Not from what he said in the statement. Looks like this is it, if all goes well, 2.4.0 will be the next release. Damn! I'm going to go get it, and see if I can compile and install it while getting drunk;)
"I dont understand the "IDE RAID is coming" thing, I have been using IDE RAID for 4 years using a under-$150 card, it isn't exactly new technology."
IDE RAID is jst now coming into wide use. Like everything, it starts out with the expert enthusiast crowd (like us), then goes mainstream.
Wouldn't everyone like to have their PC data protected by a nice fast, redundant RAID-5 array? You can if you use IDE.
Unfortunately, the Microsoft/RIAA/MPAA crowd wants to get between you and your storage media. They don't care about what you want, just their bottom line. The corporatist mentality.
"I don't doubt that the biases of somealtrocksite.com may be better than that of the moneygrubbing RIAA members, but there will *always* be a system of elites who decide what to push and what not to push, and the vast majority of people who don't have a lot of idle time to "shop" for music will be more than happy to accept RIAA marketing. "
For one thing, there are a TON of websites out there. There is at least one to serve your own particular music taste and bias. And you would be able to at least listen to the music before buying it.
Sure there will still be Britney Spears even in the Internet music age. Face it, Darwin hasn't yet come up with a way to kill off those who let their lives be dictated by slick marketing. It's a fact of life that the masses listen to crap, watch crappy movies, because they are satisfied with it.
I'm posting this right now on a PC that contains not a BIT of Intel hardware, or Microsoft software (AMD Athlon/Linux). Not much marketing out there for what I chose is there? Yet, AMD and Linux are the two fastest growing forces IN the PC market.
"Yeah, right.
No self-respecting server administrator will use IDE drives in a RAID array. Why? IDE drives are much less reliable than SCSI drives.
"
I don't think Enterprise or larger servers would ever use IDE RAID. What I'm talking about is the average workgroup-sized office server. You know, the most common server that is sold...
When given a choice between no-RAID SCSI (because of expense), and buying a RAID-5 IDE setup with a hotspare drive at the same cost, I think it's obvious that IDE RAID is going to make it into servers.
IDE is not THAT much less reliable than SCSI. It's also not THAT much slower. Sure SCSI is faster, more reliable, and better. But IDE drives dominate the PC market because of cost. It costs a TON more to get that 5% edge SCSI offers over IDE.
I AM a Network Administrator, and I would never use IDE drives in a mission critical application. But IDE-RAID is better than NO RAID, so I see it invading the lower-end of the server market that currently does not use RAID.
"I can't figure out why the hard drive manufacturers are giving this scheme the time of day. If it works, it will dramatically reduce the amount of copying being done (perhaps 95% of all non-corporate copying I'd guess), and so it's absolutely inevitable that the number of drives bought will plummet. This is not to the advantage of disk manufacturers at all."
I can only come up with 2 reasons.
1. Fear of the RIAA/MPAA. They have made noises about suing people who make things they don't like (and have, in the case of the Diamond RIO MP3 player). Even IBM is a dwarf compared to the whole US entertainment industry.
2. The conspiracy theroy... I think the HD makers will impliment CPRM in IDE drives only, and leave SCSI drives alone. Why? So that servers and workstations do not move to using the newer, faster (and cheaper/less profitable) IDE drives for RAID. RAID stands for Redundant Array if Inexpensive Disks, and many low end workgroup servers sold today might be sold with RAID-5 IDE arrays.
HD makers make a ton from high-end RAID SCSI sales. IDE would seriously change that.
The Internet is the answer. The Internet is both marketing and distrobution for future artists. This is why the RIAA is shitting all over itself.
Unlike the movie industry (MPAA), the RIAA can lose everything. It takes millions to make a movie, but it doesn't HAVE to cost that much to record music.
Also, when was the last time you EVER saw a record label market anything except bubblegum teeny-bopper fake pop (Backdoor Boys, Boobjob Spears, etc)?
Why do they market them? Profit. They create a Britney Spears, ride her for 2-4 albums, make many many $millions, then dump her to move onto the next no-talent that they can exploit.
I discover new rock bands thru the radio and the Internet. 10 years from now the Internet will be even more important and powerful than today.
SDMI is meant to make your life hard. In fact, it's meant to fail. The RIAA wants no part in selling music in file form, over the Internet or otherwise.
Why? Because even SDMI threatens their very existance. Sooner or later, especially with broadband, it's going to be more feasable for bands to by-pass the record labels entirely, make their music, sell it THEMSELVES, make a much higher profit. This is what the RIAA fears.
The recording industry of today can be summed up like this:
1. Most artists do not even own their own songs, the RIAA affiliated record labels do.
2. The record labels make ten TIMES what the artists do per sale.
The recording industry as it exsts today cannot continue in it's current form. MP3 and any other portable, high-quality, no-loss copy format threatens their very existance. Sooner or later, major artists are NOT going to sign with record labels, sign over the ownership of THEIR creation to the RIAA, etc.
It is this future the RIAA is trying to forestall in any way that it can. Fact it, it can't. MP3 exists, and there is no way the RIAA is ever going to be able to convince enough people to use NOT use MP3. Which is why they are doing it dishonestly, using unprincipled judges (Kaplan), and trying to cripple PC hardware thru backroom deals (CPRM).
Will it change their minds? Probably not. Will it persuade someone (Samsung, Fujitsu, etc) to not participate, or also sell drives WITHOUT this "feature"? Probably.
That's what we need to do. Get someone not to play the game, then buy their HD's and ONLY their HD's. Eventually all the rest will be forced to offer drives without CPRM. At the same time, we need to educate EVERYONE we come in contact with. Tell them to ask for non-CPRM drives. Explain it simply, tell them that these hard drives are crippled and defective. Spread FUD.
After all,./'ers have a fairly disporportianate influence in IT worldwide, as we are the technicians, engineers, etc who are looked at by the non-tech savvy.
Actually, all IDE hard drives have the controller built into the drive itself. The IDE controller on the motherboard isn't much more than a connector to the CPU bus.
This is one thing that makes this so evil, because they are taking advantage of this. CPRM as it would be done to IDE drives can't be done to SCSI, because the controller is outboard. And I doubt they will anyway because it will break RAID arrays, etc.
I wonder if the HD manufacturers are participating in this for their own motive: Cripple IDE..
IDE has been steadily catching up to SCSI in speed, reliability, and usefulness. Now IDE RAID is coming.. HD manufacturers stand to lose a TON of profit if the smaller servers start being sold with IDE RAID instead of SCSI RAID. CPRM breaks this, and wil make IDE useless for RAID.
Nope. Already did. And you might well be infringing on my patent of the wheel. Better watch out."
Damn. Then I'll have to pay you royalites on the tires I just had to get for my aging 1993 Escort. In fact, I'll owe royalties on the shitty 1987 Dodge Charger I used to drive to High School. Shit, that means you are owed a percentage of the lays I got in that car:)
Seriously, doesn't this illustrate the stupidity of obvious patents? Shouldn't pop-up ads have been an OBVIOUS extension of the web browser, given the annoying evil tendancies of the marketer-drones?
"I think that there would be fewer lawsuits if the attorneys, plaintifs, and defendents were forced to fight to the death in an arena. Then we would take care of foolish garbage like this and be entertained at the same time..."
There you go. That would be better than all the pap that caused me to dump cable TV to begin with. REAL entertainment. Put all the idiots who file stupid lawsuits in a cage with the idiot judge who accepted it and let Darwin sort them out.
"Seriously, who wouldn't tune in to see a lawyer skewered with a long sword or brained with a mace?"
"What about all the other pop up ads that you see all over the place? I don't understand how NetZero can even patent that concept since they didn't even come up with it. According to the article, they patented the technology for an ISP to display a popup ad, the popups you see all over the place are from websites and (i hope) not from your ISP."
Guess they didn't have enough balls to sue AOL, the king of the annoying ISP log-on pop up ads.
Not to mention the fact that AOL's been doing this at least 10 years before NetZero ever came into existance. Why is it that that USPTO grants these things without ANY effort at verifying their claims? What, do they take their word for it? If that's the case I think I'll patent the wheel.
You know, I didn't invent the Sun, but I bet I can patent it. Then I can demand royalties from every beach, every sunblock maker, and blackmail NASA into sending me up in the space shuttle so they don't have to pay me back royalties on all those solar cells they use;)
Then I'll patent stars, and sue the RIAA for royalties from every song they've published that refers to stars.
"What about all the other pop up ads that you see all over the place? I don't understand how NetZero can even patent that concept since they didn't even come up with it. Done and over with, oh well.
"
Obviously because they don't directly compete with Netzero, and/or are owned by companies too big to fuck with.
What a suit like this tells me is that Netzero has concluded that they can't compete with Juno, so are going to file a stupid lawsuit in hopes of completing a hail mary pass, or else stealing some money from Juno.
BTW, why hasn't NetZero yet released their long promised Linux software? I guess they think it's smarter to waste money on groundless lawsuits and swiss-cheese patents than invest it in R&D...
Where filing lawsuits that are so idiotic becomes a crime. Start throwing the CEO's in jail and disbarring the attorneys who go along with these suits.
If consequences exist for the plantiffs and their lawyers, you will find that they will make very DAMN sure that they have a case before filing.
As for the idiotic patent, I think there should be at least a 6-month, or even a year moratorium on issuing new patents. During this time, the whole patent office will be spending their time reviewing and throwing out bad ones.
"Afraid of a little contempt charge, are we? Many times reporters have been jailed for contempt but have been released without naming their sources. If your assertion is correct, then all the reporters that refuse to name their sources would be in jail right now. Imagine the outcry if that were true!"
Judges should never be allowed to jail ANYONE for contempt. That is unlawful imprisonment and a violation of the Constitution. It's one of those powers that the courts have "assumed" as it's part of British Common Law, even though it does not actually exist in the Constitution. There have been statutory limits placed on how long someone can be jailed for contempt.
If there is cause to jail someone there should be charges then a trial. Until then, no judge should be allowed to sentance. I know of a lowly district judge (county) who abuses his power to jail people for contempt.
"Maybe if stopped relying on White Power advocates like Rush Limburger for your "political wisdom" and took Political Science 101"
Woah there! I had PolySci 101, and thankfully it wasn't taught by a neo-Marxist. White power? How did THAT get into my comments? Sure the Brown vs the Board of Education decision was a great one. It struck down Jim Crowe segregation laws as Unconstitutional, as the ARE. I can name a slew of BAD court decisions, going AGAINST the law and the Constitution, that CAUSED segregation to begin with. For example, the Dred Scott decision, etc. That Supreme Court MADE a law (ie, blacks are not humans) that stood as an abomination that required the bloodiest war ever fought in this country's history to right.
And that court was packed by partisan DEMOCRAT appointees too. Lest we forget, it was the REPUBLICAN party that freed the slaves, and it because of REPUBLICAN senators that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. Senator Al Gore Sr. BTW, was one who voted against it.
All factual, and all can be checked in the history books.
Simply put, the courts are the way to get illegal things into law. And yes, judges DO make these "speeches" all over the place for obscene sums of money. And where do you think the money comes from? You guessed it, huge corps like Time Warner, and other MPAA affiliates.
How else can you explain Kaplan's decision in the 2600 case? The DMCA at BEST has parts of it that have problems with the 9th, 10th, 5th, 4th, 1st, and 14th amendments, not to mention the articles regarding patent and copyright. At least SOME of it IS illegal.
Kaplan either expressed
1. Extreme ignorance of the law (and he's supposedly been educated in this, this is assumed if one is a judge)
2. Extreme prejustice/bias.
Nothing else can explain his decision. There is no basis for it except in relying on an untested law, and he refused to perform the required Constitutional test. Also, he MADE A NEW LAW out of thin air by ruling on hyperlinks.
Explain for me please, how any of this is justified?
Simple solution, only use software like Linux or BSD. Does anyone think that Alan Cox or Linus will willingly modufy the ext2 file system to obey CPRM?
Yes, there will probably end up being Linux software that is CPRM compliant, as Linux goes more mainstream. But they will be drowned out by hundreds of NON CPRM player software, and thus unable to compete.
If Microsoft puts this crap into `Doze, FAT32/NTFS, then the average `Doze user will be fucked. But from what I'm reading, MS isnt' too thrilled with this. They aren't dumb people, they KNOW this will ultimately drive down PC sales, and undermine Windows, as CPRM software will be 99.99% Windows apps.
This is a major opportunity for Linux, that is unless his eminence Judge Kaplan doesn't rule Linux illegal as a circumvention device, and make it illegal to link to kernel.org.
Products from Taiwan are great. Abit for example, makes some of the best motherboards there are, and caters to we tweakers/hardware hackers with overclocker friendly boards (that AMD and Intel hate).
I only buy Abit motherboards for this reason, they give me what I want, and I support them with my wallet.
If enough stink is raised over this, what is to stop Abit or another company over there for supplying us with HD's for the tweaker/hardware hacker market? There IS such a market, as evidenced by Abit's very existance.
"The legislation is already there -- its called the DMCA... Remember, it makes circumvention devices illegal?
Do you have any confidence in the court system at this point to correctly define a circumvention device?"
No, because of "judge" Kaplan. So long as ANY judge is allowed to interpret (and make) laws without accountability, this will go on. You think the congress is bought? How about the judges?
Kaplan WORKED for a law firm that represented the MPAA before Clinton made him a judge. And he refused to recuse himself when being confronted with this fact, just days after scalding 2600's attorney, Garbus for a much more tenious conflict (having once represented a company that was later bought by Time Warner).
So long as judges remain absolute dictators in their courtroom, this is NOT a free country.
"Yes, the average consumer does not know what CPRM is. That is because they are uninformed. But if we, the geekly class, explain it to them they will understand and NOT buy CPRM drives. The same thing happend in the 1980's with copy-protected software. At one time, around 1985 I think, the number one selling software package was a program that broke copy-protections"
Yep. Had Copy II 64 back then for my Commodore 64 PC.
If and when CPRM is implimented and starts to become a pain in the ass, Joe Schmo Presario owner will get pissed.
The only problem is, it isn't the 1980's anymore. Programs like Copy II 64 are illegal today under the DMCA.
If all of we tech people are informative and willing to shove the info into their hands, we just may be able to anger enough Joe Schmo's out there to get the DMCA erased. After all, Joe Schmo is driving Napster now, not us.
This may be a case of going "a bridge too far" for the MPAA/RIAA.
"Haven't you ever thought of the fact that salesmen always have this "slightly more expensive" model that has just the right things? They also don't want to be part of the support disaster."
Especially since and hard drive that refuses to obey a copy or move command is defective. CPRM is a "bug" not a feature.
When these things come out, why don't we all add to our geek sites FAQ's for newbies to stumble onto telling them that their new HD's are defective because of this CPRM "bug" in the new drives and that they should return them immediately?
"Support manufacturers who don't buy into this unholy mess. Support Free Hardware projects to develop replacement controller boards.
My fear is the cartel will tie up patents for advanced capacity/functionality drives and only license development to manufacturers who use the copy prevention controllers."
I don't think they can do this. The ATA standard is an open industry standard, like ISA, PCI, AGP SDRAM and DDR SDRAM standards. It has to be in order to get everyone to play.
IF they decided to take the new ATA standard "license only" all that would need to happen would be for others to extend the CURRENT open ATA 66/100 standard to higher speeds and capacity, and leave it open. This is like what happened to IBM when they tried to take the expansion bus proprietary.
Chances are, if we make enough noise, some enterprising Taiwaneese, Japaneese or Korean drive maker will see this and meet the demand. We HAVE to create a demand for non "CCA"'ed hard drives for there to be a supply.
In a couple of years, the American drive manufactuers (Seagate, Western Digital, Maxtor, IBM) will get sick of having all these drives around that won't sell and conform to the open *INDUSTRY STANDARD* ATA spec instead.
This is what happened to IBM in the late 80's when the proprietary PS/2 cost them their market dominance.
Damn... I remember when I got my first PC, a `286 12.5 back in 1990 (hot machine then).. I had one of the ORIGINAL Seagate ST157A 44 MB IDE hard drives. And was scoffed at by all my richer friends who had RLL drives "IDE drives are DISPOSABLE", etc.
The same friend bought a Western Digital 212 MB hard drive in early 1992. "WOW you will NEVER fill all of that!" I said as I helped him install it...
Boy, could you be more wrong?:) These days I panic when my HD falls below 2GB of free space.... 2GB would contain almost TEN of that HD I proclaimed bigger than anyone would ever need back in 1992... 8 years ago.
At least it wasn't as stupid as Bill Gates's "640K ought to be ebough for anyone" quote.
You know, in many ways the original Atari 2600 joystick is still the best out there...
Movement was perfect, felt good in your hand, and it was indestructable.
Wish my PC would use them. I have a M$ sidewinder that is OK, but I miss the tough ole Atari Joystick I used to use on my Atari VCS and my Commodore computers.
Yep. I begged and pleaded with my parents in 1980 for a VIC-20 after seeing Captain Kirk (my hero) endorsing it.
Got it for Christmas, 20 years ago from tomorrow. And it changed my life forever. I learned everything I could learn about them, was a fair Commodore 64 programmer, and then got into PC's in 1990. Today I work for one of the largest computer companies in the world. And I owe it all to that little 5k RAM VIC-20. Still have it and the "Datasette" tape drive, the old 300 baud "VICMODEM".
Though overshadowed by the Commodore 64 (which I later owned), the VIC-20 was the first computer for the masses.
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Not from what he said in the statement. Looks like this is it, if all goes well, 2.4.0 will be the next release. Damn! I'm going to go get it, and see if I can compile and install it while getting drunk ;)
"I dont understand the "IDE RAID is coming" thing, I have been using IDE RAID for 4 years using a under-$150 card, it isn't exactly new technology."
IDE RAID is jst now coming into wide use. Like everything, it starts out with the expert enthusiast crowd (like us), then goes mainstream.
Wouldn't everyone like to have their PC data protected by a nice fast, redundant RAID-5 array? You can if you use IDE.
Unfortunately, the Microsoft/RIAA/MPAA crowd wants to get between you and your storage media. They don't care about what you want, just their bottom line. The corporatist mentality.
"I don't doubt that the biases of somealtrocksite.com may be better than that of the moneygrubbing RIAA members, but there will *always* be a system of elites who decide what to push and what not to push, and the vast majority of people who don't have a lot of idle time to "shop" for music will be more than happy to accept RIAA marketing. "
For one thing, there are a TON of websites out there. There is at least one to serve your own particular music taste and bias. And you would be able to at least listen to the music before buying it.
Sure there will still be Britney Spears even in the Internet music age. Face it, Darwin hasn't yet come up with a way to kill off those who let their lives be dictated by slick marketing. It's a fact of life that the masses listen to crap, watch crappy movies, because they are satisfied with it.
I'm posting this right now on a PC that contains not a BIT of Intel hardware, or Microsoft software (AMD Athlon/Linux). Not much marketing out there for what I chose is there? Yet, AMD and Linux are the two fastest growing forces IN the PC market.
"Yeah, right.
No self-respecting server administrator will use IDE drives in a RAID array. Why? IDE drives are much less reliable than SCSI drives.
"
I don't think Enterprise or larger servers would ever use IDE RAID. What I'm talking about is the average workgroup-sized office server. You know, the most common server that is sold...
When given a choice between no-RAID SCSI (because of expense), and buying a RAID-5 IDE setup with a hotspare drive at the same cost, I think it's obvious that IDE RAID is going to make it into servers.
IDE is not THAT much less reliable than SCSI. It's also not THAT much slower. Sure SCSI is faster, more reliable, and better. But IDE drives dominate the PC market because of cost. It costs a TON more to get that 5% edge SCSI offers over IDE.
I AM a Network Administrator, and I would never use IDE drives in a mission critical application. But IDE-RAID is better than NO RAID, so I see it invading the lower-end of the server market that currently does not use RAID.
"I can't figure out why the hard drive manufacturers are giving this scheme the time of day. If it works, it will dramatically reduce the amount of copying being done (perhaps 95% of all non-corporate copying I'd guess), and so it's absolutely inevitable that the number of drives bought will plummet. This is not to the advantage of disk manufacturers at all."
I can only come up with 2 reasons.
1. Fear of the RIAA/MPAA. They have made noises about suing people who make things they don't like (and have, in the case of the Diamond RIO MP3 player). Even IBM is a dwarf compared to the whole US entertainment industry.
2. The conspiracy theroy... I think the HD makers will impliment CPRM in IDE drives only, and leave SCSI drives alone. Why? So that servers and workstations do not move to using the newer, faster (and cheaper/less profitable) IDE drives for RAID. RAID stands for Redundant Array if Inexpensive Disks, and many low end workgroup servers sold today might be sold with RAID-5 IDE arrays.
HD makers make a ton from high-end RAID SCSI sales. IDE would seriously change that.
The Internet is the answer. The Internet is both marketing and distrobution for future artists. This is why the RIAA is shitting all over itself.
Unlike the movie industry (MPAA), the RIAA can lose everything. It takes millions to make a movie, but it doesn't HAVE to cost that much to record music.
Also, when was the last time you EVER saw a record label market anything except bubblegum teeny-bopper fake pop (Backdoor Boys, Boobjob Spears, etc)?
Why do they market them? Profit. They create a Britney Spears, ride her for 2-4 albums, make many many $millions, then dump her to move onto the next no-talent that they can exploit.
I discover new rock bands thru the radio and the Internet. 10 years from now the Internet will be even more important and powerful than today.
SDMI is meant to make your life hard. In fact, it's meant to fail. The RIAA wants no part in selling music in file form, over the Internet or otherwise.
Why? Because even SDMI threatens their very existance. Sooner or later, especially with broadband, it's going to be more feasable for bands to by-pass the record labels entirely, make their music, sell it THEMSELVES, make a much higher profit. This is what the RIAA fears.
The recording industry of today can be summed up like this:
1. Most artists do not even own their own songs, the RIAA affiliated record labels do.
2. The record labels make ten TIMES what the artists do per sale.
The recording industry as it exsts today cannot continue in it's current form. MP3 and any other portable, high-quality, no-loss copy format threatens their very existance. Sooner or later, major artists are NOT going to sign with record labels, sign over the ownership of THEIR creation to the RIAA, etc.
It is this future the RIAA is trying to forestall in any way that it can. Fact it, it can't. MP3 exists, and there is no way the RIAA is ever going to be able to convince enough people to use NOT use MP3. Which is why they are doing it dishonestly, using unprincipled judges (Kaplan), and trying to cripple PC hardware thru backroom deals (CPRM).
"Will our boycott really matter?"
./'ers have a fairly disporportianate influence in IT worldwide, as we are the technicians, engineers, etc who are looked at by the non-tech savvy.
Will it change their minds? Probably not. Will it persuade someone (Samsung, Fujitsu, etc) to not participate, or also sell drives WITHOUT this "feature"? Probably.
That's what we need to do. Get someone not to play the game, then buy their HD's and ONLY their HD's. Eventually all the rest will be forced to offer drives without CPRM. At the same time, we need to educate EVERYONE we come in contact with. Tell them to ask for non-CPRM drives. Explain it simply, tell them that these hard drives are crippled and defective. Spread FUD.
After all,
Actually, all IDE hard drives have the controller built into the drive itself. The IDE controller on the motherboard isn't much more than a connector to the CPU bus.
This is one thing that makes this so evil, because they are taking advantage of this. CPRM as it would be done to IDE drives can't be done to SCSI, because the controller is outboard. And I doubt they will anyway because it will break RAID arrays, etc.
I wonder if the HD manufacturers are participating in this for their own motive: Cripple IDE..
IDE has been steadily catching up to SCSI in speed, reliability, and usefulness. Now IDE RAID is coming.. HD manufacturers stand to lose a TON of profit if the smaller servers start being sold with IDE RAID instead of SCSI RAID. CPRM breaks this, and wil make IDE useless for RAID.
"case I think I'll patent the wheel.
:)
Nope. Already did. And you might well be infringing on my patent of the wheel. Better watch out."
Damn. Then I'll have to pay you royalites on the tires I just had to get for my aging 1993 Escort. In fact, I'll owe royalties on the shitty 1987 Dodge Charger I used to drive to High School. Shit, that means you are owed a percentage of the lays I got in that car
Seriously, doesn't this illustrate the stupidity of obvious patents? Shouldn't pop-up ads have been an OBVIOUS extension of the web browser, given the annoying evil tendancies of the marketer-drones?
"I think that there would be fewer lawsuits if the attorneys, plaintifs, and defendents were forced to fight to the death in an arena. Then we would take care of foolish garbage like this and be entertained at the same time..."
There you go. That would be better than all the pap that caused me to dump cable TV to begin with. REAL entertainment. Put all the idiots who file stupid lawsuits in a cage with the idiot judge who accepted it and let Darwin sort them out.
"Seriously, who wouldn't tune in to see a lawyer skewered with a long sword or brained with a mace?"
There IS no bad way to kill a lawyer.
"What about all the other pop up ads that you see all over the place? I don't understand how NetZero can even patent that concept since they didn't even come up with it. According to the article, they patented the technology for an ISP to display a popup ad, the popups you see all over the place are from websites and (i hope) not from your ISP."
Guess they didn't have enough balls to sue AOL, the king of the annoying ISP log-on pop up ads.
Not to mention the fact that AOL's been doing this at least 10 years before NetZero ever came into existance. Why is it that that USPTO grants these things without ANY effort at verifying their claims? What, do they take their word for it? If that's the case I think I'll patent the wheel.
You know, I didn't invent the Sun, but I bet I can patent it. Then I can demand royalties from every beach, every sunblock maker, and blackmail NASA into sending me up in the space shuttle so they don't have to pay me back royalties on all those solar cells they use ;)
Then I'll patent stars, and sue the RIAA for royalties from every song they've published that refers to stars.
"What about all the other pop up ads that you see all over the place? I don't understand how NetZero can even patent that concept since they didn't even come up with it. Done and over with, oh well.
"
Obviously because they don't directly compete with Netzero, and/or are owned by companies too big to fuck with.
What a suit like this tells me is that Netzero has concluded that they can't compete with Juno, so are going to file a stupid lawsuit in hopes of completing a hail mary pass, or else stealing some money from Juno.
BTW, why hasn't NetZero yet released their long promised Linux software? I guess they think it's smarter to waste money on groundless lawsuits and swiss-cheese patents than invest it in R&D...
Where filing lawsuits that are so idiotic becomes a crime. Start throwing the CEO's in jail and disbarring the attorneys who go along with these suits.
If consequences exist for the plantiffs and their lawyers, you will find that they will make very DAMN sure that they have a case before filing.
As for the idiotic patent, I think there should be at least a 6-month, or even a year moratorium on issuing new patents. During this time, the whole patent office will be spending their time reviewing and throwing out bad ones.
"Afraid of a little contempt charge, are we? Many times reporters have been jailed for contempt but have been released without naming their sources. If your assertion is correct, then all the reporters that refuse to name their sources would be in jail right now. Imagine the outcry if that were true!"
Judges should never be allowed to jail ANYONE for contempt. That is unlawful imprisonment and a violation of the Constitution. It's one of those powers that the courts have "assumed" as it's part of British Common Law, even though it does not actually exist in the Constitution. There have been statutory limits placed on how long someone can be jailed for contempt.
If there is cause to jail someone there should be charges then a trial. Until then, no judge should be allowed to sentance. I know of a lowly district judge (county) who abuses his power to jail people for contempt.
"Maybe if stopped relying on White Power advocates like Rush Limburger for your "political wisdom" and took Political Science 101"
Woah there! I had PolySci 101, and thankfully it wasn't taught by a neo-Marxist. White power? How did THAT get into my comments? Sure the Brown vs the Board of Education decision was a great one. It struck down Jim Crowe segregation laws as Unconstitutional, as the ARE. I can name a slew of BAD court decisions, going AGAINST the law and the Constitution, that CAUSED segregation to begin with. For example, the Dred Scott decision, etc. That Supreme Court MADE a law (ie, blacks are not humans) that stood as an abomination that required the bloodiest war ever fought in this country's history to right.
And that court was packed by partisan DEMOCRAT appointees too. Lest we forget, it was the REPUBLICAN party that freed the slaves, and it because of REPUBLICAN senators that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. Senator Al Gore Sr. BTW, was one who voted against it.
All factual, and all can be checked in the history books.
Simply put, the courts are the way to get illegal things into law. And yes, judges DO make these "speeches" all over the place for obscene sums of money. And where do you think the money comes from? You guessed it, huge corps like Time Warner, and other MPAA affiliates.
How else can you explain Kaplan's decision in the 2600 case? The DMCA at BEST has parts of it that have problems with the 9th, 10th, 5th, 4th, 1st, and 14th amendments, not to mention the articles regarding patent and copyright. At least SOME of it IS illegal.
Kaplan either expressed
1. Extreme ignorance of the law (and he's supposedly been educated in this, this is assumed if one is a judge)
2. Extreme prejustice/bias.
Nothing else can explain his decision. There is no basis for it except in relying on an untested law, and he refused to perform the required Constitutional test. Also, he MADE A NEW LAW out of thin air by ruling on hyperlinks.
Explain for me please, how any of this is justified?
Simple solution, only use software like Linux or BSD. Does anyone think that Alan Cox or Linus will willingly modufy the ext2 file system to obey CPRM?
Yes, there will probably end up being Linux software that is CPRM compliant, as Linux goes more mainstream. But they will be drowned out by hundreds of NON CPRM player software, and thus unable to compete.
If Microsoft puts this crap into `Doze, FAT32/NTFS, then the average `Doze user will be fucked. But from what I'm reading, MS isnt' too thrilled with this. They aren't dumb people, they KNOW this will ultimately drive down PC sales, and undermine Windows, as CPRM software will be 99.99% Windows apps.
This is a major opportunity for Linux, that is unless his eminence Judge Kaplan doesn't rule Linux illegal as a circumvention device, and make it illegal to link to kernel.org.
Products from Taiwan are great. Abit for example, makes some of the best motherboards there are, and caters to we tweakers/hardware hackers with overclocker friendly boards (that AMD and Intel hate).
I only buy Abit motherboards for this reason, they give me what I want, and I support them with my wallet.
If enough stink is raised over this, what is to stop Abit or another company over there for supplying us with HD's for the tweaker/hardware hacker market? There IS such a market, as evidenced by Abit's very existance.
"The legislation is already there -- its called the DMCA ... Remember, it makes circumvention devices illegal?
Do you have any confidence in the court system at this point to correctly define a circumvention device?"
No, because of "judge" Kaplan. So long as ANY judge is allowed to interpret (and make) laws without accountability, this will go on. You think the congress is bought? How about the judges?
Kaplan WORKED for a law firm that represented the MPAA before Clinton made him a judge. And he refused to recuse himself when being confronted with this fact, just days after scalding 2600's attorney, Garbus for a much more tenious conflict (having once represented a company that was later bought by Time Warner).
So long as judges remain absolute dictators in their courtroom, this is NOT a free country.
"Yes, the average consumer does not know what CPRM is. That is because they are uninformed. But if we, the geekly class, explain it to them they will understand and NOT buy CPRM drives. The same thing happend in the 1980's with copy-protected software. At one time, around 1985 I think, the number one selling software package was a program that broke copy-protections"
Yep. Had Copy II 64 back then for my Commodore 64 PC.
If and when CPRM is implimented and starts to become a pain in the ass, Joe Schmo Presario owner will get pissed.
The only problem is, it isn't the 1980's anymore. Programs like Copy II 64 are illegal today under the DMCA.
If all of we tech people are informative and willing to shove the info into their hands, we just may be able to anger enough Joe Schmo's out there to get the DMCA erased. After all, Joe Schmo is driving Napster now, not us.
This may be a case of going "a bridge too far" for the MPAA/RIAA.
"Haven't you ever thought of the fact that salesmen always have this "slightly more expensive" model that has just the right things? They also don't want to be part of the support disaster."
Especially since and hard drive that refuses to obey a copy or move command is defective. CPRM is a "bug" not a feature.
When these things come out, why don't we all add to our geek sites FAQ's for newbies to stumble onto telling them that their new HD's are defective because of this CPRM "bug" in the new drives and that they should return them immediately?
"Support manufacturers who don't buy into this unholy mess. Support Free Hardware projects to develop replacement controller boards.
My fear is the cartel will tie up patents for advanced capacity/functionality drives and only license development to manufacturers who use the copy prevention controllers."
I don't think they can do this. The ATA standard is an open industry standard, like ISA, PCI, AGP SDRAM and DDR SDRAM standards. It has to be in order to get everyone to play.
IF they decided to take the new ATA standard "license only" all that would need to happen would be for others to extend the CURRENT open ATA 66/100 standard to higher speeds and capacity, and leave it open. This is like what happened to IBM when they tried to take the expansion bus proprietary.
Chances are, if we make enough noise, some enterprising Taiwaneese, Japaneese or Korean drive maker will see this and meet the demand. We HAVE to create a demand for non "CCA"'ed hard drives for there to be a supply.
In a couple of years, the American drive manufactuers (Seagate, Western Digital, Maxtor, IBM) will get sick of having all these drives around that won't sell and conform to the open *INDUSTRY STANDARD* ATA spec instead.
This is what happened to IBM in the late 80's when the proprietary PS/2 cost them their market dominance.
Damn... I remember when I got my first PC, a `286 12.5 back in 1990 (hot machine then).. I had one of the ORIGINAL Seagate ST157A 44 MB IDE hard drives. And was scoffed at by all my richer friends who had RLL drives "IDE drives are DISPOSABLE", etc.
:) These days I panic when my HD falls below 2GB of free space.... 2GB would contain almost TEN of that HD I proclaimed bigger than anyone would ever need back in 1992... 8 years ago.
The same friend bought a Western Digital 212 MB hard drive in early 1992. "WOW you will NEVER fill all of that!" I said as I helped him install it...
Boy, could you be more wrong?
At least it wasn't as stupid as Bill Gates's "640K ought to be ebough for anyone" quote.
You know, in many ways the original Atari 2600 joystick is still the best out there...
Movement was perfect, felt good in your hand, and it was indestructable.
Wish my PC would use them. I have a M$ sidewinder that is OK, but I miss the tough ole Atari Joystick I used to use on my Atari VCS and my Commodore computers.
Yep. I begged and pleaded with my parents in 1980 for a VIC-20 after seeing Captain Kirk (my hero) endorsing it.
Got it for Christmas, 20 years ago from tomorrow. And it changed my life forever. I learned everything I could learn about them, was a fair Commodore 64 programmer, and then got into PC's in 1990. Today I work for one of the largest computer companies in the world. And I owe it all to that little 5k RAM VIC-20. Still have it and the "Datasette" tape drive, the old 300 baud "VICMODEM".
Though overshadowed by the Commodore 64 (which I later owned), the VIC-20 was the first computer for the masses.