I realize that DRM CPU's are a "Bad Thing" (TM) but just how bad is it anyway?
As long as we can boot our nonDRM OS on this stuff, and communicate with other nonDRM machine's, we can still hack, create, enjoy. Most non-mainstream (i.e. not Windows or Mac) OS's haven't had access to the full range of data/hardware/software for years now anyway. How exactly will this be any different?
The only other thing we should be worried about/working on is that it remains illegal to circumvent whatever technological silliness the content/hardware companies dream up. Just like watching DVD's (that you have legally purchased) on Linux was doable, so will everything else.
Support the EFF (www.eff.org), support the ACLU, (www.aclu.org), support EPIC (www.epic.org), and get aquatinted with DigitalConsumer.org (I'm not going to bother giving you their address). Get off your arse and contact your senators, and representatives, Get your friends, relatives, mailman to understand what they are about to loose and have them contact their representatives as well.
As long as it isn't illegal to "fix" what you've purchased so that it works, we will win out in the end. It may be along hard road, but if we persevere it's inevitable.
Remember hard to photocopy manuals that held bits of text you had to enter at inopportune times? Or floppy disks that were written in such bizarre ways that they damaged your drive, all in the name of "copy protection"? Where are they now? Those that cared bypassed them, for everyone else they were more of a pain to the legitimate user than they were a hindrance to the criminal.
Don't forget, your local librarian, and "reading a bedtime story to the grandchildren" grandmother is on your side in this one. Make sure that those in power (and those that aren't) realize this.
How about this, We as a species have spent far more time running around the Serengeti than we have programming bits of silicon. Men and women are different. Neither is "better" then the other, just different. Men and women are complimentary creatures.
Envision the roles played out by our ancestors. Women, gathered nut/berries, raised the younins. Men, defended the tribe, build the shelters, gathered the high fat, high protein food that tried to get away. What does that lead to?
On average, statistically, genetically inclined to, in other words, there are people of both sexes that are exceptions to the following. Women, better at empathy, better at socializing, better at language skills. Things that would make a person a better caretaker. Men, better risk takers, physically stronger, better at spatial relationships, better at using tools, better at functioning in a hiarctical manor. Things that would improve the odds of capturing prey that either runs away, or tries to eat you. Things that will increase you odds of defending your offspring.
In a strictly biological way, men are expendable. There's a reason why in most societies only men went off to war. If you have 50 men and 50 women in your tribe, and the women go off to war. 49 of them get killed. It's going to take a VERY long time for your tribe to recover. On the other hand, if your men go off to war and 49 of the get killed, the one remaining man can impregnate the remaining 50 women. Your tribe's on the road to recovery in no time at all.
Other that the odd woman(or man) out, if left to their natural inclinations, men will prefer direct, mechanical, spatial, competitive, problem solving fields. Women, will tend toward social, linguistic, nurturing, cooperative, problem solving fields.
While progressive on paper, due to the fact that not all income is counted equally, income from labor is actually taxed more heavily that investments (for example Bush is currently pushing to repeal the tax on dividends) the fact that most working people don't qualify for most of the tax beaks, and the fact that you have to have quite a bit of cash, and a good accountant, to qualify for many of the tax shelters, the system ends up being regressive.
If you make $30,000 USD a year, odds are that you pay taxes on your $30,000 (minus standard deduction). If you make $30,000,000, I would be willing to wager that even though you are technically in a higher tax bracket, you don't actually pay that percent in taxes. If you were smart, you have "arranged" your assets in such a manner that significantly less than $30,000,000 is taxed. Hence, the current tax system is regressive in practice while being progressive in theory.
It is no secret that while most of the wealth resides with less than 2% of the US population, most of the taxes are paid by the other 98%.
Ever wonder why a company "a corporate citizen" can make $12,000,000,000 dollars and pay $1 in taxes?
To reiterate, a poor person in a 10% tax bracket pays close to 10%. A rich person in a 30% tax bracket may only end up paying 5%. That's how it's regressive.
Taxation should be simpler... but not so simple as to be moronic.
Ideal taxes (and I'm limiting myself to Federal Income taxes here);
Total all of your income (work, investments, savings, gifts, winnings, everything)
Subtract a minimum living amount. Say $20,000 USD (If you don't make this much stop, you don't make enough to pay taxes)
Count up your dependents (children, elderly parents, etc. You don't want to have to support them with Welfare now do you?) multiply that by a dependant stipend. How much more it takes to minimally care for someone else, say $10,000.
Subtract that from your total income. (See above about counting ALL of your sources of income) If the result is less than $0.00, you don't pay taxes.
For every dollar above that amount everyone pays a flat tax, say 10%.
Everyone, is assured a minimum amount to live on, families and caring for your relatives is encouraged. It wouldn't be fair to penalize people who have children to support even though they don't provide any income.
The best part, you can file your income taxes on a postcard.
Not as repressive as a flat tax, not as complicated as a progressive tax, and definitely not a regressive tax, such as our current system actually is in practice....
Nevermind quality, for most people it'll take 2-3 hours to download this "movie". Unless you live in the outback, most people are 15 min. or less from their local rental store.
Other advantages of renting, it doesn't take up 600+ megs on your hard drive, require you to divulge personal information across the net, allow yet another corporate interest to install "secret software", you can watch it on your television, instead of in a little bitty window on your monitor, you don't have to ditch your Mac, Linux, Sun, or other non-Microsoft box, and you have your choice of quality settings. You can rent a VHS tape, or a higher quality DVD.
The only advantage seems to be no late fees. Hmmm... wasn't there a higher quality hardware version that promised the same thing, DiVx? We all know how that fared.
Renting movies online, they would probably be better served with Digital Cable and a TiVo combo. What they are offering is basically a 24 hour pay per view. You order a movie, it gets downloaded to your TiVo or other similar box. The first time you start to watch it a 24 hour timer starts, when it reaches zero it deletes itself. You can't copy it to removable media, or transmit it outside of your TiVo like box. Like I said before, DiVx redone. Trade long download times for disposable bits of plastic and there you have it.
Unless it gets incredibly better than this, it will probably suffer a similar fate.
Find a friend in the states who will ship your games to you. You order it, it goes to his house, he puts it in a slightly larger box with your address and ships it to you. Problem solved.
Unfortunately here in the states we have the ever popular DMCA to prevent anyone from LEGALLY turning the firewire port back on or preventing our boxes from turning it off in the first place.
Just because you OWN a box doesn't mean you are allowed to do what you want with it.
Next thing you know you won't legally be allowed to look under the hood of your automobile. You'll have to take it back to the manufacturer (at a 1000% markup) for simple maintenance or repair.
General purpose computers that you could program, upgrade, tinker with, will be replaced with glorified Xboxes, and PS3's. Sealed boxes, just because you bought it doesn't mean you should be allowed to actually USE/Modify it the way you want. You might interfere with some multinational's business model......
Only accept email that has been encrypted with your personal GPG or PGP key. You'll force the spammers to use up loads of CPU time individually encrypting email to everyone's individual keys.
Sure that might not be too much for suburban mom's 1024 bit key, but a few 10240 bit keys from the truly paranoid will through a wrench into their works.
Not only will it help cub the amount of SPAM, but will encourage people to use encryption widely and on a regular basis.
You can explain it to your less tech literate friends as the difference between first class and bulk rate mail. Encrypted mail is in a cryptographic envelope, the same as first class mail. Unencrypted mail is like all of that marketing junk delivered "bulk" rate. Like all that stuff addressed to resident.
No more worrying about changing from fields, filters, etc. If you don't want "bulk-rate" email kill all non-encrypted email. If the marketer still wants you to answer his pitch, he'll have to get you to use HIS key to respond. Since you don't email your friends, etc. unencrypted email. Kill encrypted email that isn't signed. If it is signed you have a way to check WHO signed it.
So long as it's only illegal to send CORPORATE email without a proper identity. Here in the states individuals have a constitutional right to communicate anonymously.
The Supreme Court has consistently held commercial communications (i.e. by businesses hawking goods/services) to a lower standard.
"Fair Use" covers use that IS NOT permitted by the copyright holder, but that the court considers FAIR.
If the copyright holder gives you a lower quality analog version to use as you see fit, that isn't "Fair Use" that's licensed use.
Making it illegal to use a work that you own (When you bought that CD-ROM/DVD you OWN that copy. You just don't hold the copyright to the work contained on it.) without the expressed permission of the copyright holder removes the possibility of "Fair Use" by definition.
What the movie studios are hoping is that if they make some concessions by licensing "some" of what was traditionally "Fair Use" they can get away with removing "Fair Use" entirely. Unfortunately, that removes the possibility for any new innovative/creative uses of copyrighted works. It also runs contrary to the delicate balancing act between copyright and the first amendment.
The studio's should be allowed to release their works in whatever form they want. They should NOT be able to make the act of viewing/accessing said work illegal. If they believe that a PARTICULAR use infringes their copyright, let them take the alleged infringer to court. "Fair Use" is a matter for the courts to decide on a case by case basis.
Seen in that light, the fact there attempt to "...counter any of its fair use claims by pointing out that you can still get an analog verison (which may be slightly lower in quality, but should satisfy all your needs anyway..." doesn't make any sense.
ANY restriction of your right to access/view/convert the form of the property that you have legally acquired should be resisted at ALL cost.
Copyright != ownership, copyright is a limited monopoly of certain limited functions, for a limited time, to benefit the public. (Reread the constitution of you don't agree.) Copyright holders can't possibly satisfy ALL of our needs in regard to the property we own in advance. Copyright holders don't OWN the CD-ROM I may have bought last week, nor do they own the DVD I might have bought, nor do they own any of the hundreds of books in my possession. I didn't license it I bought it. They HOLD the copyright period. Intellectual property isn't property. Copyright infringement isn't piracy.
The moment we buy into their warped sense of reality, and their loaded use of language we are forced to go on the defensive. It's hard to argue with facilitating robbery and making the internet a haven for thieves. It is much simpler, and far more accurate, to discuss the fact that their copyright may be infringed on a massive scale for a number of reasons. Remember these are the same people who claimed that people using their cassette tape decks where massively infringing their copyrights, that millions of Americans were "stealing their property" by taping broadcast television on their shinny new VCR's, and who are now claiming that using PVR's (Tivo, etc.) are "a bunch of thieves" for skipping commercials. Only the court can determine if a particular use isn't a "Fair Use". Only then can you be convicted of copyright infringement. Since so many court cases have gone against them, they want to preemptively prevent ALL unlicensed use of their copyrighted works technologically. Only by bypassing the court system can they be assured that NO unlicensed use will be declared a "Fair Use".
Make no mistake, the goal is nothing short of the complete elimination of "Fair Use".
In the section that you quoted she is referring to OUT OF PRINT music. Music that isn't on CD and is just sitting in the music label vaults. She is NOT saying that, at least for her experiment, the label STOP making audio CD's.
If bad cop A has a "gummy finger of you" and leaves a few prints around the crime scene or other unsavory place. Any other cop (call him good cop B) just does his job. In fact cop A s counting on cop B doing an exemplary job and finding YOUR prints. The assumption is that where your finger prints are found you were. Most people dismiss the notion of them getting there any other way. That's what makes them so dangerous. It is one of the major problems with ANY biometrics id. Currently, unless they go through a lot of trouble, or you are in the military, law enforcement, or a crook. Because they don't have your prints. I the gov. had everyone's on file it would be that much easier for this problem to exist on a much larger scale than it does now.
Besides, the fewer things that the gov. has, the fewer things it can use to mess up your life.
You said;
"You know, they probably don't have to give you electricity, phone, or gas service."
Actually, they do. It's called an essential service. Not everyone HAS a SSN. No, really. The local PUC (public utilities commission) would be all over their case for denying service because you refused to provide information that isn't LEGALLY required. Next thing you know they'll be "asking" for a list of the last ten prescriptions you took, the last video your rented, and what television stations you watched last night.
Nice thought though. I guess I'll start looking for houses bought/rented by immigrants, and tourists in the spring. Since by your reasoning they would have all frozen to death during the winter without SSN's to keep them warm.
What's to stop a crooked cop from making a "gummy fingerprint" from the one you so conveniently left on file and planting your fingerprints at a crime scene, or even a bordello, x-rated theater, etc.
Or how about the cop in the U.K. whose prints were "found" on the murder weapon? They "matched" it from the one she had in file because she was a cop. Did it matter that the print in question turned out to be a thumb that supposedly matched her index finger? Nope. Did the gov. even apologize? Nope.
Fingerprints aren't all they are cracked up to be. They may not be unique between individuals, and most of the time even the FBI has a hard time making an ID from them. The dirty little secret in forensics is that very little hard science has gone into proving the validity of them. There is even a judge on the east coast that doesn't let "experts" claim that a print matches a suspect, because unlike DNA testing, no one can claim just how likely the match is.
So giving the gov. one more thing that can be abused intentionally or otherwise, isn't a terribly smart thing to do.
Actually they have everything to do with each other.
If I wanted to implement 1984-style monitoring of you which would be more effective?
1. I assign you my own ID, a 128bit digit ( I plan on "monitoring quite a few people;) Then I have to follow your every move, Ask, pay, steal third parties for the details of your personal life, if they can find out what records actually apply to THIS Nate Baxley not some other Nate Baxley, and update this ad nausium for everyone I want to keep track of.
or,
2. Have the government assign you a unique ID, have them require that you provide it for every transaction you engage in. Keep your address, medical history, income and spending habits, everything tied to this number. Ask, pay, steal any records tied to this number. Sit back as the continuing details of your file are conveniently provided to me ( or the gov.) by you under penalty of law.
In the first case, you would have to be pretty persistent to manage that for one person nevermind every citizen in the country. The second happens automatically for anyone interested in looking.
Um... I'm not sure where you live, but where I live (in New England) you don't need a SS# for;
renting an apartment getting electrical/phone/gas/etc service
Sure, they'll pester you about it, but if you are firm in your refusal they have to do without it.
When I got phone service the operator insisted that I had to, then she pleaded that it was what they used for a unique id in their database. I told her that they would have to find something else. Ditto when the DMV, and insurance company and the State university I was attended wanted to display it on their respective ID cards. Guess what, none of those cards have my SSN on it. Sure, I was required to supply it, but I don't have to let them display it.
Generally, employment, banking, and the legal system are all that REQUIRE your SSN. Even when supplying it is required, you should make it as tough as possible, make them PROVE that it is REQUIRED BY LAW and for heaven's sake, don't let them display it.
Actually, I think there is a bug in the program Slashdot is using. Last week I moderated several posts +1 Insightful, +1 Informative, +1 Interesting. After I hit the moderate button they were moderated, +1 Funny, +1 Redundant, +1 Troll (or something equally silly).
Network Solutions found out it was MUCH more profitable selling companies 3 domain names (.com,.net,.org) that simply selling them 1 (.com). They would have probably loved to have added.gov,.mil,.us, and.edu. Luckily for us someone else is/was managing that name space.
Unfortunately with.us going commercial they can sell companies yet another name. Oh and I forgot.info and.biz. Pepsi should now buy pepsi.com (where they belong), pepsi.org, pepsi.net, pepsi.us, pepsi.biz, pepsi.info.
Every time another unrestricted TLD is created, companies will feel that they have to buy their name in that space too. In the current setup all that creating more TLD's does is generate revenue for registrars. It doesn't do anything to make more domains available. Don't believe me, then why the big hoopla about sunrise periods?
What we need is the return of some restrictions to TLD's;.com commercial.biz another commercial TLD (pick ONLY one).org NON-commercial general.info information provider (individual or institutional).net network related, i.e you are an ISP of some sort..us lives/based in the USA. Keep the city.state.us and create broad xx.us as well. (ex; *.kid.us = us children's, *.med.us medical sites, *.lib.us = us libraries, etc.).xx Other country code TLD's should be similar to.us. None of this.tv silliness..mil military, not only us military. (i.e. *.us.mil = us military, *.uk.mil = British military, *.pt.mil = Portuguese military, *.nato.mil NATO sites, etc.).gov = government sites, not just us gov. (see.mil above)
Simple. The above would be cheaper for companies, would mean less reason for company A to sue individual B over domain name C, would mean lots more domain names for everyone.
Registrars would stand to loose lots of money, and companies like Nike wouldn't be able to take over nike.org, nikesucks.info, etc, in on the whole I think it would be a good idea.
That being said, it's rather sad how having a "First Amendment" here in the states doesn't seem to matter for much anymore.
The DMCA is just one of the latest signs of "First Amendment rot" to infect us. People are getting jailed and fined for using foul language. That is just stupid.
So called "Hate Crime" laws just criminalize what you say. If I am a white person and I kill a black man while yelling "die nigger die!" how is that any worse than killing a white man yelling "die sucker die!"? Killing is already illegal. I "hate" the black man, but for some reason I don't "hate" the white man? So killing him was what, an act of love?
Even "anti-terrorism" laws are inherently anti-free speech. All terrorism type laws do is criminalize politically incorrect actions. Giving to the IRA, or the PLO, or FeGong (is this last one correct?) is either patriotic, or helping terrorists. The only difference is who's side you are on. The American revolutionaries were freedom fighters to the colonists and terrorists to the British. Same with the Palestinian Liberation Organization. The Irish Republican Army is fighting to free Northern Ireland from British rule, to the British they are a terrorist organization. The same with al-Qa'eda, to their supporters they are terrorists, to most September 11 Americans they are terrorists. Who you talk to, associate with, ideologically support shouldn't be illegal.
What happened on September 11th was already illegal. If a bunch of random people hijacked a few planes and crashed them into the WTC and the Pentagon, guess what, we could still prosecute them. Hijacking, murder, conspiracy to commit murder, etc. are all already illegal. All that calling it terrorism does is give the government an excuse to grant themselves new sweeping police powers. They curtail your civil and constitutional rights, and then broaden the definition of terrorism to include anyone who is against them ideologically or politically. Anti-WIPO, Anti-RIAA/MPAA, Anti-anything the powers that be like? Congratulations, you are a terrorist. Take apart your DVD player, you my friend are a terrorist. Believe that people should stop eating meat or wearing fur, terrorist. Think that Pres. Bush has gone too far with the Patriot Act/Dept of Homeland Security/Dept of Public Propaganda/National ID card/Military tribunals/etc. most definitely a terrorist. Please report to the nearest detainment facility, where you will be stripped of your customary legal protections, locked up for an indeterminate period of time, possible tortured, denied a lawyer, a trial, or an appeal. No need for anyone else to be concerned. You are a "terrorist". These things must be done to keep society safe. Yea right.
Saying the wrong thing, or the right thing to the wrong people is now very much illegal. The EU is starting to look down right enlightened, and that's a scary thought.
I am happy to say I use 3.5" floppies almost every day. I have floppy, Zip, CD-R, CD-RW, and broadband.
Why? When you are saving/moving files that are under 1.4 meg there is nothing better. Zip disks are way too expensive (approx $10 USD each) and not every machine has them, same with CD-RWs. CD-R's are cheap and most machines have CD-ROM readers, but not everyone has a CD-R writer, and wasting over 650Meg of space is just so wrong.
When we have some other media/format that; a) Costs less than $0.25 USD per media UNIT b) Can be found in practically every computer on the planet. (even iMacs have USB floppies)
Then you might have something. Until then, I'll keep my floppies.
Slashdot Mirror
I realize that DRM CPU's are a "Bad Thing" (TM) but just how bad is it anyway?
As long as we can boot our nonDRM OS on this stuff, and communicate with other nonDRM machine's, we can still hack, create, enjoy. Most non-mainstream (i.e. not Windows or Mac) OS's haven't had access to the full range of data/hardware/software for years now anyway. How exactly will this be any different?
The only other thing we should be worried about/working on is that it remains illegal to circumvent whatever technological silliness the content/hardware companies dream up. Just like watching DVD's (that you have legally purchased) on Linux was doable, so will everything else.
Support the EFF (www.eff.org), support the ACLU, (www.aclu.org), support EPIC (www.epic.org), and get aquatinted with DigitalConsumer.org (I'm not going to bother giving you their address). Get off your arse and contact your senators, and representatives, Get your friends, relatives, mailman to understand what they are about to loose and have them contact their representatives as well.
As long as it isn't illegal to "fix" what you've purchased so that it works, we will win out in the end. It may be along hard road, but if we persevere it's inevitable.
Remember hard to photocopy manuals that held bits of text you had to enter at inopportune times? Or floppy disks that were written in such bizarre ways that they damaged your drive, all in the name of "copy protection"? Where are they now? Those that cared bypassed them, for everyone else they were more of a pain to the legitimate user than they were a hindrance to the criminal.
Don't forget, your local librarian, and "reading a bedtime story to the grandchildren" grandmother is on your side in this one. Make sure that those in power (and those that aren't) realize this.
How about this,
We as a species have spent far more time running around the Serengeti than we have programming bits of silicon. Men and women are different. Neither is "better" then the other, just different. Men and women are complimentary creatures.
Envision the roles played out by our ancestors. Women, gathered nut/berries, raised the younins. Men, defended the tribe, build the shelters, gathered the high fat, high protein food that tried to get away. What does that lead to?
On average, statistically, genetically inclined to, in other words, there are people of both sexes that are exceptions to the following. Women, better at empathy, better at socializing, better at language skills. Things that would make a person a better caretaker. Men, better risk takers, physically stronger, better at spatial relationships, better at using tools, better at functioning in a hiarctical manor. Things that would improve the odds of capturing prey that either runs away, or tries to eat you. Things that will increase you odds of defending your offspring.
In a strictly biological way, men are expendable. There's a reason why in most societies only men went off to war. If you have 50 men and 50 women in your tribe, and the women go off to war. 49 of them get killed. It's going to take a VERY long time for your tribe to recover. On the other hand, if your men go off to war and 49 of the get killed, the one remaining man can impregnate the remaining 50 women. Your tribe's on the road to recovery in no time at all.
Other that the odd woman(or man) out, if left to their natural inclinations, men will prefer direct, mechanical, spatial, competitive, problem solving fields. Women, will tend toward social, linguistic, nurturing, cooperative, problem solving fields.
Someone247356
Um....
.ogg files.
A fixed point decoder "Tremor" has been released and licensed BSD style. http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/hardware.html
So you no longer need a floating point capable processor to decode
Yep, we are talking about the US tax code;
While progressive on paper, due to the fact that not all income is counted equally, income from labor is actually taxed more heavily that investments (for example Bush is currently pushing to repeal the tax on dividends) the fact that most working people don't qualify for most of the tax beaks, and the fact that you have to have quite a bit of cash, and a good accountant, to qualify for many of the tax shelters, the system ends up being regressive.
If you make $30,000 USD a year, odds are that you pay taxes on your $30,000 (minus standard deduction). If you make $30,000,000, I would be willing to wager that even though you are technically in a higher tax bracket, you don't actually pay that percent in taxes. If you were smart, you have "arranged" your assets in such a manner that significantly less than $30,000,000 is taxed. Hence, the current tax system is regressive in practice while being progressive in theory.
It is no secret that while most of the wealth resides with less than 2% of the US population, most of the taxes are paid by the other 98%.
Ever wonder why a company "a corporate citizen" can make $12,000,000,000 dollars and pay $1 in taxes?
To reiterate, a poor person in a 10% tax bracket pays close to 10%. A rich person in a 30% tax bracket may only end up paying 5%. That's how it's regressive.
I hope that's helped somewhat.
Taxation should be simpler... but not so simple as to be moronic.
Ideal taxes (and I'm limiting myself to Federal Income taxes here);
Total all of your income (work, investments, savings, gifts, winnings, everything)
Subtract a minimum living amount. Say $20,000 USD (If you don't make this much stop, you don't make enough to pay taxes)
Count up your dependents (children, elderly parents, etc. You don't want to have to support them with Welfare now do you?) multiply that by a dependant stipend. How much more it takes to minimally care for someone else, say $10,000.
Subtract that from your total income. (See above about counting ALL of your sources of income) If the result is less than $0.00, you don't pay taxes.
For every dollar above that amount everyone pays a flat tax, say 10%.
Everyone, is assured a minimum amount to live on, families and caring for your relatives is encouraged. It wouldn't be fair to penalize people who have children to support even though they don't provide any income.
The best part, you can file your income taxes on a postcard.
Not as repressive as a flat tax, not as complicated as a progressive tax, and definitely not a regressive tax, such as our current system actually is in practice....
Isn't there a streaming format in the OggVorbis family? ShoutCast/IceCast?
Nevermind quality, for most people it'll take 2-3 hours to download this "movie". Unless you live in the outback, most people are 15 min. or less from their local rental store.
Other advantages of renting, it doesn't take up 600+ megs on your hard drive, require you to divulge personal information across the net, allow yet another corporate interest to install "secret software", you can watch it on your television, instead of in a little bitty window on your monitor, you don't have to ditch your Mac, Linux, Sun, or other non-Microsoft box, and you have your choice of quality settings. You can rent a VHS tape, or a higher quality DVD.
The only advantage seems to be no late fees. Hmmm... wasn't there a higher quality hardware version that promised the same thing, DiVx? We all know how that fared.
Renting movies online, they would probably be better served with Digital Cable and a TiVo combo. What they are offering is basically a 24 hour pay per view. You order a movie, it gets downloaded to your TiVo or other similar box. The first time you start to watch it a 24 hour timer starts, when it reaches zero it deletes itself. You can't copy it to removable media, or transmit it outside of your TiVo like box. Like I said before, DiVx redone. Trade long download times for disposable bits of plastic and there you have it.
Unless it gets incredibly better than this, it will probably suffer a similar fate.
someone247356
Find a friend in the states who will ship your games to you. You order it, it goes to his house, he puts it in a slightly larger box with your address and ships it to you. Problem solved.
;)
You can make friends, can't you?
someone247356
Um, I might be mistaken here, but I believe that he was going for "Funny".
Well, I thought it was......
Unfortunately here in the states we have the ever popular DMCA to prevent anyone from LEGALLY turning the firewire port back on or preventing our boxes from turning it off in the first place.
Just because you OWN a box doesn't mean you are allowed to do what you want with it.
Next thing you know you won't legally be allowed to look under the hood of your automobile. You'll have to take it back to the manufacturer (at a 1000% markup) for simple maintenance or repair.
General purpose computers that you could program, upgrade, tinker with, will be replaced with glorified Xboxes, and PS3's. Sealed boxes, just because you bought it doesn't mean you should be allowed to actually USE/Modify it the way you want. You might interfere with some multinational's business model......
*Sigh*
Here's a thought...
Only accept email that has been encrypted with your personal GPG or PGP key. You'll force the spammers to use up loads of CPU time individually encrypting email to everyone's individual keys.
Sure that might not be too much for suburban mom's 1024 bit key, but a few 10240 bit keys from the truly paranoid will through a wrench into their works.
Not only will it help cub the amount of SPAM, but will encourage people to use encryption widely and on a regular basis.
You can explain it to your less tech literate friends as the difference between first class and bulk rate mail. Encrypted mail is in a cryptographic envelope, the same as first class mail. Unencrypted mail is like all of that marketing junk delivered "bulk" rate. Like all that stuff addressed to resident.
No more worrying about changing from fields, filters, etc. If you don't want "bulk-rate" email kill all non-encrypted email. If the marketer still wants you to answer his pitch, he'll have to get you to use HIS key to respond. Since you don't email your friends, etc. unencrypted email. Kill encrypted email that isn't signed. If it is signed you have a way to check WHO signed it.
It's not s perfect solution, but it might help..
It's always best to be able to defend oneself and one's family.
After all you are the only one with a vested interest at stake.
So long as it's only illegal to send CORPORATE email without a proper identity. Here in the states individuals have a constitutional right to communicate anonymously.
The Supreme Court has consistently held commercial communications (i.e. by businesses hawking goods/services) to a lower standard.
Hmmm....
"Fair Use" covers use that IS NOT permitted by the copyright holder, but that the court considers FAIR.
If the copyright holder gives you a lower quality analog version to use as you see fit, that isn't "Fair Use" that's licensed use.
Making it illegal to use a work that you own (When you bought that CD-ROM/DVD you OWN that copy. You just don't hold the copyright to the work contained on it.) without the expressed permission of the copyright holder removes the possibility of "Fair Use" by definition.
What the movie studios are hoping is that if they make some concessions by licensing "some" of what was traditionally "Fair Use" they can get away with removing "Fair Use" entirely. Unfortunately, that removes the possibility for any new innovative/creative uses of copyrighted works. It also runs contrary to the delicate balancing act between copyright and the first amendment.
The studio's should be allowed to release their works in whatever form they want. They should NOT be able to make the act of viewing/accessing said work illegal. If they believe that a PARTICULAR use infringes their copyright, let them take the alleged infringer to court. "Fair Use" is a matter for the courts to decide on a case by case basis.
Seen in that light, the fact there attempt to "...counter any of its fair use claims by pointing out that you can still get an analog verison (which may be slightly lower in quality, but should satisfy all your needs anyway..." doesn't make any sense.
ANY restriction of your right to access/view/convert the form of the property that you have legally acquired should be resisted at ALL cost.
Copyright != ownership, copyright is a limited monopoly of certain limited functions, for a limited time, to benefit the public. (Reread the constitution of you don't agree.) Copyright holders can't possibly satisfy ALL of our needs in regard to the property we own in advance. Copyright holders don't OWN the CD-ROM I may have bought last week, nor do they own the DVD I might have bought, nor do they own any of the hundreds of books in my possession. I didn't license it I bought it. They HOLD the copyright period. Intellectual property isn't property. Copyright infringement isn't piracy.
The moment we buy into their warped sense of reality, and their loaded use of language we are forced to go on the defensive. It's hard to argue with facilitating robbery and making the internet a haven for thieves. It is much simpler, and far more accurate, to discuss the fact that their copyright may be infringed on a massive scale for a number of reasons. Remember these are the same people who claimed that people using their cassette tape decks where massively infringing their copyrights, that millions of Americans were "stealing their property" by taping broadcast television on their shinny new VCR's, and who are now claiming that using PVR's (Tivo, etc.) are "a bunch of thieves" for skipping commercials. Only the court can determine if a particular use isn't a "Fair Use". Only then can you be convicted of copyright infringement. Since so many court cases have gone against them, they want to preemptively prevent ALL unlicensed use of their copyrighted works technologically. Only by bypassing the court system can they be assured that NO unlicensed use will be declared a "Fair Use".
Make no mistake, the goal is nothing short of the complete elimination of "Fair Use".
Um,
In the section that you quoted she is referring to OUT OF PRINT music. Music that isn't on CD and is just sitting in the music label vaults. She is NOT saying that, at least for her experiment, the label STOP making audio CD's.
Not really.
If bad cop A has a "gummy finger of you" and leaves a few prints around the crime scene or other unsavory place. Any other cop (call him good cop B) just does his job. In fact cop A s counting on cop B doing an exemplary job and finding YOUR prints. The assumption is that where your finger prints are found you were. Most people dismiss the notion of them getting there any other way. That's what makes them so dangerous. It is one of the major problems with ANY biometrics id. Currently, unless they go through a lot of trouble, or you are in the military, law enforcement, or a crook. Because they don't have your prints. I the gov. had everyone's on file it would be that much easier for this problem to exist on a much larger scale than it does now.
Besides, the fewer things that the gov. has, the fewer things it can use to mess up your life.
LOL.
You said;
"You know, they probably don't have to give you electricity, phone, or gas service."
Actually, they do. It's called an essential service. Not everyone HAS a SSN. No, really. The local PUC (public utilities commission) would be all over their case for denying service because you refused to provide information that isn't LEGALLY required. Next thing you know they'll be "asking" for a list of the last ten prescriptions you took, the last video your rented, and what television stations you watched last night.
Nice thought though. I guess I'll start looking for houses bought/rented by immigrants, and tourists in the spring. Since by your reasoning they would have all frozen to death during the winter without SSN's to keep them warm.
Your a trusting fella, no?
What's to stop a crooked cop from making a "gummy fingerprint" from the one you so conveniently left on file and planting your fingerprints at a crime scene, or even a bordello, x-rated theater, etc.
Or how about the cop in the U.K. whose prints were "found" on the murder weapon? They "matched" it from the one she had in file because she was a cop. Did it matter that the print in question turned out to be a thumb that supposedly matched her index finger? Nope. Did the gov. even apologize? Nope.
Fingerprints aren't all they are cracked up to be. They may not be unique between individuals, and most of the time even the FBI has a hard time making an ID from them. The dirty little secret in forensics is that very little hard science has gone into proving the validity of them. There is even a judge on the east coast that doesn't let "experts" claim that a print matches a suspect, because unlike DNA testing, no one can claim just how likely the match is.
So giving the gov. one more thing that can be abused intentionally or otherwise, isn't a terribly smart thing to do.
Actually they have everything to do with each other.
;) Then I have to follow your every move, Ask, pay, steal third parties for the details of your personal life, if they can find out what records actually apply to THIS Nate Baxley not some other Nate Baxley, and update this ad nausium for everyone I want to keep track of.
If I wanted to implement 1984-style monitoring of you which would be more effective?
1. I assign you my own ID, a 128bit digit ( I plan on "monitoring quite a few people
or,
2. Have the government assign you a unique ID, have them require that you provide it for every transaction you engage in. Keep your address, medical history, income and spending habits, everything tied to this number. Ask, pay, steal any records tied to this number. Sit back as the continuing details of your file are conveniently provided to me ( or the gov.) by you under penalty of law.
In the first case, you would have to be pretty persistent to manage that for one person nevermind every citizen in the country. The second happens automatically for anyone interested in looking.
Um... I'm not sure where you live, but where I live (in New England) you don't need a SS# for;
renting an apartment
getting electrical/phone/gas/etc service
Sure, they'll pester you about it, but if you are firm in your refusal they have to do without it.
When I got phone service the operator insisted that I had to, then she pleaded that it was what they used for a unique id in their database. I told her that they would have to find something else. Ditto when the DMV, and insurance company and the State university I was attended wanted to display it on their respective ID cards. Guess what, none of those cards have my SSN on it. Sure, I was required to supply it, but I don't have to let them display it.
Generally, employment, banking, and the legal system are all that REQUIRE your SSN. Even when supplying it is required, you should make it as tough as possible, make them PROVE that it is REQUIRED BY LAW and for heaven's sake, don't let them display it.
Actually, I think there is a bug in the program Slashdot is using. Last week I moderated several posts +1 Insightful, +1 Informative, +1 Interesting. After I hit the moderate button they were moderated, +1 Funny, +1 Redundant, +1 Troll (or something equally silly).
Shrug.....
That's easy to answer, GREED.
.net, .org) that simply selling them 1 (.com). They would have probably loved to have added .gov, .mil, .us, and .edu. Luckily for us someone else is/was managing that name space.
.us going commercial they can sell companies yet another name. Oh and I forgot .info and .biz. Pepsi should now buy pepsi.com (where they belong), pepsi.org, pepsi.net, pepsi.us, pepsi.biz, pepsi.info.
.com commercial .biz another commercial TLD (pick ONLY one) .org NON-commercial general .info information provider (individual or institutional) .net network related, i.e you are an ISP of some sort. .us lives/based in the USA. Keep the city.state.us and create broad xx.us as well. (ex; *.kid.us = us children's, *.med.us medical sites, *.lib.us = us libraries, etc.) .xx Other country code TLD's should be similar to .us. None of this .tv silliness. .mil military, not only us military. (i.e. *.us.mil = us military, *.uk.mil = British military, *.pt.mil = Portuguese military, *.nato.mil NATO sites, etc.) .gov = government sites, not just us gov. (see .mil above)
Network Solutions found out it was MUCH more profitable selling companies 3 domain names (.com,
Unfortunately with
Every time another unrestricted TLD is created, companies will feel that they have to buy their name in that space too. In the current setup all that creating more TLD's does is generate revenue for registrars. It doesn't do anything to make more domains available. Don't believe me, then why the big hoopla about sunrise periods?
What we need is the return of some restrictions to TLD's;
Simple. The above would be cheaper for companies, would mean less reason for company A to sue individual B over domain name C, would mean lots more domain names for everyone.
Registrars would stand to loose lots of money, and companies like Nike wouldn't be able to take over nike.org, nikesucks.info, etc, in on the whole I think it would be a good idea.
When I said;
"...The same with al-Qa'eda, to their supporters they are terrorists, to most September 11 Americans they are terrorists."
I meant;
"...The same with al-Qa'eda, to their supporters they are FREEDOM FIGHTERS, to most September 11 Americans they are terrorists."
Sorry for the blunder.
Probably because the EU has no "First Amendment".
That being said, it's rather sad how having a "First Amendment" here in the states doesn't seem to matter for much anymore.
The DMCA is just one of the latest signs of "First Amendment rot" to infect us. People are getting jailed and fined for using foul language. That is just stupid.
So called "Hate Crime" laws just criminalize what you say. If I am a white person and I kill a black man while yelling "die nigger die!" how is that any worse than killing a white man yelling "die sucker die!"? Killing is already illegal. I "hate" the black man, but for some reason I don't "hate" the white man? So killing him was what, an act of love?
Even "anti-terrorism" laws are inherently anti-free speech. All terrorism type laws do is criminalize politically incorrect actions. Giving to the IRA, or the PLO, or FeGong (is this last one correct?) is either patriotic, or helping terrorists. The only difference is who's side you are on. The American revolutionaries were freedom fighters to the colonists and terrorists to the British. Same with the Palestinian Liberation Organization. The Irish Republican Army is fighting to free Northern Ireland from British rule, to the British they are a terrorist organization. The same with al-Qa'eda, to their supporters they are terrorists, to most September 11 Americans they are terrorists. Who you talk to, associate with, ideologically support shouldn't be illegal.
What happened on September 11th was already illegal. If a bunch of random people hijacked a few planes and crashed them into the WTC and the Pentagon, guess what, we could still prosecute them. Hijacking, murder, conspiracy to commit murder, etc. are all already illegal. All that calling it terrorism does is give the government an excuse to grant themselves new sweeping police powers. They curtail your civil and constitutional rights, and then broaden the definition of terrorism to include anyone who is against them ideologically or politically. Anti-WIPO, Anti-RIAA/MPAA, Anti-anything the powers that be like? Congratulations, you are a terrorist. Take apart your DVD player, you my friend are a terrorist. Believe that people should stop eating meat or wearing fur, terrorist. Think that Pres. Bush has gone too far with the Patriot Act/Dept of Homeland Security/Dept of Public Propaganda/National ID card/Military tribunals/etc. most definitely a terrorist. Please report to the nearest detainment facility, where you will be stripped of your customary legal protections, locked up for an indeterminate period of time, possible tortured, denied a lawyer, a trial, or an appeal. No need for anyone else to be concerned. You are a "terrorist". These things must be done to keep society safe. Yea right.
Saying the wrong thing, or the right thing to the wrong people is now very much illegal. The EU is starting to look down right enlightened, and that's a scary thought.
I am happy to say I use 3.5" floppies almost every day. I have floppy, Zip, CD-R, CD-RW, and broadband.
Why? When you are saving/moving files that are under 1.4 meg there is nothing better. Zip disks are way too expensive (approx $10 USD each) and not every machine has them, same with CD-RWs. CD-R's are cheap and most machines have CD-ROM readers, but not everyone has a CD-R writer, and wasting over 650Meg of space is just so wrong.
When we have some other media/format that;
a) Costs less than $0.25 USD per media UNIT
b) Can be found in practically every computer on the planet. (even iMacs have USB floppies)
Then you might have something. Until then, I'll keep my floppies.