...someone that needs top-end 3D acceleration, but needs to be mobile at the same time? People keep missing the real point of these machines- it's not to be a laptop in the sense of running for hours on end, it's for the purposes of packing an insane amount of power into as small a package as is possible so it's much more mobile.
WUXGA screen...check. High-end CPU (While not the top from the desktop perspective, it's still hot)...check. High-end GPU...check.
Seems to me that these machines would be great for a games developer, say like Ryan Gordon, or myself.:-)
I don't just do consulting work out of my house- I do it all over the place, so I need something like this.
Honestly.
But in the same breath, it doesn't make sense for most people to be buying things like this new laptop or any of them in it's class. Too much money spent on something that could cost less and do what they honestly need it to do- whether it be a desktop machine or laptop.
You see, you can have an infringing copy, and so long as you're not the one that infringed getting it, it's not illegal. It's the act of making copies of a covered work without a license from the rights holder to do so that makes it an infringement- and that's how the laws are worded worldwide. They can have bogus copies all over the place, but if they aren't actively seeding a torrent and aren't caught sharing it, there's technically little they can do about the pirated copies. They can ask that you destroy the content, but you don't have to- because Copyright law doesn't give them the authority to compel you to do it. You have to be the one actively infringing (past or present with proof) for them to have a leg to stand on.
So, unless they find the files in a seeder directory or have logs of them doing the downloads or seeding, they've got nothing on them if they've got infringements on their machines. I'm pretty sure they're not stupid enough to have been seeding, ever, so I doubt the Police, acting on RIAA/MPAA's behalf, will have anything that will stick- they'd have shut them down a lot sooner if they had real ammo on them, as they've been rather defiant and are so big. It's pure intimidation and harassment- and it's going to backfire on the *AA people.
Actually, it will send the investors to the hills. You can pledge whatever you want, unless you sign your name to the dotted line on a contract saying you will do "X", you have little room to work with. All this is going to do is cause their current share price to plummet further.
It's a dumb move on their part- what they need to do is do things to improve the market's confidence in them, this isn't it.
That wasn't my understanding of the term, but that'd be picking nits- most of the pirate movies not ripped from DVDs are caught via camcorder or via a feed capture in the case of a digitally distributed and shown movie.
In the US, technically, it's all the above because of the DMCA- which may be unconstitutional and doesn't map to anyone else's law.
Elsewhere, it'd be the people making the actual acts of infringement. Since thepiratebay.org doesn't host the protected works in question, the only people actionable, would be the people bittorrenting it, as that's the actual act of infringment.
The problem lies in that the content providers are customers of the other peers, so they're intending on pretty much BREAKING the peering agreements with this BS. They should just flipping drop the subject- their customers paid the price for the bandwidth; it's not the content providers' fault that the losers are overselling the bandwidth in question.
4) Person pirating buys the copy of the game or music for himself and decides to share. 5) Person pirating borrows the copy of the game or music from his buddy and decides to share. 6) Person rents the movie or game and rips the content from the disc. 7) Person pirating sneaks into a movie/concert with a recording device and makes a recording.
In reality, 4, 5, and 6 happen more often than any one of the previous three- it's where the bulk of the pirated stuff that's not screeners or bootlegs comes from. In reality, 7 happens for most of the pirated movies floating about that are not ripped from the DVD release. It's why they call them a "screener" or a "bootleg".
In the above three cases, which are actually the most common, the piracy did NOT involve ANY loss of property. It involved an act of infringement, which is a completely different act from theft- on the books and in reality. But then, you frame it that way probably to make you feel better about the intermingling of legal concepts that the BSA, RIAA, and MPAA have tried to promulgate over the years now.
And, before you go off on me, saying I'm a pirate- I'm a content and "IP" producer that takes great exception to how things are progressing in the world. I've written SF short stories. I've written software as works for hire and independently. I've got one US (soon International) Patent pending, with about 6+ more about to be filed. You can be upset about it being infringement- that's the proper term, etc. and is what is actually going on in most cases. You shouldn't be upset about it being "theft"- because it isn't.
...the content has no infringing info and they don't happen to have a DMCA type law on the books (Which Sweden doesn't, to the best of my understanding- it's why they were so defiant on the "DMCA" takedown notices they got...) because the bulk of Copyright law, internationally speaking, is only concerned with the actual act of infringement, not the "enablement" of it- so I don't know what the Police there are reaching for on this.
When I see reports from people that would stand to gain by crowing about a raid saying that they got raided, along with it peppering the news feeds over there in Sweden, I have some reservations about it being just a hoax.
That's not to say it's not- it's just I wouldn't be so certain as there's too much going on right at the moment that run counter to that assessment.
You see, odds on, they _designed_ it correctly, it met with testing, etc. but when the release process came out the disc had slightly corrupted binaries from off of a flawed mastering run to CD- and no checkpointing on the install to make sure that the code was good.
In your case, they probably didn't initially know the batch of materials they were using was defective.
In my analogy, this is more they shipped KNOWING that the keyhole had that vulnerability, hoping nobody would spot it. I can assure you that some of the flaws out thee in Windows are of that variety. There can be no other explanation for it.
If the MPAA broke the law (Criminal or Civil) in the process of trying to enforce their rights with regards to Copyright, they loose the right to pursue that defendant- if you're guilty of a violation in the matter yourself, you can't go running to the government to help enforce the rights when you're infringed upon.
Doesn't matter if Torrentspy is "pirating" things. If they obtained things illictly about that fact from Torrentspy, the MPAA doesn't really have the right or ability to pursue the case at that point.
It's that so many companies ship with flaws that would be unacceptable anywhere else.
Would you ship a doorknob for an outside door that could have the lock so easily breached that it's as simple a matter as inserting a slot screwdriver into the keyhole and turning?
That's what gets shipped by many companies- those sorts of flaws.
And it's the mentality of the first group (The "there's always going to be bugs" crowd he's talking about..) that causes the stuff to ship that way. Sure, there's going to always be some issues somewhere in a complex system- but the goal is to do your level best to reduce those to as close to zero issues present as you possibly can, dealing with problems in the order of their severity.
1) That the $300 core system X-Box 360 is capable of playing most of the titles offered or playable by the $400 system (Doesn't look to be the case, in all honesty...). It looks like you're going to have to get the $400 system to play all the possible titles out there- including the older X-Box titles. That makes that Core System price point a non-play in most cases.
2) That PS2 games will continue to be released for a while to come. Keep in mind that there will probably be some PS2 titles rolling out after the release of the PS3, but it's NOT in Sony's interests to keep that going for very long. Once that occurs, the cutoff, your source of new content for the console will dry up. From there on out, you're dealing in the used market solely. Sure, you can get PSOne titles still, new in the box- but those are "classics" and what was in the retail channel when the PS2 came out. Nobody has been producing titles for the PSOne since the PS2 came out. I know, there's lots to choose from- but anyone that is going that route wouldn't have bought a new console anyhow.
Guess what? It still looks promising for Nintendo at a $250 price- new content, new ideas, etc. But, in reality, I suspect they'll be rolling out the Wii at the $200 MSRP because that's what they've ALWAYS released a machine at in the US since they did the NES... And, at $200 for the initial rollout price, it's a fairly compelling deal if they can play old GC titles AND have a nice stable of new titles- which it looks like they might have at rollout.
...whether or not the developers get on board with Nintendo and produce cool titles and innovative ones. I do like the GC compatibility that's rumored to be in the Wii (That means I probably ought to be on the prowl for GC titles again...:-) and that it's nicely more capable than the GC. If they get studios on board they'll clean both Microsoft's and Sony's clocks with the pricing the way it is. Sure, you've got a more "powerful" machine with the other two- but there's not been really all that many titles out at rollout (definitely not for X-Box 360) that USE that power, and you've got to get an expensive HDTV monitor to really see the advantage, and... I honestly don't know what the other two companies were thinking when they came out with this generation of consoles.
In the case of the gear that I'm talking about, they can identify user accts (Because you're going to still have these, if only to determine who's supposed to have higher bandwidth...)- if it comes and goes, it's probably a social event, esp. if the people are from all over the place (Is anyone at a neighborhood block party going to be bringing all their laptops with them? God, I hope not- don't wanna do that unless it's a neighborhood LAN party...:-)
In reality, what they'll do is increase monitoring when something shows up in signal strength- if you do it on a regular enough basis, they'll inquire against all the user accounts, etc.
It's still more likely than the satellite and cable thieves to get you caught- and they catch these jokers all the time.
As the other poster pointed out, if it's the "rubbish" bin, you're officially disowning it. If it's just on your property out for the taking, unless it's got a sign that says "free" on it, it's not for the taking and it's theft. In the case of the wireless service, they don't have a sign on it that just says "free", it says, "free, if you agree to these terms". If you don't agree to the terms, they're expressly not giving it to you at all and if you take it outside of the terms, you're stealing it. Whether it be free AOL CDs or "free" wireless service.
When Microsoft says "Beta", they really, really mean "Rough-Cut Alpha"...
That was the case with Windows 95- the first couple of betas weren't QUITE what I called beta quality software (though the developer partner alpha release was less unstable than the first couple of official betas- go figure...).
You won't have me arguing that one. I can only hope people wake up and stem that tide yet again (we had one during the McCarthy era as well...)- so things won't go the way they did in Italy or Germany in the middle 1940's.
The biggest problem with your line of argument is that it's just a violation of the TOS- it's more than that.
If you're not subscribed, you're stealing it (Just like the analogy of taking a wad of napkins from a fast food restraunt...)- doesn't matter if it's free. If it's not per the terms of the offer, it doesn't matter what the cost of a product or service is- if you took something outside the deal you would normally get it by, it's theft. If I take 20 "free" samples of something, it's still theft- it's just that more often than not it's not worth the trouble to pursue the thief over 20 AOL CDs to use your example (But you still stole those discs, if you took that many all at once and weren't planning on handing them to 20 people other than yourself or were planning on having 20 backup discs (God, whatever for?!)).
If you're subscribed, your use is solely predicated on the terms of service. If you don't abide by the terms of service, most TOS agreements void your end of the deal on the spot. If you're no longer a subscriber, as far as the legal end of things go, and you're using it, you're stealing service. Back again to what I said in the original post, really.
Oh, and the sync issue you "addressed" will only work if you've complete control of the transponders. If you try staging them, you will probably find out that thier throttling algorithm that allows you transmit windows isn't consistent at all (It wouldn't be...). If you hack the radio units to allow you that control, you've violated the TOS and are stealing service. If you cobble together your own RF unit, you run afoul of the FCC regs AND are stealing service.
Nice.
Is it REALLY worth all that trouble to get basically low-end ADSL bandwidths? Fun hack, in all honesty, but it's just not really worth all of this.
It's theft of service if you're using more than the free bandwidth allocated per person or per household. Simple, really. You're eating up capacity that paying users will be using- for free because you took it. And they CAN and will have you arrested and tried for it. No, it won't stop people from doing it- but I think it's still appropriate to point out that it's quite illegal and they'll be periodically busting people, just like with the satellite and cable service thieves. And, with this one, it'll be easier to tag someone- if you're not quiescent, you're sending signal (yeah, yeah, I know- no, duh...). You're going to be emitting a given amount of average RF for a given data rate if you're using it- can't be avoided because it's not like copper loops, it's bursty, etc. If you're not subscribed to the higher speed service you're going be emitting watts of average power. If you're subscribed to the service, you'll be emitting watts of average power where is the amount of extra bandwidth you bought. All they need do is drive the neighborhoods with a signal strength meter and direction finder (Realtime ones based off of an Adcock array are not only possible, they're surprisingly affordable if you're talking about a narrowband one...) to see what the power spectrum looks like from the neighborhood. Get a hotspot signal-strength-wise and don't have a deal with them, you start looking into a service thief because the odds are, you've got someone cheating at that point.
Slashdot Mirror
...someone that needs top-end 3D acceleration, but needs to be mobile at the same time? People keep missing the real point of these machines- it's not to be a laptop in the sense of running for hours on end, it's for the purposes of packing an insane amount of power into as small a package as is possible so it's much more mobile.
:-)
WUXGA screen...check.
High-end CPU (While not the top from the desktop perspective, it's still hot)...check.
High-end GPU...check.
Seems to me that these machines would be great for a games developer, say like Ryan Gordon, or myself.
I don't just do consulting work out of my house- I do it all over the place, so I need something like this.
Honestly.
But in the same breath, it doesn't make sense for most people to be buying things like this new laptop or any of them in it's class. Too much money spent on something that could cost less and do what they honestly need it to do- whether it be a desktop machine or laptop.
You see, you can have an infringing copy, and so long as you're not the one that infringed getting it, it's not illegal.
It's the act of making copies of a covered work without a license from the rights holder to do so that makes it an infringement- and that's how the laws are worded worldwide. They can have bogus copies all over the place, but if they aren't actively seeding a torrent and aren't caught sharing it, there's technically little they can do about the pirated copies. They can ask that you destroy the content, but you don't have to- because Copyright law doesn't give them the authority to compel you to do it. You have to be the one actively infringing (past or present with proof) for them to have a leg to stand on.
So, unless they find the files in a seeder directory or have logs of them doing the downloads or seeding, they've got nothing on them if they've got infringements on their machines. I'm pretty sure they're not stupid enough to have been seeding, ever, so I doubt the Police, acting on RIAA/MPAA's behalf, will have anything that will stick- they'd have shut them down a lot sooner if they had real ammo on them, as they've been rather defiant and are so big. It's pure intimidation and harassment- and it's going to backfire on the *AA people.
Actually, it will send the investors to the hills. You can pledge whatever you want, unless you sign your name to the dotted line on a contract saying you will do "X", you have little room to work with. All this is going to do is cause their current share price to plummet further.
It's a dumb move on their part- what they need to do is do things to improve the market's confidence in them, this isn't it.
That wasn't my understanding of the term, but that'd be picking nits- most of the pirate movies not ripped from DVDs are caught via camcorder or via a feed capture in the case of a digitally distributed and shown movie.
"What happened to Sully?"
"I let him go..."
Only if you've got a desktop card or the very latest laptop chips.
Otherwise, you've got sort-of acceleration compared to Windows.
Depends on jurisdiction...
In the US, technically, it's all the above because of the DMCA- which may be unconstitutional and doesn't map to anyone else's law.
Elsewhere, it'd be the people making the actual acts of infringement. Since thepiratebay.org doesn't host the protected works in question, the only people actionable, would be the people bittorrenting it, as that's the actual act of infringment.
The problem lies in that the content providers are customers of the other peers, so they're intending on pretty much BREAKING the peering agreements with this BS. They should just flipping drop the subject- their customers paid the price for the bandwidth; it's not the content providers' fault that the losers are overselling the bandwidth in question.
4) Person pirating buys the copy of the game or music for himself and decides to share.
5) Person pirating borrows the copy of the game or music from his buddy and decides to share.
6) Person rents the movie or game and rips the content from the disc.
7) Person pirating sneaks into a movie/concert with a recording device and makes a recording.
In reality, 4, 5, and 6 happen more often than any one of the previous three- it's where the bulk of the pirated stuff that's not screeners or bootlegs comes from.
In reality, 7 happens for most of the pirated movies floating about that are not ripped from the DVD release. It's why they call them a "screener" or a "bootleg".
In the above three cases, which are actually the most common, the piracy did NOT involve ANY loss of property. It involved an act of infringement , which is a completely different act from theft- on the books and in reality. But then, you frame it that way probably to make you feel better about the intermingling of legal concepts that the BSA, RIAA, and MPAA have tried to promulgate over the years now.
And, before you go off on me, saying I'm a pirate- I'm a content and "IP" producer that takes great exception to how things are progressing in the world. I've written SF short stories. I've written software as works for hire and independently. I've got one US (soon International) Patent pending, with about 6+ more about to be filed. You can be upset about it being infringement- that's the proper term, etc. and is what is actually going on in most cases. You shouldn't be upset about it being "theft"- because it isn't.
...the content has no infringing info and they don't happen to have a DMCA type law on the books (Which Sweden doesn't, to the best of my understanding- it's why they were so defiant on the "DMCA" takedown notices they got...) because the bulk of Copyright law, internationally speaking, is only concerned with the actual act of infringement, not the "enablement" of it- so I don't know what the Police there are reaching for on this.
When I see reports from people that would stand to gain by crowing about a raid
saying that they got raided, along with it peppering the news feeds over there
in Sweden, I have some reservations about it being just a hoax.
That's not to say it's not- it's just I wouldn't be so certain as there's too much
going on right at the moment that run counter to that assessment.
You see, odds on, they _designed_ it correctly, it met with testing, etc. but when the release process came out the disc had slightly corrupted binaries from off of a flawed mastering run to CD- and no checkpointing on the install to make sure that the code was good.
In your case, they probably didn't initially know the batch of materials they were using was defective.
In my analogy, this is more they shipped KNOWING that the keyhole had that vulnerability, hoping nobody would spot it. I can assure you that some of the flaws out thee in Windows are of that variety. There can be no other explanation for it.
If the MPAA broke the law (Criminal or Civil) in the process of trying to enforce their rights with regards to Copyright, they loose the right to pursue that defendant- if you're guilty of a violation in the matter yourself, you can't go running to the government to help enforce the rights when you're infringed upon.
Doesn't matter if Torrentspy is "pirating" things. If they obtained things illictly about that fact
from Torrentspy, the MPAA doesn't really have the right or ability to pursue the case at that point.
It's that so many companies ship with flaws that would be unacceptable anywhere else.
Would you ship a doorknob for an outside door that could have the lock so easily breached that it's as simple a matter as inserting a slot screwdriver into the keyhole and turning?
That's what gets shipped by many companies- those sorts of flaws.
And it's the mentality of the first group (The "there's always going to be bugs" crowd he's talking about..) that causes the stuff to ship that way. Sure, there's going to always be some issues somewhere in a complex system- but the goal is to do your level best to reduce those to as close to zero issues present as you possibly can, dealing with problems in the order of their severity.
1) That the $300 core system X-Box 360 is capable of playing most of the titles offered or playable by the $400 system (Doesn't look to be the case, in all honesty...). It looks like you're going to have to get the $400 system to play all the possible titles out there- including the older X-Box titles. That makes that Core System price point a non-play in most cases.
2) That PS2 games will continue to be released for a while to come. Keep in mind that there will probably be some PS2 titles rolling out after the release of the PS3, but it's NOT in Sony's interests to keep that going for very long. Once that occurs, the cutoff, your source of new content for the console will dry up. From there on out, you're dealing in the used market solely. Sure, you can get PSOne titles still, new in the box- but those are "classics" and what was in the retail channel when the PS2 came out. Nobody has been producing titles for the PSOne since the PS2 came out. I know, there's lots to choose from- but anyone that is going that route wouldn't have bought a new console anyhow.
Guess what? It still looks promising for Nintendo at a $250 price- new content, new ideas, etc. But, in reality, I suspect they'll be rolling out the Wii at the $200 MSRP because that's what they've ALWAYS released a machine at in the US since they did the NES... And, at $200 for the initial rollout price, it's a fairly compelling deal if they can play old GC titles AND have a nice stable of new titles- which it looks like they might have at rollout.
...whether or not the developers get on board with Nintendo and produce cool titles and innovative ones. I do like the GC compatibility that's rumored to be in the Wii (That means I probably ought to be on the prowl for GC titles again... :-) and that it's nicely more capable than the GC. If they get studios on board they'll clean both Microsoft's and Sony's clocks with the pricing the way it is. Sure, you've got a more "powerful" machine with the other two- but there's not been really all that many titles out at rollout (definitely not for X-Box 360) that USE that power, and you've got to get an expensive HDTV monitor to really see the advantage, and... I honestly don't know what the other two companies were thinking when they came out with this generation of consoles.
What's truly sad about that is that the final release candidate was more stable than the official release of Windows 95.
It's looking like they're trying to out-do Atari's spectacular flameout back in the last downturn in the games industry.
In the case of the gear that I'm talking about, they can identify user accts (Because you're going to still have these, if only to determine who's supposed to have higher bandwidth...)- if it comes and goes, it's probably a social event, esp. if the people are from all over the place (Is anyone at a neighborhood block party going to be bringing all their laptops with them? God, I hope not- don't wanna do that unless it's a neighborhood LAN party... :-)
In reality, what they'll do is increase monitoring when something shows up in signal strength- if you do it on a regular enough basis, they'll inquire against all the user accounts, etc.
It's still more likely than the satellite and cable thieves to get you caught- and they catch these jokers all the time.
As the other poster pointed out, if it's the "rubbish" bin, you're officially disowning it. If it's just on your property out for the taking, unless it's got a sign that says "free" on it, it's not for the taking and it's theft. In the case of the wireless service, they don't have a sign on it that just says "free", it says, "free, if you agree to these terms". If you don't agree to the terms, they're expressly not giving it to you at all and if you take it outside of the terms, you're stealing it. Whether it be free AOL CDs or "free" wireless service.
When Microsoft says "Beta", they really, really mean "Rough-Cut Alpha"...
That was the case with Windows 95- the first couple of betas weren't QUITE what I called beta quality software (though the developer partner alpha release was less unstable than the first couple of official betas- go figure...).
You won't have me arguing that one. I can only hope people wake up and stem that tide yet again (we had one during the McCarthy era as well...)- so things won't go the way they did in Italy or Germany in the middle 1940's.
The biggest problem with your line of argument is that it's just a violation of the TOS- it's more than that.
If you're not subscribed, you're stealing it (Just like the analogy of taking a wad of napkins from a fast food restraunt...)- doesn't matter if it's free. If it's not per the terms of the offer, it doesn't matter what the cost of a product or service is- if you took something outside the deal you would normally get it by, it's theft. If I take 20 "free" samples of something, it's still theft- it's just that more often than not it's not worth the trouble to pursue the thief over 20 AOL CDs to use your example (But you still stole those discs, if you took that many all at once and weren't planning on handing them to 20 people other than yourself or were planning on having 20 backup discs (God, whatever for?!)).
If you're subscribed, your use is solely predicated on the terms of service. If you don't abide by the terms of service, most TOS agreements void your end of the deal on the spot. If you're no longer a subscriber, as far as the legal end of things go, and you're using it, you're stealing service. Back again to what I said in the original post, really.
Oh, and the sync issue you "addressed" will only work if you've complete control of the transponders. If you try staging them, you will probably find out that thier throttling algorithm that allows you transmit windows isn't consistent at all (It wouldn't be...). If you hack the radio units to allow you that control, you've violated the TOS and are stealing service. If you cobble together your own RF unit, you run afoul of the FCC regs AND are stealing service.
Nice.
Is it REALLY worth all that trouble to get basically low-end ADSL bandwidths? Fun hack, in all honesty, but it's just not really worth all of this.
It's theft of service if you're using more than the free bandwidth allocated per person or per household. Simple, really. You're eating up capacity that paying users will be using- for free because you took it. And they CAN and will have you arrested and tried for it. No, it won't stop people from doing it- but I think it's still appropriate to point out that it's quite illegal and they'll be periodically busting people, just like with the satellite and cable service thieves. And, with this one, it'll be easier to tag someone- if you're not quiescent, you're sending signal (yeah, yeah, I know- no, duh...). You're going to be emitting a given amount of average RF for a given data rate if you're using it- can't be avoided because it's not like copper loops, it's bursty, etc. If you're not subscribed to the higher speed service you're going be emitting watts of average power. If you're subscribed to the service, you'll be emitting watts of average power where is the amount of extra bandwidth you bought. All they need do is drive the neighborhoods with a signal strength meter and direction finder (Realtime ones based off of an Adcock array are not only possible, they're surprisingly affordable if you're talking about a narrowband one...) to see what the power spectrum looks like from the neighborhood. Get a hotspot signal-strength-wise and don't have a deal with them, you start looking into a service thief because the odds are, you've got someone cheating at that point.