The line to sue the gun companies was already too long. Colt, Remington, S&W, etc. are second on the list behind tobacco companies as targets for lawsuits, there people had to choose companies that will still be around when it comes time to collect their money.
I wonder whether micropayments will ever catch on. Musicians playing in the street seem to attract a few 'donations' but I wonder how much of that has to do with visibility (of the person who pays)
One solution for him would be to offer some sort of payment form via some banner or advertising to record companies which I haven't seen on any article.
Please visit eFront.com to get your site hosted and use a banner ad payment system. Thatreallyworks!
the REAL solution for Napster is to go Gnutella. You know, multiple anonymous servers, except for Napster, just rotate among them.
Just like with Gnutella clients, the company from which you download your client only sells the client, not the service
The problem of contributory infringement is still there, the same violation of copyright law that is probably going to hang Napster. Even though you only sell, or give away, a client you can still be held liable for any infringement your users commit becuase the 'substantial non-infringing uses' defense has been weakened so much recently.
The distribution of the client would no doubt materially contribute to whatever infringement the users were doing. It would be pretty difficult to hide behind any non-infringing use argument. It would be an enjoyable case to argue though.
This was a decent explanation of how copyright law is currently being interpreted but one should always keep in mind that these are just the opinions of one lawyer and might not necessarily hold up once they reach the courts. These might make good guidelines to follow in the event you want to test the legal waters but don't count on them keeping you a free man (or at least a financially solvent one). In particular I would advise staying away from the "Substantial non-infringing use" defense as it is disappearing quickly, even in the non electronic realm.
In the event you would like to read the text of any of the laws relating to copyright or the DMCA, take a look here. I teach a class on copyright law, particularly as it relates to new technology.
He is saying that current law allows you to, as an example, make a backup copy of the Quicken CD (the install CD). What it does not allow is a second backup copy of the program (the install program) to be made and stored with the data, which is probably backed up to another HD or tape. It is a particularly important question as a large amount of data is stored in a proprietary format and without the originating program it is essentially useless.
He brings up an interesting point, one that always makes for an excellent argument in the class I teach:
Good backup policy for many production servers is to make tape backups of the entire hard drive on a daily basis to a different tape each day. Several days of tapes are retained in the event that one is corrupted. Indeed, many tape drives are designed to switch tapes automatically. Is this legal under the license terms of the software, does it violate copyright law, is it fair use, and how would the case proceed in court? (The software in question is usually something with a very restrictive license)
I'm certainly not supporting the MPAA and their position. I also agree that once you buy the disc, you own it. I would even go so far as to say that given the law you even own the content (but are restricted by copyright law from doing certain things with it).
What I am trying to point our is that according to the courts this code constitutes a circumvention device. According to them, you bought the DVD as is, CSS and all, and per the DMCA you can't circumvent the protection. Just like copyright law prevents you from selling copies on the street corner even though they were made using a movie you legally own, the DMCA prevents you from bypassing CSS. Can you imagine the public outcry if the MPAA simply made the blanket statement that people don't really own the DVDs they buy, they just own the permission to view them? Look how well DivX (Circuit City's DivX) went over. Instead of taking your ownership from you in a way that would cause them a PR fiasco they do it on the sly. They do it under the guise of protecting us all from harm (evil hackers in this case), the same way most of our freedoms in the US are taken away.
Give this law 10 years or so to become universally accepted. Once everyone is comfortable with it a new law will be passed that restricts us even further. When I wrote that it was their DVD I meant that that was how they viewed it, that is their goal for the future. Products that were previously owned by their purchasers will be licensed to us according to whatever rules appear in the EULA. The DMCA is just the beginning, and the 2600 provided an easy target to get a precedent.
This probably should have been submitted to Ask a Lawyer rather than Slashdot but it is an interesting question.
I'm not sure that it would matter to the courts whether the source code to descramble CSS was composed of 7 lines or 700, whether it was Perl or C or VB, compiled or binary. The judge probably wouldn't understand any of those details anyway. What really matters is that the MPAA scrambled the content on their DVDs and this code circumvents that. Just because you bought the disc, don't expect to use it in some way in which its owners don't approve. Unfotunately, if the judge could really understand the details of the case I think he would agree with the opinions expressed on Slashdot, so would just about any sensible person who doesn't have some vested intrest in the MPAA's revenue stream.
The reality is that once the lawyers use the word 'hacker' to describe the people who write code like this, throw in 'circumvent' a few times, and tell everyone that this program will cause their DVD prices to skyrocket, people's heads turn. The facts of the case get lost.
Anyway, this is a nice accomplishment. 7 lines of Perl that will descramble CSS. Sad that it constitutes a circumvention device, but maybe that will change.
I submitted the following earlier this morning, for what its worth:
This article over at Yahoo reports that Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson is being accused of bias against Microsoft. Of course, if this were coming from MS no one would be suprised but it appears that some appeals court judges feel the same way. So a few disparaging remarks can be considered bias but working for the plaintiff is perfectly fine?
The US legal system was siezed by corporate interests quite some time ago. The branch of government that was supposed to be beyond corruption, above all others, is now no more than a glorified legal team for its corporate benefactors. Decisions like this one only serve to reinforce that thinking.
Someone who posted earlier wrote that all of the amateurish "as I read the first amendment" interpretations of the Constitution are meaningless. While I'm sure that the sentence wasn't intended to be a commentary on the state of our country, it actually is an excellent observation. Our views, the views of average citizens, no longer matter. The only views given any consideration are those that come from a source that can provide something in trade for that consideration. Be it campaign contributions, consulting fees, a partnership, whatever, you must have something to offer if you wish to be heard.
Sadly we have no one to blame but ourselves for the current state. We have allowed these circumstances to envelop us one small step at a time. We have done very little to become actively involved determining the direction of our country. Our freedoms have fallen slowly, often for the 'greater good'. Each one brought us closer to today. We look at issues one by one: copyright violations, reverse engineering, hate speech, guns, privacy violations. Each one of these is examined individually, often in times of crisis (the RIAA says "They're stealing our music!"), and a decision is made without really understanding how it might effect the rest of our lives.
I'm not sure of the solution to this problem. Far too many place far too much stock in the word of the mainstream media. That media presents stories in such a way that moves public opinion in the direction they choose, they have had years of practice. The common citizen needs to wake up and see the direction we are heading with each of our choices. Only then can we begin to right the system that has strayed of our course.
People like this are prime examples of why the common refrain of "someone will crack whatever protection they come up with" must end. People like Mr. Powell are our enemies.
The Roman Republic failed, in part, because they could not successfully answer the question, "Who Shall Guard the Guards?" The Founders of this Republic answered that question with both the First and Second Amendments. Like Stalin, our politicians couldn't care less what common folk say about them, but the concept of the informed citizenry as guarantors of their own liberties sets their teeth on edge and disturbs their statist sleep.
Governments, some great men once avowed, derive their legitimacy from "the consent of the governed." In the country that these men founded, it should not be required to remind anyone that the people do not obtain their natural liberties by "the consent of the Government." Yet in this century, our once great constitutional republic has been so profaned in the pursuit of power and social engineering by corrupt leaders as to be unrecognizable to the Founders. And in large measure we have ourselves to blame because at each crucial step along the way the usurpers of our liberties have obtained the consent of a majority of the governed to do what they have done, often in the name of "democracy"-- a political system rejected by the Founders. A good friend of mine gave the best description of pure democracy I have ever heard. "Democracy," he concluded, "is three wolves and a sheep sitting down to vote on what to have for dinner." The rights of the sheep in this system are obviously in peril.
Now it is true that our present wolf-like, would-be rulers do not as yet seek to eat that sheep and its peaceable wooly cousins. They are, however, most desirous that the sheep be shorn of rights, and if possible and when necessary, be reminded of his rightful place in society as "good citizen sheep" whose safety from the big bad wolves outside the barn doors is only guaranteed by the omni-presence in the barn of the "good wolves" of the government. Indeed, they do not present themselves as wolves at all, but rather these lupines parade around in sheep's clothing, bleating insistently in falsetto about the welfare of the flock and the necessity to surrender liberty and property "for the children" or for "the lambs." In order to ensure future generations of compliant sheep, they are careful to educate the lambs in the way of "political correctness," tutoring them in the totalitarian faiths that "it takes a barnyard to raise a lamb" and "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
Every now and then, some tough old independent-minded ram refuses to be shorn and tries to remind the flock that they once decided affairs themselves according to the rule of law of their ancestors, and without the help of their "betters." When that happens, the fangs become apparent and the conspicuously unwilling are shunned, cowed, driven off or occasionally killed. But flashing teeth or not, the majority of the flock has learned over time not to resist the Lupine-Mandarin class which herds it. Their Founders, who were fiercely independent rams, would have long ago chased off such usurpers. Any present members of the flock who think like that are denounced as antediluvian or mentally deranged.
The tyrant must be met at the door, at yours or mine, whenever he shows his bloody appetite. It matters not what flag he flies, what uniform he wears, nor what excuses he brings for pillaging your property, your liberty, or your life. "By their works ye shall know them." The time is late. Those who once had trouble reading their watches for the darkness will have none for the glare of the fires, we will have the advantage of that terrible illumination. The tyrant is outnumbered and we destroy all that he represents.
if all music were distributed this way, services like Napster wouldn't exist.
I'm not sure that Napster-like p to p wouldn't exist. Regardless of the sotrage medium, at some point the sound of the music has to be released into the air so my ears can hear it. At that point I can grab it with some cheap microphone and convert it to an unencrypted.wav or something. Quality would not be as good as a direct rip but the vast majority of folks either don't notice the subtle differences or really don't care.
While your first paragraph brings up several points I believe many, if not all, are simple appeals to emotion. Corporations have the power of small cities, they hoard money, liberty and justice are reserved for those who can afford it. It all reads nicely and certainly makes for a rousing argument, it may even be entirely true. I still have difficulty using any of the things you list as justification for forcing the will of a handful of individuals on the corporate world at large. I have difficulty asking my government to help me do it. My primary resistance is borne out of the knowledge that, while I may think that allowing NAT would not harm a DSL provider's business, I have no proof of that. I am also unwilling to take the risks associated with proving my hypothesis, as is every single person who argued here that it doesn't hurt them. Unlike many here I don't think that hoarding money is a bad thing. Neither is gobbling up market share. I see these things as inevitable results of market forces. There must be some motivation for taking the risks involved with operating a business or there would be no point in trying, money is that motivation regardless of the supposed social forces that guide even purely communist economies.
The law does not guarantee an African American the right to sit in a bar full of rednecks and Confederate flags. It may, depending on a number of factors, but there is nothing in the law that forces some guy who runs some tiny little bar in Gnaw Bone, Alabama to serve anyone he doesn't want to serve. Rights are interesting things. These days nearly everything is granted the status of a right. It isn't a word to be toyed with, rights are very important and by attempting to ascribe their characteristics to trivial needs we slowly erode their importance. Rights don't require an imposition on someone else. No one should have to give you anything to fulfill any of your rights. Our hypothetical bartender could easily ask about his right to not serve someone.
As for corporations vs. individuals, my point was that in the minds of many Slashdot readers (and editors) there is a world of difference between the two. A good example is that I have several friends who are a little shady. They would not think twice about stealing from the local Wal-Mart but would never allow the thought of stealing from me to enter their minds. Corporations are faceless, it is easy to hate them because they are objects rather than people.
I think you also confuse physical objects with services. I went to see a movie this weekend. The back of my ticket read "By accepting the license granted by this ticket you agree to abide by all terms of the license". What it means is that even though I have purchased a ticket to the movie the theater still reserves the right to toss me if they decide I have done something wrong. DSL is similar. I am not purchasing a physical object I am subscribing to a service, the laws regarding each are completely different. As are copyright laws, which pertain to Universal vs. Reimerdes. There are many cases that support Terms of Service agreements (although I don't have them, I am not in my office).
I agree that the issue here is bandwidth caps but I was pointing out that Taco's particular statement (disagree with the telcom) was hypocritical.
As for the issue, I'm not sure that the cable company (DSL company?) shouldn't care how it's service is being used. Maybe they should, at the very least, protect their own interests. They aren't in business so that people can get high speed internet acces from their homes, they are in business to make money (despite what all the slogans say). As long as they spell out their intentions in their terms of service then they certainly should have the right. After all, a person has to agree to those terms prior to using their service. There are plenty of issues with companies 'sneaking' things into their terms but I'm just referring to all of this conceptually.
I think the ability to exceed bandwidth caps is a selling point. The cable company in my area runs television ads that clearly state that their service is "up to 100 times faster than a 28.8 modem'. It is, sometimes. They guarantee 400kb/sec, I have gotten upwards of 1,700. If you read the fine print during the commercial you'll see that the up to part is explained in legalese. In my opionion this is a deceptive business practice but as far as the courts are concerned it comes down to caveat emptor. People ought to know enough to read and understand the terms of anything they get themselves into. If you want to run NAT and your DSL provider's TOS forbids it then you should be prepared to pay whatever consequences are associated with violating them . They may not be ethically correct from your point of view but that probably doesn't matter much to the cable guy.
I am confused. Why is it that Taco supports a guy who chooses to use his DSL connection in a way that isn't agreeable to the company that provides the service but when the company wants to exercise their ability choose the customers to whom they provide service we get
Disagree with the telcom, and we cut your service! Anyone else see anything scary about that?
It seems to me that things need to flow both ways. Why should a company be forced to provide a service to someone who obviously isn't happy with it? Is that not forcing someone (some company I guess) to do something against their will? I see something far more scary about that. I'm also wondering who should do something about it, consumers? Despite all of the talk people really don't vote with their wallets. On the whole we'll buy the product that gives us the best balance between price and features (or price and whatever it is we want) In the case of DSL we probably only have one choice in the first place so buying from a competitior is not really an option. Government is the only other entity that can force the company to change and they seem to be forcing enough people to do enough things against their will as it is.
A cry goes up when we talk about restrictive software licenses and the thinking it usually along the lines of 'you own it, you should be able to do with it what you want'. I think because a company is essentially faceless we think it is ok that even though they own something, they shouldn't be allowed to choose how or by whom it is used. The bottom line is that they own the servers that run the ISP, they lease the lines, they probably own the modem in the guy's house, but we don't want them to be able to shut off his service. Something about that just doesn't jive.
I think Hatch may be trying to scare the recording industry into action. The article claims that he said they may consider legislation that strips some of their copyright protection, not that they are or will.
If anything can be said about republicans its that they can smell money a mile away. I bet Hatch and his fellow GOPers are actually aghast that no one is making any money selling music online more so than the fact that consumers might be getting shafted.
I'll have to go back then. I swore the place off after being directed to call an 800 number so they could senf me my rebate form. I figured it was just another obfuscation.
Slashdot Mirror
IRC is probably in the same boat, it is largely the domain of Unix users. If AOL doesn't offer it you can bet the masses stay away.
Taco is going to be pissed about this...:)
Calm down.
As for your logic, surely you are just trolling.
It sounds like you would prefer a proprietary license. You don't want RedHat to make money off of you so the BSD license won't work.
I wonder whether micropayments will ever catch on. Musicians playing in the street seem to attract a few 'donations' but I wonder how much of that has to do with visibility (of the person who pays)
Too many anonymous posters muck up the whole thread.
GWB says that he used to use crypto but he can't anymore. His doctor said that his cholesterol levels are too high.
Please visit eFront.com to get your site hosted and use a banner ad payment system. That really works!
Just like with Gnutella clients, the company from which you download your client only sells the client, not the service
The problem of contributory infringement is still there, the same violation of copyright law that is probably going to hang Napster. Even though you only sell, or give away, a client you can still be held liable for any infringement your users commit becuase the 'substantial non-infringing uses' defense has been weakened so much recently.
The distribution of the client would no doubt materially contribute to whatever infringement the users were doing. It would be pretty difficult to hide behind any non-infringing use argument. It would be an enjoyable case to argue though.
In the event you would like to read the text of any of the laws relating to copyright or the DMCA, take a look here. I teach a class on copyright law, particularly as it relates to new technology.
He brings up an interesting point, one that always makes for an excellent argument in the class I teach:
Read section 202.
What I am trying to point our is that according to the courts this code constitutes a circumvention device. According to them, you bought the DVD as is, CSS and all, and per the DMCA you can't circumvent the protection. Just like copyright law prevents you from selling copies on the street corner even though they were made using a movie you legally own, the DMCA prevents you from bypassing CSS. Can you imagine the public outcry if the MPAA simply made the blanket statement that people don't really own the DVDs they buy, they just own the permission to view them? Look how well DivX (Circuit City's DivX) went over. Instead of taking your ownership from you in a way that would cause them a PR fiasco they do it on the sly. They do it under the guise of protecting us all from harm (evil hackers in this case), the same way most of our freedoms in the US are taken away.
Give this law 10 years or so to become universally accepted. Once everyone is comfortable with it a new law will be passed that restricts us even further. When I wrote that it was their DVD I meant that that was how they viewed it, that is their goal for the future. Products that were previously owned by their purchasers will be licensed to us according to whatever rules appear in the EULA. The DMCA is just the beginning, and the 2600 provided an easy target to get a precedent.
I'm not sure that it would matter to the courts whether the source code to descramble CSS was composed of 7 lines or 700, whether it was Perl or C or VB, compiled or binary. The judge probably wouldn't understand any of those details anyway. What really matters is that the MPAA scrambled the content on their DVDs and this code circumvents that. Just because you bought the disc, don't expect to use it in some way in which its owners don't approve. Unfotunately, if the judge could really understand the details of the case I think he would agree with the opinions expressed on Slashdot, so would just about any sensible person who doesn't have some vested intrest in the MPAA's revenue stream.
The reality is that once the lawyers use the word 'hacker' to describe the people who write code like this, throw in 'circumvent' a few times, and tell everyone that this program will cause their DVD prices to skyrocket, people's heads turn. The facts of the case get lost.
Anyway, this is a nice accomplishment. 7 lines of Perl that will descramble CSS. Sad that it constitutes a circumvention device, but maybe that will change.
This article over at Yahoo reports that Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson is being accused of bias against Microsoft. Of course, if this were coming from MS no one would be suprised but it appears that some appeals court judges feel the same way. So a few disparaging remarks can be considered bias but working for the plaintiff is perfectly fine?
Someone who posted earlier wrote that all of the amateurish "as I read the first amendment" interpretations of the Constitution are meaningless. While I'm sure that the sentence wasn't intended to be a commentary on the state of our country, it actually is an excellent observation. Our views, the views of average citizens, no longer matter. The only views given any consideration are those that come from a source that can provide something in trade for that consideration. Be it campaign contributions, consulting fees, a partnership, whatever, you must have something to offer if you wish to be heard.
Sadly we have no one to blame but ourselves for the current state. We have allowed these circumstances to envelop us one small step at a time. We have done very little to become actively involved determining the direction of our country. Our freedoms have fallen slowly, often for the 'greater good'. Each one brought us closer to today. We look at issues one by one: copyright violations, reverse engineering, hate speech, guns, privacy violations. Each one of these is examined individually, often in times of crisis (the RIAA says "They're stealing our music!"), and a decision is made without really understanding how it might effect the rest of our lives.
I'm not sure of the solution to this problem. Far too many place far too much stock in the word of the mainstream media. That media presents stories in such a way that moves public opinion in the direction they choose, they have had years of practice. The common citizen needs to wake up and see the direction we are heading with each of our choices. Only then can we begin to right the system that has strayed of our course.
The Roman Republic failed, in part, because they could not successfully answer the question, "Who Shall Guard the Guards?" The Founders of this Republic answered that question with both the First and Second Amendments. Like Stalin, our politicians couldn't care less what common folk say about them, but the concept of the informed citizenry as guarantors of their own liberties sets their teeth on edge and disturbs their statist sleep.
Governments, some great men once avowed, derive their legitimacy from "the consent of the governed." In the country that these men founded, it should not be required to remind anyone that the people do not obtain their natural liberties by "the consent of the Government." Yet in this century, our once great constitutional republic has been so profaned in the pursuit of power and social engineering by corrupt leaders as to be unrecognizable to the Founders. And in large measure we have ourselves to blame because at each crucial step along the way the usurpers of our liberties have obtained the consent of a majority of the governed to do what they have done, often in the name of "democracy"-- a political system rejected by the Founders. A good friend of mine gave the best description of pure democracy I have ever heard. "Democracy," he concluded, "is three wolves and a sheep sitting down to vote on what to have for dinner." The rights of the sheep in this system are obviously in peril.
Now it is true that our present wolf-like, would-be rulers do not as yet seek to eat that sheep and its peaceable wooly cousins. They are, however, most desirous that the sheep be shorn of rights, and if possible and when necessary, be reminded of his rightful place in society as "good citizen sheep" whose safety from the big bad wolves outside the barn doors is only guaranteed by the omni-presence in the barn of the "good wolves" of the government. Indeed, they do not present themselves as wolves at all, but rather these lupines parade around in sheep's clothing, bleating insistently in falsetto about the welfare of the flock and the necessity to surrender liberty and property "for the children" or for "the lambs." In order to ensure future generations of compliant sheep, they are careful to educate the lambs in the way of "political correctness," tutoring them in the totalitarian faiths that "it takes a barnyard to raise a lamb" and "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
Every now and then, some tough old independent-minded ram refuses to be shorn and tries to remind the flock that they once decided affairs themselves according to the rule of law of their ancestors, and without the help of their "betters." When that happens, the fangs become apparent and the conspicuously unwilling are shunned, cowed, driven off or occasionally killed. But flashing teeth or not, the majority of the flock has learned over time not to resist the Lupine-Mandarin class which herds it. Their Founders, who were fiercely independent rams, would have long ago chased off such usurpers. Any present members of the flock who think like that are denounced as antediluvian or mentally deranged.
The tyrant must be met at the door, at yours or mine, whenever he shows his bloody appetite. It matters not what flag he flies, what uniform he wears, nor what excuses he brings for pillaging your property, your liberty, or your life. "By their works ye shall know them." The time is late. Those who once had trouble reading their watches for the darkness will have none for the glare of the fires, we will have the advantage of that terrible illumination. The tyrant is outnumbered and we destroy all that he represents.
I'm not sure that Napster-like p to p wouldn't exist. Regardless of the sotrage medium, at some point the sound of the music has to be released into the air so my ears can hear it. At that point I can grab it with some cheap microphone and convert it to an unencrypted .wav or something. Quality would not be as good as a direct rip but the vast majority of folks either don't notice the subtle differences or really don't care.
The law does not guarantee an African American the right to sit in a bar full of rednecks and Confederate flags. It may, depending on a number of factors, but there is nothing in the law that forces some guy who runs some tiny little bar in Gnaw Bone, Alabama to serve anyone he doesn't want to serve. Rights are interesting things. These days nearly everything is granted the status of a right. It isn't a word to be toyed with, rights are very important and by attempting to ascribe their characteristics to trivial needs we slowly erode their importance. Rights don't require an imposition on someone else. No one should have to give you anything to fulfill any of your rights. Our hypothetical bartender could easily ask about his right to not serve someone.
As for corporations vs. individuals, my point was that in the minds of many Slashdot readers (and editors) there is a world of difference between the two. A good example is that I have several friends who are a little shady. They would not think twice about stealing from the local Wal-Mart but would never allow the thought of stealing from me to enter their minds. Corporations are faceless, it is easy to hate them because they are objects rather than people.
I think you also confuse physical objects with services. I went to see a movie this weekend. The back of my ticket read "By accepting the license granted by this ticket you agree to abide by all terms of the license". What it means is that even though I have purchased a ticket to the movie the theater still reserves the right to toss me if they decide I have done something wrong. DSL is similar. I am not purchasing a physical object I am subscribing to a service, the laws regarding each are completely different. As are copyright laws, which pertain to Universal vs. Reimerdes. There are many cases that support Terms of Service agreements (although I don't have them, I am not in my office).
As for the issue, I'm not sure that the cable company (DSL company?) shouldn't care how it's service is being used. Maybe they should, at the very least, protect their own interests. They aren't in business so that people can get high speed internet acces from their homes, they are in business to make money (despite what all the slogans say). As long as they spell out their intentions in their terms of service then they certainly should have the right. After all, a person has to agree to those terms prior to using their service. There are plenty of issues with companies 'sneaking' things into their terms but I'm just referring to all of this conceptually.
I think the ability to exceed bandwidth caps is a selling point. The cable company in my area runs television ads that clearly state that their service is "up to 100 times faster than a 28.8 modem'. It is, sometimes. They guarantee 400kb/sec, I have gotten upwards of 1,700. If you read the fine print during the commercial you'll see that the up to part is explained in legalese. In my opionion this is a deceptive business practice but as far as the courts are concerned it comes down to caveat emptor. People ought to know enough to read and understand the terms of anything they get themselves into. If you want to run NAT and your DSL provider's TOS forbids it then you should be prepared to pay whatever consequences are associated with violating them . They may not be ethically correct from your point of view but that probably doesn't matter much to the cable guy.
Disagree with the telcom, and we cut your service! Anyone else see anything scary about that?
It seems to me that things need to flow both ways. Why should a company be forced to provide a service to someone who obviously isn't happy with it? Is that not forcing someone (some company I guess) to do something against their will? I see something far more scary about that. I'm also wondering who should do something about it, consumers? Despite all of the talk people really don't vote with their wallets. On the whole we'll buy the product that gives us the best balance between price and features (or price and whatever it is we want) In the case of DSL we probably only have one choice in the first place so buying from a competitior is not really an option. Government is the only other entity that can force the company to change and they seem to be forcing enough people to do enough things against their will as it is.
A cry goes up when we talk about restrictive software licenses and the thinking it usually along the lines of 'you own it, you should be able to do with it what you want'. I think because a company is essentially faceless we think it is ok that even though they own something, they shouldn't be allowed to choose how or by whom it is used. The bottom line is that they own the servers that run the ISP, they lease the lines, they probably own the modem in the guy's house, but we don't want them to be able to shut off his service. Something about that just doesn't jive.
Someone mod this up, this is the funniest shit I've read in quite a while.
If anything can be said about republicans its that they can smell money a mile away. I bet Hatch and his fellow GOPers are actually aghast that no one is making any money selling music online more so than the fact that consumers might be getting shafted.
I'll have to go back then. I swore the place off after being directed to call an 800 number so they could senf me my rebate form. I figured it was just another obfuscation.