A US study concluding that everything is just fine and dandy with US privacy protections. Next thing they'll be telling us that Microsoft really isn't a monopoly.:)
Who is going to pay you to code a piece of software when everyone can just copy it right away? Don't you realise that it is VERY expensive to have a bunch of programmers develop something? You HAVE to sell copies to finance the development.
People will continue to pay me for as long as there is a need for a new program. Whenever what is freely available is no longer sufficient and someone without the ability to program needs more, they will come to me (us). Of course I know how expensive programmers are - I bask in that fact. Their bad business decisions only bother me when checks start bouncing.
The other case is someone who somehow manages to retrieve your program (your service) and provide it to others at a vastly reduced price. Now, you have put effort into producing this product. Someone else put effort into taking the results of your product and providing them to others. You did not say that it was right to do this. In short, your efforts have been stolen. Yes, you still have your program. But it is quite useless since the people you would have sold it to have now received a duplicate of it for much less.
Pretty simple answer, actually - don't try and sell canned code. If you are being paid to provide a service (programming), what are you doing trying to pass off something that's already been written? I am a programmer. I am paid to do programming. I am not paid to make copies.
Imagine if someone took a GPL'd work, made changes to it to suit their needs (these crackers obviously changed the DTV cards to suit THEIR needs), and then sold it without providing the changes. They have violated the intent of the licensing, which was to make all changes available.
And they would have exactly zero defense against anyone doing anything they want with whatever they release. You could copy it from your buddy and install it on every computer in your office and they couldn't do a thing about it.
Isn't the 'service' being provided to everyone in this case? Their signal is hitting me as I type this and yet I don't owe them anything. How can it be legal for me to receive their broadcast, but not legal for my television to do the same thing?:P
My vision is about 20/30. Not exactly perfect, but not really bad enough to require glasses or contacts. What I'm wondering is will I even be able to tell the difference between regular and HDTV if I'm sitting more than 10 feet away?
). Bertelsmann AG saw this and purchased Napster while changing Napster's terms to include a flat rate fee. Many Napster users reluctantly complied, but others flat-out refused to pay, and therefore left Napster.
Where did you hear this? Wherever it is was wrong. Napster is still totally free for everyone. In the future, it may not be, but as of this morning at 9:00 am, it was up and running freely.
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A US study concluding that everything is just fine and dandy with US privacy protections. Next thing they'll be telling us that Microsoft really isn't a monopoly. :)
Isn't the 'service' being provided to everyone in this case? Their signal is hitting me as I type this and yet I don't owe them anything. How can it be legal for me to receive their broadcast, but not legal for my television to do the same thing? :P
My vision is about 20/30. Not exactly perfect, but not really bad enough to require glasses or contacts. What I'm wondering is will I even be able to tell the difference between regular and HDTV if I'm sitting more than 10 feet away?