"Another amazing pirating scam that in Taiwan is credit card fraud, which is more widespread in that country than any other. One can now get a fake credit card made there in under 3 minutes, and most people are afraid to use their legitimate credit cards for fear of the number being stolen by a planted clerk"
Could this be like the way we do it here in the USA? After all, we have violent criminals being let loose by the thousand every day to make jail space for largely non-violent drug offenders... (and, it should be noted, largely "somehow" letting the VIOLENT drug lords get away).
It's VERY out of whack! The punishment no longer fits the crime anywhere in the USA. As one poster pointed out on an earlier/. story, it's possible to get a FRACTION of the jail time for running over Jack Valenti in your car (vehicular manslaughter) than violating the DMCA!
Just like any other profession, law enforcement would rather take lower-risk path of arresting people less likely to kill them. Hell, they will jump right on this bandwagon! Mp3 users are a lot less likely to kill cops than are even drug users!
"Why does being a student make it any different from if we were not? Raids on student accomodation should be reacted to exactly as raids on domestic homes would be."
Which they SHOULD be. I really don't understand how schools get away with the level of "co-operation" with government in conducting such raids. I also don't understand how there can be ANY legal difference between a home you own or rent off campus, with a dorm you RENT on campus!
IMO, the difference has more to do with the campus dorm being GOVERNMENT PROPERTY and the private, off campus apartment being PRIVATE property.
"Why does being a student make it any different from if we were not? Raids on student accomodation should be reacted to exactly as raids on domestic homes would be."
Three things make being a student "different", with respect to the government:
1. Students are in the most impressionable stage of their lives, one reason why so much effort is concentrated on the educational establishment by special interests (enviro-wackos, wacko cause `celeb-of-the-month, and any other radical, pro-GOVERNMENT authority groups). By wacking some students, the government can use the terroristic fear to silence and affect thousands more. And they carry this fear to their adult professional lives.
2. Most schools, obviously, are run and owned by the government, and thus government is allowed to circumvent many laws with regard to access and search. It's probably Unconstitutional, but the courts have seemingly long since given up on demaning ANY substantive "probable cause" for issuing warrants.
3. Students are students. NOT working professionals. This means they are not earning significant income, and thus, are far less likely to be able to turn around and fight back with any effect. In other words, students are vulnerable to being exploited by the legal system, where the public defenders are most likely IN bed with the local legal "establishment" or else too incompetent to be hired by the corpers and strike it rich.
I have NO doubt in my mind whatsoever that these terrorist raid tactics used in Taiwan is nothing but a dress rehearsal for what they want to start doing in the US.
And I have one question: Even IF the RIAA busts into your apartment and seizes your hard drive full of MP3's, HOW can they prove that they aren't tracks you made from music that you had bought? Even if they WERENT? I have yet to see a CD or casette come with a software like "shrink wrap EULA" that states that you have to keep the license and originals as proof of purchase.
After all, there is a well established, Constitutionally protected right of "fair use" (though being eroded constantly by moronc Federal "judges" (Kaplan) and illegal statutory law (DMCA).
Also, in the USA, you are legally innocent UNTIL they prove you guilty beyond a REASONABLE doubt. They have to PROVE that you didn't make those MP3's from stuff you'd bought over the years, but may not have kept the originals. Thus it seems likely that it would be hard to make any such case stick, unless they could seize logs or something that showed you using Napster.
However, as we well know, the corpers are writing the laws and are paying the lawyers who become judges (Kaplan). Just as the DeCSS case verdict was irrational, Constitutionally illegal, and indefensible (as was Kaplan's conflicted conduct), there is sure to be a RIAA vs. Joe Napster user that will be just as stupid.
What is happening, IMO, is the RIAA is trying to establish a precedent somewhere, that they can then con some local or Federal jackboots into following HERE, to treat people who have MP3's like drug dealers and software Warez sellers.
If this starts happening here, well, now you anti-gun ownership people understand the argument that I and others make for the reason BEHIND the fact that the Founders included the right to "keep and bear arms" right in the second amendment. The right to bear arms is intended to keep the government in line, and within the law.
To be honest, though, I wonder if the RIAA realizes what would happen if they started such raids in the USA? I think there would be a CONSIDERABLE public backlash against them.
Or maybe I'm putting too much faith in the sheep masses who keep voting for the same two (one) party system all the time. The same parties that are so similar in their desire to kowtow to the corpers that they unanimously, and secretly, voice voted in the DMCA.
I don't think Mr. Katz has a full understanding of the facts.
1. This incident occured over 60 MILES from Chinese territory. The international boundry by treaty is only 12 miles out from shore! So the US plane was clearly in international airspace, where it had every right to be.
2. Trying to hit a fighter jet capable of Mach 2 flight with a lumbering DC-3 like prop plane (planes like the "spyplane" were used for NY to DC air service back in the 1950's!) is rather like trying to deliberately hit a speedboat with a sailboat. It just doesn't happen, unless the pilot of the jet plane either did something foolish (which Wang Wei, the pilot in question, has a documented history of being a hot dog) or else the pilot of the jet was in such a position that the prop plane pilot could not see him or detect his location.
The very fact that this incident occured SOLELY because of the interference with the US plane by Chinese jet planes, in international territory, would lead any logical peson to the conclusion that the fault must certainly rest with the Chinese.
Just as in the laws of sea navigation, it is incumbent on a powered craft to steer clear of a sailing craft, jets have to avoid prop planes that are nowhere as fast or manuverable.
3. International law and treaty (which China is a party to) hold that ALL nations have an obligation to give safe harbor and lend assistance to a disabled aircraft. Back in the 1980's, a Soviet spy plane had trouble and was allowed to land in Alaska. After it was repaired, the crew was allowed to leave, completely unmollested.
4. China is, without any legal, ethical, or moral cause, holding 24 American servicepeople hostage, according to ANY treaty that has ever been ratified by both the US and China.
China is messing with forces that it does not understand, being that their government is incestuous, closed, autocratic in nature. They are lucky that our govenrment so far has been VERY leniant and been going out of it's way to inflame the wrath of the American people.
However, if China does not release the hostages soon, this will change, and leave the control of our own government. And China needs our markets to sell their goods to far more than we need to allow our wonderful and patriotic corporations the bility to export factories and jobs to their slave labor market.
Americans react poorly to Americans being held hostage. As well we should.
"As if gamers actually pay attention to surroundings in the game while playing. You couldn't even ask me the color of the sky in the last level of Quake I played, how the heck am I going to remember what product a billboard displayed?"
You are, of course correct. Which is why this scheme, as stated in the article, WILL NOT WORK! What will happen is that someone will try invasive, interruptive type ads that FORCE you to see it. That's the only scheme the marketers will ultimately go for.
And hopefully, it will cause the sales of wahtever game that incorporates such advertising to plunge. After all, wouldn't you be pissed off if you were playing Quake V only to have your game frozen just as you were about to frag your opponent to make you watch a Nike ad?
"But, seriously, what I'm wondering is, will Gamespy and the other mass information and preview "outlets" start warning us about ad-riddled games before we buy? If not, there will soon be a need for a game ad warning site"
An EXCELLENT point! I think, at first, the commercial mags and review sites WILL warn people of annoying, or invasive ads. But, as history has shown, as ownership interlocks with other corps that have a vested interest, what you get is the sharp decline in the honesty (and credibility) of reviews, etc as happened in the computer mags after Ziff-Davis took over everything. ZD's reviews and articles are BLATANTLY biased towards their advertisers, which is one reason why I dumped my subscription to Computer Gaming World (which used to be my favorite magazine) when ZD took them over.
Fortunately, the web makes such things irrelevant. The web allows anyone to publish anything they want and have it accessable to the whole world. Although, only those who WISH to be informed (like us, the geeks who read/.) will be.
I'm certain that there WILL be such sites that will warn of interruptive ads in games. If there isn't one, I'll start one myself:)
"I mean, radio has a lot of commercials, and we don't pay for it!"
That is on it's way.... "Digital" satellite radio (by Sirus and XM) which is about to come out is subscription only... And XM (partly owned by Clear Channel, a huge radio megacorp that is pioneering the 20-commercials in a row that is driving people AWAY from radio) WILL have commercials...
"This attitude towards people is really annoying and insulting. We're not fruit, and we're not something to just be harvested. We'll end up really being that way sometime soon though if this continues."
To marketers that's EXACTLY what we are. There isn't a marketer alive that wouldnt wish for the power to tie people to a chair and jam their eyelids on their advertisement. Look at the latest generation of annoying commercial websites, that seem to go out of their way to:
1. lock your browser so you can't go "back"
2. Bury the relevant information you went to the site for in the first place, deliberately, so that you have to wade thru their "copy" to get it.
Off topic: I wish Mozilla would offer an option to DISABLE the technique that disables your back button, or floods the history so that you can't back out.
In the last 20 years, the bombardment of people by advertising has increased by geometric porportions... At the same time, RESISTANCE to advertising has increased. Making ads more obtrusive and more present only increases resistance, and only encourages people to avoid them, or create ways TO avoid them.
As far as I'm concerned, I'll NEVER buy a game that has in-game advertisements that are of any sort of intrusive or interruptive nature (IE, anything more blatant than playing a baseball game that may have, say, a Coca-Cola logo on the outfield wall).
I do not believe that in-game ads will work, as people who pay money for a product do not expect to have to "sit through commercials" to play. And you know that it will go that way, even though they may be unobtrusive and uninterruptive at first... Marketers live for the scenario of locking you in a chair with your eyes forced open and locked on their ad. Internet banner advertising, which is relatively unobtrusive, in their minds has "failed" and even now they are implimenting MORE obtrusive, interruptive and annoying internet advertising.
Unless game publishers start giving games away, I don't believe the public will accept ANY KIND of interruptive advertising in the game. It's a catch 22... I dont' think the marketers will go for non-interruptive ads, and I don't think the public will long tolerate games (that cost upwards of $50-60 a pop, which is on average 2-3 times the cost of a VHS or DVD movie, which the public so far has not tolerated interruptive ads in) that feature interruptive ads.
" If the audio tracks will play on a PC CD-ROM drive..."
I did, but I don't believe that's possible. All that would be needed is modified player software to play the disc. If the data's ON the disc, the CD-ROM drive can access it.
In other words, this is just some lame scheme to break CD player software.
" What really needs to be done here is to give consumers access to digital music for a fair price. I don't see RIAA or any record company even trying to do that. If MP3s were 50 cents per copy, I think record companies would make a mint. I certainly would buy a ton of them. "
They won't do it for the simple fact that their control over a music industry based on PHYSICAL media and distrobution is what is at stake. This control gives the RIAA record labels to exploit the artists, by not only taking the lion's share of the revenue (over 80%), but also in most cases, retaining all ownership of the songs!
If there is no physical media or distrobution, the artist would only need to hire MARKETERS to promote them, as they would be able to provide their own media production and distrobution (a website). There would be no compelling reason to turn over their rights to a record label.
A subscription based Napster like service would also give the artist the ability to MARKET and even SELL their music without even hiring marketers.
This is what the RIAA fears worst of all, the fact that technology has advanced beyond their ability to control, and means either their eventual demise or at least a STEEP reduction in control over the music industry.
So, they are attempting to use their current unassailable financial position to leverage laws (DMCA) that protect their business model, and use lawsuits to harass anyone who tries to build an alternative.
But, like stone walls, which never ultimately keep out the invaders, this tactic will eventually fail. It must, unless the USA ceases to be free and capitalistic, but instead becomes Authoritarian and Corporate, although right now that is looking to be a possibility.
Even IF that happens, the RIAA also loses, because Americans will no longer be a free people with the leisure to buy their products, we'll be too busy carrying guns and blowing up Corporate Government Authority installations.
I think the RIAA's fear of Napster has more to to with their fear of artists using IT instead of THEM to get their songs out more than piracy.
Remember, it's the record labels that today control the production, distrobution, marketing, and exposure of all new music in the USA. Even to the point of dictating to radio what gets played (ever wonder why radio plays the "single" off a new album instead of playing the other good songs, at least until they also become a "single"?)
Any break in this vertcal monopoly the RIAA has in the recording industry will cause the loss of the others as well.
"* The only way the general public can protect their rights is to shun any of these new technologies. Unless they provide some compelling reason and benefit the to general public, they should not be successful, especailly if there are competing standards. The installed legacy base is huge and inertia is a very hard thing to overcome.
"
With respect to audio technology, IS there a new technology that would be compelling enough to make everyone switch?
IMO, that will be hard. CD's already have the best possible sound quality, which is mainly why they replaced casettes. Other than making CD's smaller and higher capacity (which is NOT an actual improvement of the audio) there doesn't seem to be any way to make the kind of leap as from casette to CD, or VHS to DVD.
The only compelling new audio technology is MP3, and MP3 players (smaller, more convienient, and higher capacity, as in my argument above). Which the recording industry is trying their hardest to suppress.
I don't see any possible way that this will work, short of exploiting the copyright protection schemes in the newwe M$ operating systems (ME, 2000, XP), and even that is doubtful. At most, a minor rewrite to the ripper program will be required.
If the audio tracks will play on a PC CD-ROM drive, then there is a way a ripper can save the tracks. There is just no way around that. And once the track is in MP3 format, there is no copy control.
I see this as a possible attempt by the RIAA to exploit the DMCA ala the MPAA and DeCss. Tey may next be going to court to get CD rippers and MP3 encoders declared "circumvention devices" under the DMCA. And they know how to do it, just file their suit in so-called "judge" Kaplan's "court". (as an aside, perhaps Kaplan could be the Judge Wapner in a new show on the WB called "The Corporates Court").
CD's that employ this kind of copy controls, which will NOT stop piracy, but are intended to prevent me from excercising my right to fair use, SHOULD BE BOYCOTTED! Make them fail in the marketplace. It would seem to me that this copyright control scheme would only really prevent copying on consumer level audio equipment (non PC's), where you can't get at the hardware and change the software.
"As it turns out, the click-thru rate on my television and radio is exactly zero, which when compared to web click-thru results seems pretty abysmal. Yet people still buy tv and radio ads."
I have a different take on the so-called "failure" of banner advertising... I don't think it IS a failure, at least, no more so than any other ads.
Internet advertising is so far the ONLY advertising there is where there is complete 100% accountability back to the advertiser. TV and radio advertisers only have an idea of how many "potentially" can see/hear their ad (based on ratings) but never exact numbers.
Something tells me that if there was such accountability, advertisers might realize that their radio and TV advertising is also a "failure".
Advertising can only do so much. Most ads I see are pretty lame, they either advertise something I don't want, or fail to excite me. Same thing with most TV and radio ads. Quality advertising is entertaining. By entertaining the viewer/listener/etc you stand a much better chance of making a positive impression.
Web advertising that try to yank control of my web browser instanty fall into the category of businesses I'd NEVER do business with under any circumstances.
Of ANY semblance of freedom or liberty in this country, political or economic...
This law would be worset thng to happen to Texas since LBJ. It will seriously damage small businesses in Texas (who won't be able to negotiate elcheepo prices for the censorware). It will stifle an already struggling PC industry. It will make Microsoft a MONOPOLY in Texas.
What a scam. These cesnorware companies, whom all seem to have problems with telling the truth about what their software blocks (all seem to block critics of their software, and block political sites the censorware makers disagree with). Anyone remember that story last week about The Register being blocked by Cyber Patrol?
While I believe that this law won't last 10 minutes in Federal court, what is scary is that there are legislators who either don't KNOW that this is blatantly Unconstitutional, or worse, don't CARE and are going to try it anyway.
What I'd like to see is business grow some balls for once and play hardball with that government. If I were Dell or Compaq I'd be PUBLICALLY shoppig other states for a great deal to move....
One way to discourage bad government is to not feed it. Take your business elsewhere so that the economy flourishes where there are better laws and flounders where there are bad ones.
"On one hand, they say that parents shouldn't allow their kids to watch certain material. It's the parents' own fault and responsibility, etc. However, on the other hand, you see them talking about how kids should have an increasing world view. How they should be allowed to access the internet unfiltered or unrestricted because of the holes in the ratings software."
The point is, if you don't want your kids seeing certain things on the Internet, then you shouldn't be allowing them to USE it without your supervision.
Same attitude I was talking about in my original post: You want ME to take responsibility for censoring for YOUR kids because YOU don't want to take the time to do it yourself!
"Personally, I think that if games spent as much time extolling the downsides of violence as they did the virtues of it (ie; through funeral sequences or cutscenes of regret or maybe even someone watching in horror as someone dies) then maybe we wouldn't need this kind of thing. The reason for this type of legislation shouldn't be to ban violence or hide it from children, it should be an attempt to make sure that the audience is presented with the consequences of theirs and others violent actions in the game"
Again, this is YOUR responsibility. If you don't want your kids playing violent video games, then it's up to YOU to read the reviews, and to control whether they buy it or not.
If you want a game like that, write the game companies. Get people who want the same thing to write too. And then when they come out with it, BUY IT. If it succeeds in the marketplace, there will be more like it.
However, you seem to be wanting to use the power and might of the government to FORCE this down the throats of the industry by denying access to the markets to those who don't go along with what you want. This is the effect government mandated and controlled ratings would have.
"How the hell are adults rights being hurt by a ratings system so long as nothing is censored, just rated?"
For one thing, in this case it's the GOVERNMENT reviewing and rating movies. This means the GOVERNMENT has the power to rate something according to the bureaucrat's own biases and that rating might FORCE the game maker to change the game to get into the chain stores, just as movies get censored or not carried at Blockbuster.
That's censorship. By government. It's a slippery slope you DONT want to slide down.
"2) The point isn't that this relieves the responsibility of the parents to raise their kids, but why make their jobs harder?"
I don't have kids. It's not my responsibility to raise yours. It's also not my problem, but YOURS to keep your kids out of things you don't want them to have and see.
You seem to be suggesting that we censor everything not fit for children from public places, and from public MARKETPLACES. Can you not see how dangerous this is? Children will spend much more of their lives as ADULTS, and you're talking about depriving them of liberty.
Why don't YOU as a parent take responsibility and spend the TIME with your kids to know what they are watching, what video games they are playing, etc. Kids under 16 shouldn't be given money and allowed to run loose in the mall ANYWAY to buy whatever the hell they want UNSUPERVISED.
I hate to break it to you, but being a parent is a tough job that demands long hours and lots of attention. If you weren't prepared for that, maybe you should have used responsible birth control?
"Should kids be allowed to buy guns since any decent parent wouldn't let their kid go into a gun shop?"
This is a totally different issue. Children are not adults, and should not have adult responsibility, and owning a firearm is about as adult as it gets.
Not to say that it is a bad idea to introduce kids to firearms (it is a great idea to teach them responsible ways to handle weapons), but it should be done in a supervised manner.
"Same goes for drivers license, alcohol, tobacco, and lots of other things kids aren't allowed to do."
There is a reason for this: the minimum legal age limits of 18/21. YOU as a parent are responsible for the kids until they reach the age of 18.
""... getting ready to try to sue the video game industry out of existance." What crap! As usual, overreacting to reasonable people trying to protect the innocent."
Overreacting? In this age of using the courts as a national lottery? Come on. The tobacco industry (which I won't defend) was selling a legal product that carried government mandated warning labels for over 25 years.
And government (thru taxation) makes far more money per pack of cigarettes sold than do the tobacco companies...
Yet that didn't stop the government and every whorehouse lawfirm from trying to sue them on the basis that people were too stupid to know that smoking is BAD for you.
Anyone who wasn't aware of that fact and has lived in the USA in the last 25 years is a candidate for the Darwin Awards.
It's just a matter of time before a "concerned" group of hysterical Soccermoms becomes the front for a suit against the game industry. Mark my words and this date. It WILL happen.
Eventually, every industry that produces anything that could conceivably harm ANYONE if misused, even IF there are warning labels WILL be sued unless this practice is stopped with meaningful lawsuit reform. The result? Economic collapse, the complete demise of creativity an innovation, poverty, starvation, and a LOT of dead lawyers when the revolution comes.
Maybe that scenario IS a bit exteme, but it's becoming more and more likely, as this new trend for governments and special interests to sue industry continues. And it WILL continue, and will continue to be expended to other industries (like video game makers), as it's already been proven a great new method of taxation. New taxes never go away.
"Come on now... your child playing violent video games does not cause him/her to become a killer/rapist. Bad parenting/lack of good parenting is a much bigger factor"
That is the / cause of all the problem with kids these days: most partents aren't worth a shit anymore. Parents either by necessity (thanks to the record tax burden), or by choice (gotta have not one but TWO BMW's in the garage) are both working and that means kids don't get the supervision they used to.
Naturally parents don't blame themselves, even though they are at fault. It is 100% the parents fault for basically abandoning kids to be raised by TV and video games. Is it any wonder that kids are more succeptable to influence by media now than ever before?
Parents shift the blame to TV, video games, the Internet, etc (the very things they abandon their children to be babysat by). Why? First to pass blame. Second, for convienience.. To them, its perfectly acceptable to place restrictions on EVERYONE ELSE'S liberty to gain the convienience of not having to supervise their own children.
The consequence of 20 years of bad parenting (my generation and my parents generation have to be the WORST parents in the history of the world) will be a set of laws that have no effect on the kids at all (laws restricting my access to things never stopped me when I was a kid from getting what I wanted to see, though there weren't many inthe 80's) but they WILL have a chilling effect on free speech and expression on those kids when they become ADULTS.
Unfortunately, I can guess as to what the next phase will be. I'm sure somewhere, some unprincipled lawyer (oxymoron) in allaince with some brainless Soccermom group is getting ready to try to sue the video game industry out of existance.
It's time to quit harming the rights of adults to protect children. Children will become adults someday, it's a biological fact.
As each year passes and another hysterical Soccermom group gets another law passed, the children of today are going to be less and less free as adults tomorrow.
"People have to take some blame for this. Not every employer can be trusted; not every business model is sound. Did anyone signing on with them ask about their funding? Stability? Did anyone check otu the qualifications of the managemetn? CFO?"
One of my points that got flamed repeatedly by the rash of consecutive new./ account number Linuxgruven drones in the early./ artice was this one: If it sound like it's too good to be true it IS!
I agree that people should have steered clear. Forking over $2,500 for "training" to get a $45K job isn't a smart thing to do. Especially when SAIR, the organization that administers the SAIR Linux Certification exams strongly disapproved of the training methods.
However, this does NOT excuse the unethical, and possibly CRIMINAL behavior of Linuxgruven's CEO and management.
Lat time I checked, it's criminal to commit fraud (charging people for something you don't deliver), and to steal (having employees do work you don't pay them for). Unless somehow that was made legal by the DMCA...
I knew nothing about Linuxgruven until the recent/. story about SAIR's disapproval of their training practices. At that time I posted that I thought that the people who thought that they could get a $45K job for just passing a test were setting themselves up, because a company that does that will never make it, and unfortunately, I was right. And you never do want to be right about something like that.
In my opinion, there needs to be a SWIFT and immediate criminal investigation of Linuxgruven's CEO Matthew Porter and their management. I believe that they were running a ponsi scheme, paying employees out of the money they were getting for "training" new people. Linuxgruven obviously never legitimately did the business they claimed to be doing. If it's not a ponsi scheme, it's close... The article suggests that new employees who jsut passed the tests were then given the job of training new victims... Which is why this smells of a ponsi scheme.
Now people who forked over a considerable amount of money for questionable education are left holding an empty bag. And employees are screwed amd left with bounced checks and bills.
Bouncing paychecks is a serious crime in some locales. I say that Linuxgruven's CEO and management need to see the inside of a jail cell.
In the Newsforge article, these bozos are planning to start a "competing" business. I'd advice everyone to stay the hell away from whatever business that is.
Unethical business practice should not go unpunished.
"Because of the kinds of idiots who modded a Pun up to +5!! WTF"
I thought it was funny... Maybe it's not worth a 5, but who cares? I wish the moderators would spend more time moderating things UP than down (which is in the/. Moderarors FAQ, which I read before I moderated when last week I had moderators access). I've had stuff modded down before simply because my opinion didn't fit the political views of the moderator. Fortunately someone else modded it back up again...
Back on the topic at hand...
As one poster stated, it's fucking AMAZING how much more creativity and ingenuity there is in the hacker community than in the corps.. But then, ingenuity and innovation rarely happens in groups or comittes (which corps are), but at the INDIVIDUAL level.
How many truly world changing inventions were invented by a comitte? None spring to my mind, though I'm sure there are a handful. But they would be in the minority. Even inventions by corps mostly came from a single INDIVIDUAL.
There is an anti-individualist disease infecting the USA these days. Why? Because those in power have a lot easier time dealing with the population as disparate "groups" they can play off one another rather than 281 million INDIVIDUALS. It's not yet reached the head, but when it does, the USA will cease to be a union on individuals and a union of "groups". Once we complete the process of losing the concept of INDIVIDUAL rights, INDIVIDUAL liberty, we are doomed to be a non-innovative nation.
Laws like the DMCA represent this process. It was written by corporations, to trump the rights of individuals and transfer them to the groups.
"his would seem to mean that clearly Scientology is the more powerful evil corporation when it comes to asserting proprietary control over their technology"
I think you have a good point there. Socially, an evil, corrupt "religion" like Scientology is FAR more dangerous to society than ANY corporation.
Scientology is like the 1980's televangelists, only far worse. I've read xenu.net for quite some time. This is an organization that has a history of using "secret police" against their members AND people who dare dennounce them. They've been busted by the FBI more than once.
They hide behind copyright to keep outsiders from knowing the truth about them. I'd have to say that ANY religion that claims it's "bible" is copyrighted and proprietary would have to be viewed with suspicion...
Fortunately, Scientology isn't trying to convert the masses, which keeps them out of most people's lives. You can't BE a Scientologist unless you are filthy rich, because you have to pay vast sums of money for "training" etc. This isn't exactly a "church" that collects offerings to use for the poor. Scientology's one foothold is among the Hollywood Left, Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, John Travolta, etc.
What Scientology WANTS to do, in my opinion, is convert the rich and powerful (who fund them), whereby they will get control over the masses.
What an example of how just totally evil the DMCA is as a law... It protects corporate cartels (MPAA), and for-profit "religions" (cult more properly describes Scientology though).
"I don't think they'll be this draconian, but it's certainly technically feasible."
Are you so sure? How about the CPRM like control of audio files that M$ slipped into `Doze ME under the cover of darkness?
This kind of thing is EXACTLY what will cause all serious computer users to go to Linux. As long as `Doze is close sourced, who the hell knows how many backdoors and big-brother ish security exploits there are in there for M$'s use.
This is one reason why NO Microsoft OS ever WILL be truly secure. They don't want it to be, because the OS is their proprietary highway they use for their own benefit.
I think Microsoft knows this, which is why they are now out there slamming the GPL as "unamerican"... Microsoft's biggest threat isn't Linux, it's the GPL. The GPL insures that all OS's and software packages derived from GPL'ed code REMAIN always open. Which doesn't allow anyone the cover of darkness to do the kinds of low-ball things MS does with the OS.
So long as MS OS's are proprietary and GPL'ed OS's are open, the tendency will be for the GPL'ed OS's to get more secure while the MS ones will get less so as MS's paranoia, and prices, increase, which creates more piracy, which creates more MS hysteria.
To have a secure OS and office suite, you cant build it with the concept of letting a third party (even yourself) hidden backdoor ways in and having control. If MS can get in, any cracker can get in.
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"Another amazing pirating scam that in Taiwan is credit card fraud, which is more widespread in that country than any other. One can now get a fake credit card made there in under 3 minutes, and most people are afraid to use their legitimate credit cards for fear of the number being stolen by a planted clerk"
/. story, it's possible to get a FRACTION of the jail time for running over Jack Valenti in your car (vehicular manslaughter) than violating the DMCA!
Could this be like the way we do it here in the USA? After all, we have violent criminals being let loose by the thousand every day to make jail space for largely non-violent drug offenders... (and, it should be noted, largely "somehow" letting the VIOLENT drug lords get away).
It's VERY out of whack! The punishment no longer fits the crime anywhere in the USA. As one poster pointed out on an earlier
Just like any other profession, law enforcement would rather take lower-risk path of arresting people less likely to kill them. Hell, they will jump right on this bandwagon! Mp3 users are a lot less likely to kill cops than are even drug users!
"Why does being a student make it any different from if we were not? Raids on student accomodation should be reacted to exactly as raids on domestic homes would be."
Which they SHOULD be. I really don't understand how schools get away with the level of "co-operation" with government in conducting such raids. I also don't understand how there can be ANY legal difference between a home you own or rent off campus, with a dorm you RENT on campus!
IMO, the difference has more to do with the campus dorm being GOVERNMENT PROPERTY and the private, off campus apartment being PRIVATE property.
"Why does being a student make it any different from if we were not? Raids on student accomodation should be reacted to exactly as raids on domestic homes would be."
Three things make being a student "different", with respect to the government:
1. Students are in the most impressionable stage of their lives, one reason why so much effort is concentrated on the educational establishment by special interests (enviro-wackos, wacko cause `celeb-of-the-month, and any other radical, pro-GOVERNMENT authority groups). By wacking some students, the government can use the terroristic fear to silence and affect thousands more. And they carry this fear to their adult professional lives.
2. Most schools, obviously, are run and owned by the government, and thus government is allowed to circumvent many laws with regard to access and search. It's probably Unconstitutional, but the courts have seemingly long since given up on demaning ANY substantive "probable cause" for issuing warrants.
3. Students are students. NOT working professionals. This means they are not earning significant income, and thus, are far less likely to be able to turn around and fight back with any effect. In other words, students are vulnerable to being exploited by the legal system, where the public defenders are most likely IN bed with the local legal "establishment" or else too incompetent to be hired by the corpers and strike it rich.
I have NO doubt in my mind whatsoever that these terrorist raid tactics used in Taiwan is nothing but a dress rehearsal for what they want to start doing in the US.
And I have one question: Even IF the RIAA busts into your apartment and seizes your hard drive full of MP3's, HOW can they prove that they aren't tracks you made from music that you had bought? Even if they WERENT? I have yet to see a CD or casette come with a software like "shrink wrap EULA" that states that you have to keep the license and originals as proof of purchase.
After all, there is a well established, Constitutionally protected right of "fair use" (though being eroded constantly by moronc Federal "judges" (Kaplan) and illegal statutory law (DMCA).
Also, in the USA, you are legally innocent UNTIL they prove you guilty beyond a REASONABLE doubt. They have to PROVE that you didn't make those MP3's from stuff you'd bought over the years, but may not have kept the originals. Thus it seems likely that it would be hard to make any such case stick, unless they could seize logs or something that showed you using Napster.
However, as we well know, the corpers are writing the laws and are paying the lawyers who become judges (Kaplan). Just as the DeCSS case verdict was irrational, Constitutionally illegal, and indefensible (as was Kaplan's conflicted conduct), there is sure to be a RIAA vs. Joe Napster user that will be just as stupid.
What is happening, IMO, is the RIAA is trying to establish a precedent somewhere, that they can then con some local or Federal jackboots into following HERE, to treat people who have MP3's like drug dealers and software Warez sellers.
If this starts happening here, well, now you anti-gun ownership people understand the argument that I and others make for the reason BEHIND the fact that the Founders included the right to "keep and bear arms" right in the second amendment. The right to bear arms is intended to keep the government in line, and within the law.
To be honest, though, I wonder if the RIAA realizes what would happen if they started such raids in the USA? I think there would be a CONSIDERABLE public backlash against them.
Or maybe I'm putting too much faith in the sheep masses who keep voting for the same two (one) party system all the time. The same parties that are so similar in their desire to kowtow to the corpers that they unanimously, and secretly, voice voted in the DMCA.
I don't think Mr. Katz has a full understanding of the facts.
1. This incident occured over 60 MILES from Chinese territory. The international boundry by treaty is only 12 miles out from shore! So the US plane was clearly in international airspace, where it had every right to be.
2. Trying to hit a fighter jet capable of Mach 2 flight with a lumbering DC-3 like prop plane (planes like the "spyplane" were used for NY to DC air service back in the 1950's!) is rather like trying to deliberately hit a speedboat with a sailboat. It just doesn't happen, unless the pilot of the jet plane either did something foolish (which Wang Wei, the pilot in question, has a documented history of being a hot dog) or else the pilot of the jet was in such a position that the prop plane pilot could not see him or detect his location.
The very fact that this incident occured SOLELY because of the interference with the US plane by Chinese jet planes, in international territory, would lead any logical peson to the conclusion that the fault must certainly rest with the Chinese.
Just as in the laws of sea navigation, it is incumbent on a powered craft to steer clear of a sailing craft, jets have to avoid prop planes that are nowhere as fast or manuverable.
3. International law and treaty (which China is a party to) hold that ALL nations have an obligation to give safe harbor and lend assistance to a disabled aircraft. Back in the 1980's, a Soviet spy plane had trouble and was allowed to land in Alaska. After it was repaired, the crew was allowed to leave, completely unmollested.
4. China is, without any legal, ethical, or moral cause, holding 24 American servicepeople hostage, according to ANY treaty that has ever been ratified by both the US and China.
China is messing with forces that it does not understand, being that their government is incestuous, closed, autocratic in nature. They are lucky that our govenrment so far has been VERY leniant and been going out of it's way to inflame the wrath of the American people.
However, if China does not release the hostages soon, this will change, and leave the control of our own government. And China needs our markets to sell their goods to far more than we need to allow our wonderful and patriotic corporations the bility to export factories and jobs to their slave labor market.
Americans react poorly to Americans being held hostage. As well we should.
"As if gamers actually pay attention to surroundings in the game while playing. You couldn't even ask me the color of the sky in the last level of Quake I played, how the heck am I going to remember what product a billboard displayed?"
You are, of course correct. Which is why this scheme, as stated in the article, WILL NOT WORK! What will happen is that someone will try invasive, interruptive type ads that FORCE you to see it. That's the only scheme the marketers will ultimately go for.
And hopefully, it will cause the sales of wahtever game that incorporates such advertising to plunge. After all, wouldn't you be pissed off if you were playing Quake V only to have your game frozen just as you were about to frag your opponent to make you watch a Nike ad?
"But, seriously, what I'm wondering is, will Gamespy and the other mass information and preview "outlets" start warning us about ad-riddled games before we buy? If not, there will soon be a need for a game ad warning site"
/.) will be.
:)
An EXCELLENT point! I think, at first, the commercial mags and review sites WILL warn people of annoying, or invasive ads. But, as history has shown, as ownership interlocks with other corps that have a vested interest, what you get is the sharp decline in the honesty (and credibility) of reviews, etc as happened in the computer mags after Ziff-Davis took over everything. ZD's reviews and articles are BLATANTLY biased towards their advertisers, which is one reason why I dumped my subscription to Computer Gaming World (which used to be my favorite magazine) when ZD took them over.
Fortunately, the web makes such things irrelevant. The web allows anyone to publish anything they want and have it accessable to the whole world. Although, only those who WISH to be informed (like us, the geeks who read
I'm certain that there WILL be such sites that will warn of interruptive ads in games. If there isn't one, I'll start one myself
"I mean, radio has a lot of commercials, and we don't pay for it!"
That is on it's way.... "Digital" satellite radio (by Sirus and XM) which is about to come out is subscription only... And XM (partly owned by Clear Channel, a huge radio megacorp that is pioneering the 20-commercials in a row that is driving people AWAY from radio) WILL have commercials...
"This attitude towards people is really annoying and insulting. We're not fruit, and we're not something to just be harvested. We'll end up really being that way sometime soon though if this continues."
To marketers that's EXACTLY what we are. There isn't a marketer alive that wouldnt wish for the power to tie people to a chair and jam their eyelids on their advertisement. Look at the latest generation of annoying commercial websites, that seem to go out of their way to:
1. lock your browser so you can't go "back"
2. Bury the relevant information you went to the site for in the first place, deliberately, so that you have to wade thru their "copy" to get it.
Off topic: I wish Mozilla would offer an option to DISABLE the technique that disables your back button, or floods the history so that you can't back out.
In the last 20 years, the bombardment of people by advertising has increased by geometric porportions... At the same time, RESISTANCE to advertising has increased. Making ads more obtrusive and more present only increases resistance, and only encourages people to avoid them, or create ways TO avoid them.
As far as I'm concerned, I'll NEVER buy a game that has in-game advertisements that are of any sort of intrusive or interruptive nature (IE, anything more blatant than playing a baseball game that may have, say, a Coca-Cola logo on the outfield wall).
I do not believe that in-game ads will work, as people who pay money for a product do not expect to have to "sit through commercials" to play. And you know that it will go that way, even though they may be unobtrusive and uninterruptive at first... Marketers live for the scenario of locking you in a chair with your eyes forced open and locked on their ad. Internet banner advertising, which is relatively unobtrusive, in their minds has "failed" and even now they are implimenting MORE obtrusive, interruptive and annoying internet advertising.
Unless game publishers start giving games away, I don't believe the public will accept ANY KIND of interruptive advertising in the game. It's a catch 22... I dont' think the marketers will go for non-interruptive ads, and I don't think the public will long tolerate games (that cost upwards of $50-60 a pop, which is on average 2-3 times the cost of a VHS or DVD movie, which the public so far has not tolerated interruptive ads in) that feature interruptive ads.
" If the audio tracks will play on a PC CD-ROM drive..."
I did, but I don't believe that's possible. All that would be needed is modified player software to play the disc. If the data's ON the disc, the CD-ROM drive can access it.
In other words, this is just some lame scheme to break CD player software.
" What really needs to be done here is to give consumers access to digital music for a fair price. I don't see RIAA or any record company even trying to do that. If MP3s were 50 cents per copy, I think record companies would make a mint. I certainly would buy a ton of them. "
They won't do it for the simple fact that their control over a music industry based on PHYSICAL media and distrobution is what is at stake. This control gives the RIAA record labels to exploit the artists, by not only taking the lion's share of the revenue (over 80%), but also in most cases, retaining all ownership of the songs!
If there is no physical media or distrobution, the artist would only need to hire MARKETERS to promote them, as they would be able to provide their own media production and distrobution (a website). There would be no compelling reason to turn over their rights to a record label.
A subscription based Napster like service would also give the artist the ability to MARKET and even SELL their music without even hiring marketers.
This is what the RIAA fears worst of all, the fact that technology has advanced beyond their ability to control, and means either their eventual demise or at least a STEEP reduction in control over the music industry.
So, they are attempting to use their current unassailable financial position to leverage laws (DMCA) that protect their business model, and use lawsuits to harass anyone who tries to build an alternative.
But, like stone walls, which never ultimately keep out the invaders, this tactic will eventually fail. It must, unless the USA ceases to be free and capitalistic, but instead becomes Authoritarian and Corporate, although right now that is looking to be a possibility.
Even IF that happens, the RIAA also loses, because Americans will no longer be a free people with the leisure to buy their products, we'll be too busy carrying guns and blowing up Corporate Government Authority installations.
I think the RIAA's fear of Napster has more to to with their fear of artists using IT instead of THEM to get their songs out more than piracy.
Remember, it's the record labels that today control the production, distrobution, marketing, and exposure of all new music in the USA. Even to the point of dictating to radio what gets played (ever wonder why radio plays the "single" off a new album instead of playing the other good songs, at least until they also become a "single"?)
Any break in this vertcal monopoly the RIAA has in the recording industry will cause the loss of the others as well.
"* The only way the general public can protect their rights is to shun any of these new technologies. Unless they provide some compelling reason and benefit the to general public, they should not be successful, especailly if there are competing standards. The installed legacy base is huge and inertia is a very hard thing to overcome.
"
With respect to audio technology, IS there a new technology that would be compelling enough to make everyone switch?
IMO, that will be hard. CD's already have the best possible sound quality, which is mainly why they replaced casettes. Other than making CD's smaller and higher capacity (which is NOT an actual improvement of the audio) there doesn't seem to be any way to make the kind of leap as from casette to CD, or VHS to DVD.
The only compelling new audio technology is MP3, and MP3 players (smaller, more convienient, and higher capacity, as in my argument above). Which the recording industry is trying their hardest to suppress.
I don't see any possible way that this will work, short of exploiting the copyright protection schemes in the newwe M$ operating systems (ME, 2000, XP), and even that is doubtful. At most, a minor rewrite to the ripper program will be required.
If the audio tracks will play on a PC CD-ROM drive, then there is a way a ripper can save the tracks. There is just no way around that. And once the track is in MP3 format, there is no copy control.
I see this as a possible attempt by the RIAA to exploit the DMCA ala the MPAA and DeCss. Tey may next be going to court to get CD rippers and MP3 encoders declared "circumvention devices" under the DMCA. And they know how to do it, just file their suit in so-called "judge" Kaplan's "court". (as an aside, perhaps Kaplan could be the Judge Wapner in a new show on the WB called "The Corporates Court").
CD's that employ this kind of copy controls, which will NOT stop piracy, but are intended to prevent me from excercising my right to fair use, SHOULD BE BOYCOTTED! Make them fail in the marketplace. It would seem to me that this copyright control scheme would only really prevent copying on consumer level audio equipment (non PC's), where you can't get at the hardware and change the software.
"As it turns out, the click-thru rate on my television and radio is exactly zero, which when compared to web click-thru results seems pretty abysmal. Yet people still buy tv and radio ads."
I have a different take on the so-called "failure" of banner advertising... I don't think it IS a failure, at least, no more so than any other ads.
Internet advertising is so far the ONLY advertising there is where there is complete 100% accountability back to the advertiser. TV and radio advertisers only have an idea of how many "potentially" can see/hear their ad (based on ratings) but never exact numbers.
Something tells me that if there was such accountability, advertisers might realize that their radio and TV advertising is also a "failure".
Advertising can only do so much. Most ads I see are pretty lame, they either advertise something I don't want, or fail to excite me. Same thing with most TV and radio ads. Quality advertising is entertaining. By entertaining the viewer/listener/etc you stand a much better chance of making a positive impression.
Web advertising that try to yank control of my web browser instanty fall into the category of businesses I'd NEVER do business with under any circumstances.
Of ANY semblance of freedom or liberty in this country, political or economic...
This law would be worset thng to happen to Texas since LBJ. It will seriously damage small businesses in Texas (who won't be able to negotiate elcheepo prices for the censorware). It will stifle an already struggling PC industry. It will make Microsoft a MONOPOLY in Texas.
What a scam. These cesnorware companies, whom all seem to have problems with telling the truth about what their software blocks (all seem to block critics of their software, and block political sites the censorware makers disagree with). Anyone remember that story last week about The Register being blocked by Cyber Patrol?
While I believe that this law won't last 10 minutes in Federal court, what is scary is that there are legislators who either don't KNOW that this is blatantly Unconstitutional, or worse, don't CARE and are going to try it anyway.
What I'd like to see is business grow some balls for once and play hardball with that government. If I were Dell or Compaq I'd be PUBLICALLY shoppig other states for a great deal to move....
One way to discourage bad government is to not feed it. Take your business elsewhere so that the economy flourishes where there are better laws and flounders where there are bad ones.
"On one hand, they say that parents shouldn't allow their kids to watch certain material. It's the parents' own fault and responsibility, etc. However, on the other hand, you see them talking about how kids should have an increasing world view. How they should be allowed to access the internet unfiltered or unrestricted because of the holes in the ratings software."
The point is, if you don't want your kids seeing certain things on the Internet, then you shouldn't be allowing them to USE it without your supervision.
Same attitude I was talking about in my original post: You want ME to take responsibility for censoring for YOUR kids because YOU don't want to take the time to do it yourself!
"Personally, I think that if games spent as much time extolling the downsides of violence as they did the virtues of it (ie; through funeral sequences or cutscenes of regret or maybe even someone watching in horror as someone dies) then maybe we wouldn't need this kind of thing. The reason for this type of legislation shouldn't be to ban violence or hide it from children, it should be an attempt to make sure that the audience is presented with the consequences of theirs and others violent actions in the game"
Again, this is YOUR responsibility. If you don't want your kids playing violent video games, then it's up to YOU to read the reviews, and to control whether they buy it or not.
If you want a game like that, write the game companies. Get people who want the same thing to write too. And then when they come out with it, BUY IT. If it succeeds in the marketplace, there will be more like it.
However, you seem to be wanting to use the power and might of the government to FORCE this down the throats of the industry by denying access to the markets to those who don't go along with what you want. This is the effect government mandated and controlled ratings would have.
"How the hell are adults rights being hurt by a ratings system so long as nothing is censored, just rated?"
For one thing, in this case it's the GOVERNMENT reviewing and rating movies. This means the GOVERNMENT has the power to rate something according to the bureaucrat's own biases and that rating might FORCE the game maker to change the game to get into the chain stores, just as movies get censored or not carried at Blockbuster.
That's censorship. By government. It's a slippery slope you DONT want to slide down.
"2) The point isn't that this relieves the responsibility of the parents to raise their kids, but why make their jobs harder?"
I don't have kids. It's not my responsibility to raise yours. It's also not my problem, but YOURS to keep your kids out of things you don't want them to have and see.
You seem to be suggesting that we censor everything not fit for children from public places, and from public MARKETPLACES. Can you not see how dangerous this is? Children will spend much more of their lives as ADULTS, and you're talking about depriving them of liberty.
Why don't YOU as a parent take responsibility and spend the TIME with your kids to know what they are watching, what video games they are playing, etc. Kids under 16 shouldn't be given money and allowed to run loose in the mall ANYWAY to buy whatever the hell they want UNSUPERVISED.
I hate to break it to you, but being a parent is a tough job that demands long hours and lots of attention. If you weren't prepared for that, maybe you should have used responsible birth control?
"Should kids be allowed to buy guns since any decent parent wouldn't let their kid go into a gun shop?"
This is a totally different issue. Children are not adults, and should not have adult responsibility, and owning a firearm is about as adult as it gets.
Not to say that it is a bad idea to introduce kids to firearms (it is a great idea to teach them responsible ways to handle weapons), but it should be done in a supervised manner.
"Same goes for drivers license, alcohol, tobacco, and lots of other things kids aren't allowed to do."
There is a reason for this: the minimum legal age limits of 18/21. YOU as a parent are responsible for the kids until they reach the age of 18.
""... getting ready to try to sue the video game industry out of existance." What crap! As usual, overreacting to reasonable people trying to protect the innocent."
Overreacting? In this age of using the courts as a national lottery? Come on. The tobacco industry (which I won't defend) was selling a legal product that carried government mandated warning labels for over 25 years.
And government (thru taxation) makes far more money per pack of cigarettes sold than do the tobacco companies...
Yet that didn't stop the government and every whorehouse lawfirm from trying to sue them on the basis that people were too stupid to know that smoking is BAD for you.
Anyone who wasn't aware of that fact and has lived in the USA in the last 25 years is a candidate for the Darwin Awards.
It's just a matter of time before a "concerned" group of hysterical Soccermoms becomes the front for a suit against the game industry. Mark my words and this date. It WILL happen.
Eventually, every industry that produces anything that could conceivably harm ANYONE if misused, even IF there are warning labels WILL be sued unless this practice is stopped with meaningful lawsuit reform. The result? Economic collapse, the complete demise of creativity an innovation, poverty, starvation, and a LOT of dead lawyers when the revolution comes.
Maybe that scenario IS a bit exteme, but it's becoming more and more likely, as this new trend for governments and special interests to sue industry continues. And it WILL continue, and will continue to be expended to other industries (like video game makers), as it's already been proven a great new method of taxation. New taxes never go away.
"Come on now... your child playing violent video games does not cause him/her to become a killer/rapist. Bad parenting/lack of good parenting is a much bigger factor"
That is the / cause of all the problem with kids these days: most partents aren't worth a shit anymore. Parents either by necessity (thanks to the record tax burden), or by choice (gotta have not one but TWO BMW's in the garage) are both working and that means kids don't get the supervision they used to.
Naturally parents don't blame themselves, even though they are at fault. It is 100% the parents fault for basically abandoning kids to be raised by TV and video games. Is it any wonder that kids are more succeptable to influence by media now than ever before?
Parents shift the blame to TV, video games, the Internet, etc (the very things they abandon their children to be babysat by). Why? First to pass blame. Second, for convienience.. To them, its perfectly acceptable to place restrictions on EVERYONE ELSE'S liberty to gain the convienience of not having to supervise their own children.
The consequence of 20 years of bad parenting (my generation and my parents generation have to be the WORST parents in the history of the world) will be a set of laws that have no effect on the kids at all (laws restricting my access to things never stopped me when I was a kid from getting what I wanted to see, though there weren't many inthe 80's) but they WILL have a chilling effect on free speech and expression on those kids when they become ADULTS.
Unfortunately, I can guess as to what the next phase will be. I'm sure somewhere, some unprincipled lawyer (oxymoron) in allaince with some brainless Soccermom group is getting ready to try to sue the video game industry out of existance.
It's time to quit harming the rights of adults to protect children. Children will become adults someday, it's a biological fact.
As each year passes and another hysterical Soccermom group gets another law passed, the children of today are going to be less and less free as adults tomorrow.
"People have to take some blame for this. Not every employer can be trusted; not every business model is sound. Did anyone signing on with them ask about their funding? Stability? Did anyone check otu the qualifications of the managemetn? CFO?"
./ account number Linuxgruven drones in the early ./ artice was this one: If it sound like it's too good to be true it IS!
One of my points that got flamed repeatedly by the rash of consecutive new
I agree that people should have steered clear. Forking over $2,500 for "training" to get a $45K job isn't a smart thing to do. Especially when SAIR, the organization that administers the SAIR Linux Certification exams strongly disapproved of the training methods.
However, this does NOT excuse the unethical, and possibly CRIMINAL behavior of Linuxgruven's CEO and management.
Lat time I checked, it's criminal to commit fraud (charging people for something you don't deliver), and to steal (having employees do work you don't pay them for). Unless somehow that was made legal by the DMCA...
I knew nothing about Linuxgruven until the recent /. story about SAIR's disapproval of their training practices. At that time I posted that I thought that the people who thought that they could get a $45K job for just passing a test were setting themselves up, because a company that does that will never make it, and unfortunately, I was right. And you never do want to be right about something like that.
In my opinion, there needs to be a SWIFT and immediate criminal investigation of Linuxgruven's CEO Matthew Porter and their management. I believe that they were running a ponsi scheme, paying employees out of the money they were getting for "training" new people. Linuxgruven obviously never legitimately did the business they claimed to be doing. If it's not a ponsi scheme, it's close... The article suggests that new employees who jsut passed the tests were then given the job of training new victims... Which is why this smells of a ponsi scheme.
Now people who forked over a considerable amount of money for questionable education are left holding an empty bag. And employees are screwed amd left with bounced checks and bills.
Bouncing paychecks is a serious crime in some locales. I say that Linuxgruven's CEO and management need to see the inside of a jail cell.
In the Newsforge article, these bozos are planning to start a "competing" business. I'd advice everyone to stay the hell away from whatever business that is.
Unethical business practice should not go unpunished.
"Because of the kinds of idiots who modded a Pun up to +5!! WTF"
/. Moderarors FAQ, which I read before I moderated when last week I had moderators access). I've had stuff modded down before simply because my opinion didn't fit the political views of the moderator. Fortunately someone else modded it back up again...
I thought it was funny... Maybe it's not worth a 5, but who cares? I wish the moderators would spend more time moderating things UP than down (which is in the
Back on the topic at hand...
As one poster stated, it's fucking AMAZING how much more creativity and ingenuity there is in the hacker community than in the corps.. But then, ingenuity and innovation rarely happens in groups or comittes (which corps are), but at the INDIVIDUAL level.
How many truly world changing inventions were invented by a comitte? None spring to my mind, though I'm sure there are a handful. But they would be in the minority. Even inventions by corps mostly came from a single INDIVIDUAL.
There is an anti-individualist disease infecting the USA these days. Why? Because those in power have a lot easier time dealing with the population as disparate "groups" they can play off one another rather than 281 million INDIVIDUALS. It's not yet reached the head, but when it does, the USA will cease to be a union on individuals and a union of "groups". Once we complete the process of losing the concept of INDIVIDUAL rights, INDIVIDUAL liberty, we are doomed to be a non-innovative nation.
Laws like the DMCA represent this process. It was written by corporations, to trump the rights of individuals and transfer them to the groups.
"his would seem to mean that clearly Scientology is the more powerful evil corporation when it comes to asserting proprietary control over their technology"
I think you have a good point there. Socially, an evil, corrupt "religion" like Scientology is FAR more dangerous to society than ANY corporation.
Scientology is like the 1980's televangelists, only far worse. I've read xenu.net for quite some time. This is an organization that has a history of using "secret police" against their members AND people who dare dennounce them. They've been busted by the FBI more than once.
They hide behind copyright to keep outsiders from knowing the truth about them. I'd have to say that ANY religion that claims it's "bible" is copyrighted and proprietary would have to be viewed with suspicion...
Fortunately, Scientology isn't trying to convert the masses, which keeps them out of most people's lives. You can't BE a Scientologist unless you are filthy rich, because you have to pay vast sums of money for "training" etc. This isn't exactly a "church" that collects offerings to use for the poor. Scientology's one foothold is among the Hollywood Left, Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, John Travolta, etc.
What Scientology WANTS to do, in my opinion, is convert the rich and powerful (who fund them), whereby they will get control over the masses.
What an example of how just totally evil the DMCA is as a law... It protects corporate cartels (MPAA), and for-profit "religions" (cult more properly describes Scientology though).
"I don't think they'll be this draconian, but it's certainly technically feasible."
Are you so sure? How about the CPRM like control of audio files that M$ slipped into `Doze ME under the cover of darkness?
This kind of thing is EXACTLY what will cause all serious computer users to go to Linux. As long as `Doze is close sourced, who the hell knows how many backdoors and big-brother ish security exploits there are in there for M$'s use.
This is one reason why NO Microsoft OS ever WILL be truly secure. They don't want it to be, because the OS is their proprietary highway they use for their own benefit.
I think Microsoft knows this, which is why they are now out there slamming the GPL as "unamerican"... Microsoft's biggest threat isn't Linux, it's the GPL. The GPL insures that all OS's and software packages derived from GPL'ed code REMAIN always open. Which doesn't allow anyone the cover of darkness to do the kinds of low-ball things MS does with the OS.
So long as MS OS's are proprietary and GPL'ed OS's are open, the tendency will be for the GPL'ed OS's to get more secure while the MS ones will get less so as MS's paranoia, and prices, increase, which creates more piracy, which creates more MS hysteria.
To have a secure OS and office suite, you cant build it with the concept of letting a third party (even yourself) hidden backdoor ways in and having control. If MS can get in, any cracker can get in.