legal bits, that's even better. It gives you the ability to find the lesser-known music you might otherwise not get, stuff that people are distributing through these methods intentionally, bootleg live performances that the artist has allowed to be distributed, etc.
Now, the distant future may be more bleak. Through bullying of the legal system, bullying of the standards, etc... the big companies will eventually make it illegal or technically difficult to copy/time-shift our recordings. However, as has been stated multiple times here... if you can _hear it_ you can _record it_ and nothing can really stop that.
Well, it's worth maybe... 25 bucks a year. If PA were a monthly magazine, with everything it has in it, I would probably subscribe for that much. On the other hand, it works so much better as a web site.
PA introduced me to CounterStrike. Though this has largely been regarded as a poor move in my wife's mind, my friends and I are pretty happy about it. Not to mention Bejeweled! And this great comic, which still elicits laughter.
Heck, I used to pay 30 bucks a year for PC Gamer, and it sucked. And it was chock full of ads. At PA, there are no ads. It's just great content, seemingly tailor-made for my consumption.
Should PA be their full time job?
Why shouldn't it be? If they're good enough at what they do, and the economy can support them, why not?
Damnit, if I had been up earlier, I would have posted this myself. And I don't even have any mod points to mod it up. So I'll just reply and say kudos.
"Once all the free online music services for the masses have been eliminated the RIAA can step in to fix the MP3 cravings with an online service that charges a mere $10 - $20 a month. "
All hatred of the industry aside, I might be willing to pay a subscription fee for unlimited high quality downloads of a huge database.
I would _never_ pay for Napster. It relies on the lowest common denominator; a bunch of kids, more or less:). You get mis-titled songs, you get poor sample rates, you get songs cut off half way through, and you get the limited selection of people who happen to be online when you're online, and happen to like what you like. That's why I'll never pay for Napster. It's a novelty, at best. I have used it to find nostalgic 80s singles, to grab TV theme songs, and to grab 1-hit wonders (instead of taping them off the radio) who sit on my hard drive for about as long as they last on the radio. Would I pay $100 a year for that novelty? Never.
Would I pay 100$ a year for a legal substitute for buying CDs? Perhaps.
I take _all_ my CD's back and forth to work. All 200 or so of them.
I also scratch a fair number of CDs taking them out of the wacky book I have to use to carry that many CDs. Making backup copies of the CDs would avoid that problem. I'm just too lazy to do it, honestly.
And then there's the making of your own 'mix' CDs, home-grown "best of" type compilations, etc. There's even (gasp, I know) making a nice little mix CD for a friend of bands s/he might like (Is that illegal, or fair use...? The world may never know).
The point isn't even why... the point is we're allowed to, and there's enough reason for us to want to that our right to shouldn't be destroyed because the industry is afraid of piracy.
I didn't say the huge loss of income was today, or even tomorrow. But it's coming.
And even if it isn't, it's potential loss of revenue. Folks have more disposable income than ever (well, maybe not so much now as 8 months ago, but...) and so maybe they think we actually _would_ spend more than we are, even though we're spending more than we used to.
Yes, there is a vocal contingent of anti-intellectual property folks out there who want nothing more than to see all copyrights fade away.
But there also a bunch of us moderate folks who are annoyed that we're being stopped from doing things we have every legal right to do, through the power of these media companies.
If I buy a CD, I can do with it whatever I want, for my own use. I can copy it onto tape so I can listen to it in my car, since I don't have a CD player in my car. I can burn it into MP3s so I can have a 1000-song jukebox in my PC. I can make another CD copy of it, so I can archive my original and not lose anything when the CD gets scratched (which does happen, this isn't a weird "what if" scenario).
The recording industry knows these things are perfectly legal, but they are so greedy they are willing to sacrifice our ability to do these perfectly legal things to secure for themselves a few more dollars.
Folks have been talking about this since at least May 2000 (thanks to Google for quick search results):
http://www.prostudio.com/studiosound/may00/comm_ eu r.html
So this isn't really _new_ news. On the other hand, the fact that it's being tested probably is.
The real story here is something we've known all along. The big companies see a huge loss of income from the teching up of the people. As we get access to cd burners, computers with broadband, etc... they see their traditional revenue streams eventually drying up. They're grasping for straws.
It sucks, really. They couldn't make it illegal to copy content for fair use, so instead they just standardize it out of existence. Since they're all in bed together anyway, we all stand to lose in the end.
They won't be happy until the only way you can hear music is a streaming connection, for which you will pay by the second....
I agree -- a lawyer is going to be necessary here. First off, you probably signed an employee agreement when you started at this job. Many of these give the company rights to work you do, even in your spare time, if it can be shown to somehow relate to what you've done at work (this could be as broadly interpreted as 'a software project,' if you're not careful).
Armed with a copy of your agreement, seek the advice of a professional. Yes, he's going to cost you money, but in the end you're probably going to make out better.
Failing that, tell them a little lie. Tell them you have something you did a couple years back which is very similar to what the customer wants. You're willing to submit it for their inspection, and let them buy it off you and re-sell it to their clients, at a good price, as long as it's clear this is your software not theirs. As they mull this over, work all night every night to wrap the thing up.:-)
Simple enough -- I make copies of a file, and transfer it to another computer using aimster. It's a distributed backup solution.
The guy on the other end promises, by using the software, that he will not open those files unless he knows he can do so, legally.
Again, it's a distributed storage solution. In the end, the "legit" use for this service is to store legit copies of things I own on other computers for legal purposes. If my house burns down, but I've "aimstered" all my files to my work machine (or my friend's machine), I can "aimster" them back when I rebuild my house.
The previous example is good -- if I burn copies of all my CD's, drive them to the local bank and put them in a safety deposit box, no laws are being broken. But if the bank employee goes into that safety deposit box, opens it up, and listens to my CDs, he's doing something illegal. Just like if my buddy goes into his aimster folders and opens the files I sent him. You don't sue the bank here, you charge the employee with a crime. Likewise you don't sue aimster, you charge the user with a crime (if you have reason to believe he's breaking the law and can get a warrant to search his computer).
After reading the Wired story, I still had some confusion, so I went to aimster's site and read the new TOS.
Basically, the new TOS has two big clauses:
1. The network is encrypted and private, and by the DCMA you can't break that encryption.
2. The whole goal of AIMSTER is to distribute to yourself files you already own, or to collaborate with a known group of individuals on files you own and can legally share with them (i.e. a text document you are editing together).
You also agree not to copy files out of your aimster folders into other folders, unless those folders are also shared on aimster. And (here's the key) you agree not to open a file in any aimster folder unless you know for sure it's legally yours to open.
I think what they've effectively done is say "Look, there's a legit market for distributed storage of files. We've done our best to make sure it's used legally. If you think someone is using this service illegally, pursue them, don't pursue us." They've also made it non-trivial to gather evidence to show the service is being used illegally.
I think it's fairly clever. I'm trying to find a way in which they're breaking a law, and I can't. Of, course, IANAL:). But I don't see how this is different than:
- Using an encryption program to encrypt some files
- Placing those files on your machine in a shared folder, which is password protected
- Using a service like AIM/ICQ to tell your buddies about the password-protected share, including the password and directions on how to decrypt.
Who can you sue in the above scenario? Only the end user is breaking the law, if any law is being broken. I think aimster is just wrapping all 3 of those things into one convenient package.
Go back in time (a mere decade, decade and a half). Basically, to do anything in your OS, you need some way to edit text files. With MS-Dos, you got EDIT. With Win 3.1, you got notepad. Could they have given you nothing but EDLN and gotten away with it? Yes. But what user wants to edit their config.sys using edln!? So MS provides a viable editor for their users.
Now, were there people developing editors before EDIT and NotePad were given away for free? Surely. But after this, it was certainly not viable to try and sell straight editors any more, except for very specialized tasks.
Now, fast forward. All help files are HTML. Internet access is the standard, not the exception. To have a modern OS, you need a web browser. Were other people making browsers? Sure, but they wanted to (gasp) charge you for them. So Microsoft gives me one for free, that I can replace with a purchased one if I want. Just like the text editors back in the late 80s.
All of a sudden, there's no business in web browsers anymore. Just like there's no business in text editors any more. I don't see how the two are fundamentally different. I don't see backup vendors crying foul over MS bundling a backup program with their OS. I don't see file system visualization people crying foul over MS bundling a graphical file explorer. It's accepted that these are necessary things for a modern OS, and if you try to stay in the business of selling something that used to be optional and is now fundamental, you're going to lose money.
I'm not trying to be a pain, I'm just looking for something that can answer this question that's been nagging me for years now.
I saw that listing, actually -- but it was in Italy not US. I'm sure that had something to do with it.
Also, specifically Blizzard had applied for the TM in terms of motion pictures, so it's clear that New Line didn't do their research before chosing their name.
I don't know that this is as silly as you all make it sound. Clearly Blizzard owns the TM "Diablo" as refers to computer games. Yes, we know it's a real word in another language. Not the point. The point is, I can't make a computer game called Diablo and expect to get away with it.
The question is how broad of a trademark Bliz got. More and more movies are being made of video games (whether this is a good trend or not, I leave as an exercise for the reader). It is reasonable to expect that the trademark protection also applies to related media.
Now, if there was something Bliz was supposed to do in order to secure the TM on related media, and they didn't -- they lose in my book. But if they were smart and secured it, I have no problem with them exercising that right.
Lots of trademarks are normal names. Doom, for example. Could I make a movie and call it Doom (ok, ignore for a minute whether anyone has the rights to it) without expecting someone to at least _try_ and prevent me?
How did you get "insightful" mod points from that??
A: You can tell the difference between 30 and 200 fps. Maybe not between 70 and 200, but 30 and 200, yes. And a system that gives you 30 fps in one place will bog down to 10 fps in another. If you can get 70 fps, it will likely only bog down to 30 fps when things get ugly.
B: Getting tech like this out there allows game developers to push the boundaries even further. Now granted, we didn't need the explosion of colored lights that happened when the voodoo2 came out, but still, the point is good. As the tech grows, the developers can use a toolset much richer than they had before. Look at the differences between Quake 1 and Quake 3. The difference between a Voodoo 1 and GeForce2. Imagine that level of difference from what we have today....
C: Your example uses 1024x768. Why should we settle for such a lame approximation of reality. My desktop is 1600x1200. I drop to 1024x768 for my gaming, because anything higher causes noticable performance degredation. I used to settle for 512x384. Now I can't imagine going back to that. And in a few years, I won't imagine being forced to go back to 1024x768.
Nobody's forcing you to buy these new toys. Not everyone needs them. Personally, I can't see spending 10 grand on a home stereo -- after a certain level, they all sound the same to me. But I surely don't say it's "against all common sense" that someone might. I buy my toys, you buy yours, and we'll all live happily ever after.
I'm not sure your doomsday vision is really that bleak, though. We already have online communities where all the physical artifacts of your existence are missing. You don't know if I'm a one-eyed midget with parkinson's disease. You don't know if I'm a young black male or an old silver-haired grandmother. You only know me for my thoughts, and my ability to express those thoughts.
Some people may say that we're losing something by interacting in this way -- but what we're gaining is so much better. It used to be people were forced to form communities with those around them -- purely due to geographic coincidence. Now I can form communities with people who think like I do, who appreciate what I appreciate, and who value what I value. All from the comfort of my home. I haven't been shut in -- I've opened up even more!
Surely as our technology improves, this will continue (note I'm not suggesting better graphics cards will lead to an increase of this effect, just that it's already a beneficial phenomena and this can't harm it in any way). Sure -- if we all had this virtual world, and we all could look however we wanted, you might see some physical prejudices creeping back in.... On the other hand, imagine the joy a wheelchair-bound or paralyzed person might have from moving their avatars around a truly interactive artificial world....
Slashdot Mirror
What makes you think that more gun laws will make me less likely to be brutally killed? The people doing the brutal killings are doing it with illegal guns anyway! You don't get it
Not only that, but attempts to show a correlation between gun laws and crime have consistently failed. Why does the rural state of VT have the most permissive gun laws in the area, yet the least violent crime?
A million people murdered, just so a few groups of rednecks and gun freaks are free to carry their weapons around and shoot at signposts.
Your bigotry is showing here. This isn't about "rednecks and signposts," or "freaks." This is about freedom. The foundation of the US is that the people have the power and right to replace their government, through the use of force if ncessary, when the government is corrupt. If you take away the guns, you take away the last illusion that this right still exists.
It's simple really, some rights are more sacred than others, nothing comes for free and *everything* is a compromise, I really think the USA gov has its priorities wrong
You're entitled to that opinion. Everyone has a scale which shows how much freedom they are willing to sacrifice in exchange for security. Some folks would consent to mandatory daily strip searches in their schools, if it meant one less murder a year. Some want to outlaw tobacco. Others would like to see all drugs legalized, and no gun laws. Most of us fall in the middle somewhere.
It's all a question of theory vs. implementation. At its core, the United States as a Constitution, a Declaration of Independence
The current implementation of this government may stray quite far from these principles, but the people have the ultimate power to vote out these guys and put people in place who will change that.
It's oh-so-easy to say "All the legislators are corrupt" and ignore the issue from then on. It's so much harder to actually vote for people to replace those corrupt legislators, to find clueful candidates and get them into office, to spread the word that these people exist and are need our support.
I like to hold on to the belief that at its core, the US is a great nation mired in a crappy implementation. If the people get educated, they will eventually correct the implementation.
In reality
The other market is the "Executive" market, where folks are willing to shell out an extra hundred dollars for the metal case, just because it looks cooler and/or more professional. From a pure techie point of view, it's silly. But you show your average VP a Visor Deluxe and a Visor Edge, and he's going to buy the Edge. It looks sexier, it's more expensive ... it must be better!
Homicide rate in the UK: 0.11 per 100k citizens.
So you suck.
You're suggesting it's worthwhile to sacrifice freedom to save 3 people's lives per 100,000?
I'm not posting this as flamebait, but honestly, give me the freedom rather than the safety, please!
This is an issue my European friends just can't grok... that we understand the cost of our freedoms and accept it (well, some of us do). Unfortunately, more and more of us just see the statistics and would rather live under an iron fist if it meant their kids were safer....
Yes, I have -- but less than 10 bucks. Assuming they keep their donation system up and running, I plan to donate about 25 dollars a year. I'd give it all at once (better for them) but I like the idea I can stop donating if I find the site starts sucking for some reason :-).
I agree almost with what you say. Basically, the near future is not so bleak as people would think.
... the big companies will eventually make it illegal or technically difficult to copy/time-shift our recordings. However, as has been stated multiple times here ... if you can _hear it_ you can _record it_ and nothing can really stop that.
People have been trading illegal bits (pirated software, digitized music and video, whatever) for a long time. They will still do so, just perhaps not with the ease of Napster. The reason Napster got the attention it did was because of its scope. If you use Aimster, or opennap, or IRC channels, or usenet, or whatever, and trade with a small group of friends/strangers -- nobody is going to notice. File trading on IRC is not going to make the cover of Time. And by extension with that old "7 Degrees of Kevin Bacon" you'll eventually be able to track down all the music you want, by friends-of-friends-of-friends, etc.... Just not instantly.
If something like Napster (huge, open) exists, and is somehow (boggling the mind) regulated to only trade legal bits, that's even better. It gives you the ability to find the lesser-known music you might otherwise not get, stuff that people are distributing through these methods intentionally, bootleg live performances that the artist has allowed to be distributed, etc.
Now, the distant future may be more bleak. Through bullying of the legal system, bullying of the standards, etc
Well, it's worth maybe ... 25 bucks a year. If PA were a monthly magazine, with everything it has in it, I would probably subscribe for that much. On the other hand, it works so much better as a web site.
PA introduced me to CounterStrike. Though this has largely been regarded as a poor move in my wife's mind, my friends and I are pretty happy about it. Not to mention Bejeweled! And this great comic, which still elicits laughter.
Heck, I used to pay 30 bucks a year for PC Gamer, and it sucked. And it was chock full of ads. At PA, there are no ads. It's just great content, seemingly tailor-made for my consumption.
Should PA be their full time job?
Why shouldn't it be? If they're good enough at what they do, and the economy can support them, why not?
"I mean, I love PA, I really do, but I could host it on my (pretty modest) salary, in my spare time"
You must have more spare time than I do. I go to sites like PA because I don't have the spare time to dig around the net and find the things they do.
Damnit, if I had been up earlier, I would have posted this myself. And I don't even have any mod points to mod it up. So I'll just reply and say kudos.
Do you have stairs in your house?
"Once all the free online music services for the masses have been eliminated the RIAA can step in to fix the MP3 cravings with an online service that charges a mere $10 - $20 a month. "
:). You get mis-titled songs, you get poor sample rates, you get songs cut off half way through, and you get the limited selection of people who happen to be online when you're online, and happen to like what you like. That's why I'll never pay for Napster. It's a novelty, at best. I have used it to find nostalgic 80s singles, to grab TV theme songs, and to grab 1-hit wonders (instead of taping them off the radio) who sit on my hard drive for about as long as they last on the radio. Would I pay $100 a year for that novelty? Never.
All hatred of the industry aside, I might be willing to pay a subscription fee for unlimited high quality downloads of a huge database.
I would _never_ pay for Napster. It relies on the lowest common denominator; a bunch of kids, more or less
Would I pay 100$ a year for a legal substitute for buying CDs? Perhaps.
I'll have to look into those. I have a couple of CD's I don't like enough to buy second copies of, but are damaged enough to need a little extra help.
Thanks....
I take _all_ my CD's back and forth to work. All 200 or so of them.
... the point is we're allowed to, and there's enough reason for us to want to that our right to shouldn't be destroyed because the industry is afraid of piracy.
I also scratch a fair number of CDs taking them out of the wacky book I have to use to carry that many CDs. Making backup copies of the CDs would avoid that problem. I'm just too lazy to do it, honestly.
And then there's the making of your own 'mix' CDs, home-grown "best of" type compilations, etc. There's even (gasp, I know) making a nice little mix CD for a friend of bands s/he might like (Is that illegal, or fair use...? The world may never know).
The point isn't even why
I didn't say the huge loss of income was today, or even tomorrow. But it's coming.
...) and so maybe they think we actually _would_ spend more than we are, even though we're spending more than we used to.
And even if it isn't, it's potential loss of revenue. Folks have more disposable income than ever (well, maybe not so much now as 8 months ago, but
Yes, there is a vocal contingent of anti-intellectual property folks out there who want nothing more than to see all copyrights fade away.
But there also a bunch of us moderate folks who are annoyed that we're being stopped from doing things we have every legal right to do, through the power of these media companies.
If I buy a CD, I can do with it whatever I want, for my own use. I can copy it onto tape so I can listen to it in my car, since I don't have a CD player in my car. I can burn it into MP3s so I can have a 1000-song jukebox in my PC. I can make another CD copy of it, so I can archive my original and not lose anything when the CD gets scratched (which does happen, this isn't a weird "what if" scenario).
The recording industry knows these things are perfectly legal, but they are so greedy they are willing to sacrifice our ability to do these perfectly legal things to secure for themselves a few more dollars.
Folks have been talking about this since at least May 2000 (thanks to Google for quick search results):
_ eu r.html
http://www.prostudio.com/studiosound/may00/comm
So this isn't really _new_ news. On the other hand, the fact that it's being tested probably is.
The real story here is something we've known all along. The big companies see a huge loss of income from the teching up of the people. As we get access to cd burners, computers with broadband, etc... they see their traditional revenue streams eventually drying up. They're grasping for straws.
It sucks, really. They couldn't make it illegal to copy content for fair use, so instead they just standardize it out of existence. Since they're all in bed together anyway, we all stand to lose in the end.
They won't be happy until the only way you can hear music is a streaming connection, for which you will pay by the second....
I agree -- a lawyer is going to be necessary here. First off, you probably signed an employee agreement when you started at this job. Many of these give the company rights to work you do, even in your spare time, if it can be shown to somehow relate to what you've done at work (this could be as broadly interpreted as 'a software project,' if you're not careful).
:-)
Armed with a copy of your agreement, seek the advice of a professional. Yes, he's going to cost you money, but in the end you're probably going to make out better.
Failing that, tell them a little lie. Tell them you have something you did a couple years back which is very similar to what the customer wants. You're willing to submit it for their inspection, and let them buy it off you and re-sell it to their clients, at a good price, as long as it's clear this is your software not theirs. As they mull this over, work all night every night to wrap the thing up.
Simple enough -- I make copies of a file, and transfer it to another computer using aimster. It's a distributed backup solution.
The guy on the other end promises, by using the software, that he will not open those files unless he knows he can do so, legally.
Again, it's a distributed storage solution. In the end, the "legit" use for this service is to store legit copies of things I own on other computers for legal purposes. If my house burns down, but I've "aimstered" all my files to my work machine (or my friend's machine), I can "aimster" them back when I rebuild my house.
The previous example is good -- if I burn copies of all my CD's, drive them to the local bank and put them in a safety deposit box, no laws are being broken. But if the bank employee goes into that safety deposit box, opens it up, and listens to my CDs, he's doing something illegal. Just like if my buddy goes into his aimster folders and opens the files I sent him. You don't sue the bank here, you charge the employee with a crime. Likewise you don't sue aimster, you charge the user with a crime (if you have reason to believe he's breaking the law and can get a warrant to search his computer).
After reading the Wired story, I still had some confusion, so I went to aimster's site and read the new TOS.
:). But I don't see how this is different than:
Basically, the new TOS has two big clauses:
1. The network is encrypted and private, and by the DCMA you can't break that encryption.
2. The whole goal of AIMSTER is to distribute to yourself files you already own, or to collaborate with a known group of individuals on files you own and can legally share with them (i.e. a text document you are editing together).
You also agree not to copy files out of your aimster folders into other folders, unless those folders are also shared on aimster. And (here's the key) you agree not to open a file in any aimster folder unless you know for sure it's legally yours to open.
I think what they've effectively done is say "Look, there's a legit market for distributed storage of files. We've done our best to make sure it's used legally. If you think someone is using this service illegally, pursue them, don't pursue us." They've also made it non-trivial to gather evidence to show the service is being used illegally.
I think it's fairly clever. I'm trying to find a way in which they're breaking a law, and I can't. Of, course, IANAL
- Using an encryption program to encrypt some files
- Placing those files on your machine in a shared folder, which is password protected
- Using a service like AIM/ICQ to tell your buddies about the password-protected share, including the password and directions on how to decrypt.
Who can you sue in the above scenario? Only the end user is breaking the law, if any law is being broken. I think aimster is just wrapping all 3 of those things into one convenient package.
Good job, guys.
... I guess ... I don't know that I agree, though.
Go back in time (a mere decade, decade and a half). Basically, to do anything in your OS, you need some way to edit text files. With MS-Dos, you got EDIT. With Win 3.1, you got notepad. Could they have given you nothing but EDLN and gotten away with it? Yes. But what user wants to edit their config.sys using edln!? So MS provides a viable editor for their users.
Now, were there people developing editors before EDIT and NotePad were given away for free? Surely. But after this, it was certainly not viable to try and sell straight editors any more, except for very specialized tasks.
Now, fast forward. All help files are HTML. Internet access is the standard, not the exception. To have a modern OS, you need a web browser. Were other people making browsers? Sure, but they wanted to (gasp) charge you for them. So Microsoft gives me one for free, that I can replace with a purchased one if I want. Just like the text editors back in the late 80s.
All of a sudden, there's no business in web browsers anymore. Just like there's no business in text editors any more. I don't see how the two are fundamentally different. I don't see backup vendors crying foul over MS bundling a backup program with their OS. I don't see file system visualization people crying foul over MS bundling a graphical file explorer. It's accepted that these are necessary things for a modern OS, and if you try to stay in the business of selling something that used to be optional and is now fundamental, you're going to lose money.
I'm not trying to be a pain, I'm just looking for something that can answer this question that's been nagging me for years now.
Nobody has ever effectively explained to my why Microsoft's bundling of IE is any different than their bundling of NotePad.
[The post earlier about default home pages seems to have more to do with it than the bundling of a product, IMHO].
I saw that listing, actually -- but it was in Italy not US. I'm sure that had something to do with it.
Also, specifically Blizzard had applied for the TM in terms of motion pictures, so it's clear that New Line didn't do their research before chosing their name.
I don't know that this is as silly as you all make it sound. Clearly Blizzard owns the TM "Diablo" as refers to computer games. Yes, we know it's a real word in another language. Not the point. The point is, I can't make a computer game called Diablo and expect to get away with it.
The question is how broad of a trademark Bliz got. More and more movies are being made of video games (whether this is a good trend or not, I leave as an exercise for the reader). It is reasonable to expect that the trademark protection also applies to related media.
Now, if there was something Bliz was supposed to do in order to secure the TM on related media, and they didn't -- they lose in my book. But if they were smart and secured it, I have no problem with them exercising that right.
Lots of trademarks are normal names. Doom, for example. Could I make a movie and call it Doom (ok, ignore for a minute whether anyone has the rights to it) without expecting someone to at least _try_ and prevent me?
The word is Diablo.
:-)
As in, Spanish for the Devil.
Your reasoning applies, but...
How did you get "insightful" mod points from that??
A: You can tell the difference between 30 and 200 fps. Maybe not between 70 and 200, but 30 and 200, yes. And a system that gives you 30 fps in one place will bog down to 10 fps in another. If you can get 70 fps, it will likely only bog down to 30 fps when things get ugly.
B: Getting tech like this out there allows game developers to push the boundaries even further. Now granted, we didn't need the explosion of colored lights that happened when the voodoo2 came out, but still, the point is good. As the tech grows, the developers can use a toolset much richer than they had before. Look at the differences between Quake 1 and Quake 3. The difference between a Voodoo 1 and GeForce2. Imagine that level of difference from what we have today....
C: Your example uses 1024x768. Why should we settle for such a lame approximation of reality. My desktop is 1600x1200. I drop to 1024x768 for my gaming, because anything higher causes noticable performance degredation. I used to settle for 512x384. Now I can't imagine going back to that. And in a few years, I won't imagine being forced to go back to 1024x768.
Nobody's forcing you to buy these new toys. Not everyone needs them. Personally, I can't see spending 10 grand on a home stereo -- after a certain level, they all sound the same to me. But I surely don't say it's "against all common sense" that someone might. I buy my toys, you buy yours, and we'll all live happily ever after.
I'm not sure your doomsday vision is really that bleak, though. We already have online communities where all the physical artifacts of your existence are missing. You don't know if I'm a one-eyed midget with parkinson's disease. You don't know if I'm a young black male or an old silver-haired grandmother. You only know me for my thoughts, and my ability to express those thoughts.
Some people may say that we're losing something by interacting in this way -- but what we're gaining is so much better. It used to be people were forced to form communities with those around them -- purely due to geographic coincidence. Now I can form communities with people who think like I do, who appreciate what I appreciate, and who value what I value. All from the comfort of my home. I haven't been shut in -- I've opened up even more!
Surely as our technology improves, this will continue (note I'm not suggesting better graphics cards will lead to an increase of this effect, just that it's already a beneficial phenomena and this can't harm it in any way). Sure -- if we all had this virtual world, and we all could look however we wanted, you might see some physical prejudices creeping back in.... On the other hand, imagine the joy a wheelchair-bound or paralyzed person might have from moving their avatars around a truly interactive artificial world....