The first time I read the
headline, I thought that George Lucas had launched
an R2D2 brand of beer... Like they would be
selling beer in little Artoo-shaped cans at the
grocery store. And I wondered what kind of
machine this "R2D2 Beer" would be getting.
It's amazing, the difference one missing
hyphen can make.</grammar flame>
"piracy" [is] an improper usage of an emotionally loaded word
[...] No, I don't like it either, and use "sharing" by preference.
While you're looking up definitions, take a look
at "share" and explain to me how it is any more
accurate than "piracy." Sharing is something that
makes you a good little boy or girl when you're in
pre-school. It has just as many emotionally
positive connotations as "piracy" has negative
ones.
Personally, I think "piracy" is the more accurate
term. We're talking about an illegal activity,
so there *should* be a negative color to the words
used to describe it.
Take a look at the trivia page at IMDB on Star Wars.
It's not a bad idea to take anything at the IMDB
with a grain of salt. Most of their info is
user-supplied, and they don't seem to do a lot of
fact-checking. This is especially a problem in
the biography and trivia sections.
I'm not saying that it's wrong in this particular
case; just that it's not the authoritative source
that it appears to be. For instance, the trivia
for Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon contains
several falsehoods that have persisted there for
years.
Getting back on topic... It is obvious that
George Lucas always had a vision of Star Wars
that was bigger than the first film -- after all,
Darth Vader survived. My understanding is that
Lucas's original plan was to make one film that
covered all of the events chronicled in the
first trilogy, but that it would have been too
long. So he took the first act of his screenplay,
up to the destruction of the Death Star, and
rewrote *that* as a stand-alone film. Of course,
he didn't know whether or not he would ever have
the chance to make the sequels, which is probably
why "Episode IV" was left off in the original
release. I'm not enough of a Star Wars geek to
tell you at what point the idea of a prequel
trilogy arose, sorry.
As for Joseph Campbell, first of all, I don't
see what the big deal is. The article seems
unnecessarily vitriolic, so I'm not sure what the
author's agenda is. But I think it's ridiculous
to suggest that Campbell's writings had *nothing*
to do with Star Wars. Most of the
arguments go something like this:
"Star Wars owes more to this film, that book,
etc." Yes, Lucas drew from many different
sources. How does that prove that "Hero with
a Thousand Faces" wasn't one of them?
"Lucas didn't stick to Campbell's blueprint."
That he may have failed to interpret Campbell's
ideas faithfully doesn't mean he didn't try.
"Campbell's ideas are so vague that you could
fit just about any story to them... That doesn't
mean it was intentional." True, but that doesn't
mean that it was *unintentional,* either.
"Campbell's ideas are bunk." Maybe. That
wouldn't prevent someone from trying to use them,
though.
I agree that people give Campbell *way* too much
credit for inspiring Star Wars. But that doesn't
mean he deserves no credit at all.
Not only can you sue for damages, but the company is also liable for
$10000 per call if they refuse your do-not-call requests.
They aren't "refusing" the do-not-call requests
per se. In fact, they assure me every time that
the request will be honored. Then two months
later, they call again.
A local telemarketer has ignored my do-not-call
requests seven times in the past two years. At
$500 a pop, that's quite a bit of money,
especially when you consider the possibility of
treble damages (it's obvious that they are
willfully and knowingly ignoring their do-not-call
list, since we've reminded them every time). I've
written a letter demanding payment for damages,
but how should I proceed if they ignore it? The
damages are too high for small claims court. Is
it worth the trouble of going for the full amount,
or would it be better to lower my sights and stick
with small claims? Have any of you ever
(successfully) sued a telemarketer for more than
$3000?
The buffet company should do their market research ahead of
time, and adjust their pricing ahead of time to balance the occasional
glutton with average stomach joe.
In the real world, a new restaurant (or any business) has to offer
unprofitably low prices until they've lured enough
customers away from their competitors. THEN they
adjust their prices.
They're not advertising "all you can
eat - as long as you don't eat too much".
And if they did? There is no way in hell Time Warner
will continue advertising RoadRunner as "unlimited
access" once the new pricing scheme takes effect.
IF they do, then you can bitch all you want about
deceptive advertising. Until then, STFU.
The cable companies are trying to tell you to put that 2nd piece of
pie back after you've already paid for it.
No, they're saying NEXT TIME you come back, you'll
have to pay extra for it. You don't like it,
don't come back.
If I follow the terms of the terms of service, I see it as
the providers problem, not mine
Looks like they're finally fixing the problem.
if I go to
McDonalds and eat all of the food I ordered, I have bad manners.
Nonsense. A better analogy would be paying $7.99
for an all-you-can-eat buffet and stuffing your
pockets with food to eat later. It's not fair
to the other customers, who are subsidizing your
gluttony.
Libraries make value decisions all the time about what content to
provide.
That's because there is a practical limit to how
much of the available content it is possible to
acquire. This is not the case with the internet.
Once you acquire the connection, you instantly
acquire access to all of the content, for no
additional cost. If librarians could do this
with books, they would jump at the chance.
I have no doubt that they will
completely ruin it like they have so many other of my favorites.
Personally, I couldn't stand Zelazny's prose, so
by the end of book 5, reading it had become a
tedious chore. I never even cracked book 6.
I might like the miniseries somewhat better... Lots
of gratuitious action and dialogue, which will
translate well to the screen. And the books are
fairly short -- all ten combined are shorter
than the Lord of the Rings trilogy -- so I don't
see screen time as being too big an issue.
Besides which, pulpy novels are easier to adapt.
Amber is pure pulp sci-fantasy, so it will be
much harder to screw up than something as weighty
as Dune.
With the exception of NPiA, I didn't even like
the books. But I'm looking forward to the
miniseries.
I'm not sure how legitimate
backups take sales away from the industry.
[...]
I can't see a lot of people buying two of
every album/software/etc just to have a backup available...
Of course not. The second one would be a
replacement, not a backup.
This is probably what kept "Dark Side of the
Moon" on the charts for ~15 years. Vinyl wore
out quickly, and needed to be replaced. I don't
think this would have happened if consumers had
had the ability to create perfect backup copies.
I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with
making backups, just that they do affect the
industry.
What is the difference between this and photocopiers? I see none. And
I am a university student. I cannot even count the number of people I
personally know who photocopy their entire textbook collection from
the library. And they bring these copies to class. It is not hidden.
It is common practice.
You're missing the point. Yes, photocopiers
*can* be used for piracy, and not every use is
legitimate. My point was that the four "fair
use" defenses can *all* be applied to some
photocopies, whereas only *one* of them (half of
one, at that) can be applied to use of the CD copier.
Photocopying an entire book is actually a much
better analogy for what the CD copier does.
However, this is *not* the typical use for a
photocopier. You cannot say the same for the
CD copier.
Except copying a book with a Xerox machine is slow, time consuming,
and does not give you nearly as easily readable a version as buying
the book itself would. CD copying machines give you perfect copies
with very little hassle.
Indeed. And to point out another flaw in the photocopier
analogy, there is only one real-world "fair use"
defense for this machine (in the U.S.): The purpose of the copy.
The "character" of the copy cannot be used as a
defense, since it is effectively identical to the
original.
The "nature of the copyrighted work" cannot be
used as a defense, since we are almost invariably
talking about for-profit, commercially produced
CDs (no one who could create their own original
CDs would need this machine to help them make
copies.)
The "relative amount" cannot be used as a defense,
since the CD is copied in its entirety.
And the "effect on the market" cannot be used as
a defense, since even legitimate backup copies
take sales away from the industry.
The only legitimate "purposes" that I can see for
using this machine are backups and space-shifting
(though I don't know what legal standing these
have). When was the last time you "backed up"
a book with a photocopier?
So let's stop clouding the issue with this
ridiculous book/photocopier analogy.
Things like Kazaa as
pointed out do not harm the Music industry. They benefit it.
This claim is attached in some way to just about
every p2p article I've seen at/., and while I
agree that Kazaa et al. should remain legal, I
take issue with this line of reasoning.
It's funny how when the story is about school
shooters and video games, there are dozens of
comments saying that "correlation does not
indicate causation." Where are these comments
now?
The plain fact is that a correlation between
filesharing and the RIAA's financial vicissitudes
does not indicate causation on either side of the
coin. The RIAA cannot claim that file sharing
causes a loss, and two-faced slashdotters cannot
claim that file sharing causes a gain. There are
simply too many other variables.
What is more likely, IMHO, is that file
sharing *and* the RIAA's profitability are both
driven largely by the same external factors --
those that influence the public's overall interest
in recorded music. Naturally, this would cause
them to rise and fall at the same time.
However, my real point is that even if file
sharing does causally benefit the RIAA, it is
still the RIAA's decision how/whether to exploit
their intellectual property rights. They have
every right to make the wrong decision.
I hate to burst this capitalistic bubble, but I'm pretty sure I would
be disturbed by my fellow patrons typing and ordering.
You might be surprised. As far as ordering food
is concerned, this is nothing new. The Cinema
Grill franchise has been operating successfully
under this "capitalistic bubble" for over 25 years.
Yes, let's. Every human being has a
responsibility NOT to rape any other human being.
And that, IMHO, is where the responsibility for
rape begins and ends.
why shouldn't he be abused for his obviously
self-destructive tendencies?
The same reason that you shouldn't be shot in the
head by another motorist for driving
self-destructively. Falling victim to road rage
is one forseeable consequence of driving like an
idiot, but that does not mean that it is
"deserved."
I don't mean to spoil everyone's fun, but am I
the only one who's disturbed by the number of
(highly-moderated) prison rape jokes? Yes, humor
can be found in any situation, but it seems a bit
callous to me. This isn't some George Carlin-esque
fictional rape scenario; we're talking about a
real person who may be in for the most traumatic
experience of his life. Yes, he's an idiot, and
probably a criminal, but that doesn't mean he
deserves to be raped.
Yes, in fact there are only eight other films
that have had as many. Of those, all but two
went on to win Best Picture. (The two that lost
were Mary Poppins and Who's Afraid of
Virginia Woolf?)
(I will leave the
debate as to whether they do a better job or not for someone else).
To clarify my comment, yes, I believe that asking
a large number of questions about mathematics
will more accurately reflect the student's
knowledge and aptitude than asking only one or
two. Particularly when, as in this case, they
are given ample opportunity to get the answer from
another source (i.e., cheat). Is this really a
controversial opinion?
Slashdot Mirror
It's amazing, the difference one missing hyphen can make.</grammar flame>
Posting as an AC for obvious reasons.
The obvious reasons being, ironically enough, cowardice and selfishness.
[...]
No, I don't like it either, and use "sharing" by preference.
While you're looking up definitions, take a look at "share" and explain to me how it is any more accurate than "piracy." Sharing is something that makes you a good little boy or girl when you're in pre-school. It has just as many emotionally positive connotations as "piracy" has negative ones.
Personally, I think "piracy" is the more accurate term. We're talking about an illegal activity, so there *should* be a negative color to the words used to describe it.
At least call it *illegal* sharing.
It's not a bad idea to take anything at the IMDB with a grain of salt. Most of their info is user-supplied, and they don't seem to do a lot of fact-checking. This is especially a problem in the biography and trivia sections.
I'm not saying that it's wrong in this particular case; just that it's not the authoritative source that it appears to be. For instance, the trivia for Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon contains several falsehoods that have persisted there for years.
Getting back on topic... It is obvious that George Lucas always had a vision of Star Wars that was bigger than the first film -- after all, Darth Vader survived. My understanding is that Lucas's original plan was to make one film that covered all of the events chronicled in the first trilogy, but that it would have been too long. So he took the first act of his screenplay, up to the destruction of the Death Star, and rewrote *that* as a stand-alone film. Of course, he didn't know whether or not he would ever have the chance to make the sequels, which is probably why "Episode IV" was left off in the original release. I'm not enough of a Star Wars geek to tell you at what point the idea of a prequel trilogy arose, sorry.
As for Joseph Campbell, first of all, I don't see what the big deal is. The article seems unnecessarily vitriolic, so I'm not sure what the author's agenda is. But I think it's ridiculous to suggest that Campbell's writings had *nothing* to do with Star Wars. Most of the arguments go something like this:
"Star Wars owes more to this film, that book, etc." Yes, Lucas drew from many different sources. How does that prove that "Hero with a Thousand Faces" wasn't one of them?
"Lucas didn't stick to Campbell's blueprint." That he may have failed to interpret Campbell's ideas faithfully doesn't mean he didn't try.
"Campbell's ideas are so vague that you could fit just about any story to them... That doesn't mean it was intentional." True, but that doesn't mean that it was *unintentional,* either.
"Campbell's ideas are bunk." Maybe. That wouldn't prevent someone from trying to use them, though.
I agree that people give Campbell *way* too much credit for inspiring Star Wars. But that doesn't mean he deserves no credit at all.
They aren't "refusing" the do-not-call requests per se. In fact, they assure me every time that the request will be honored. Then two months later, they call again.
A local telemarketer has ignored my do-not-call requests seven times in the past two years. At $500 a pop, that's quite a bit of money, especially when you consider the possibility of treble damages (it's obvious that they are willfully and knowingly ignoring their do-not-call list, since we've reminded them every time). I've written a letter demanding payment for damages, but how should I proceed if they ignore it? The damages are too high for small claims court. Is it worth the trouble of going for the full amount, or would it be better to lower my sights and stick with small claims? Have any of you ever (successfully) sued a telemarketer for more than $3000?
In the real world, a new restaurant (or any business) has to offer unprofitably low prices until they've lured enough customers away from their competitors. THEN they adjust their prices.
They're not advertising "all you can eat - as long as you don't eat too much".
And if they did? There is no way in hell Time Warner will continue advertising RoadRunner as "unlimited access" once the new pricing scheme takes effect. IF they do, then you can bitch all you want about deceptive advertising. Until then, STFU.
The cable companies are trying to tell you to put that 2nd piece of pie back after you've already paid for it.
No, they're saying NEXT TIME you come back, you'll have to pay extra for it. You don't like it, don't come back.
Looks like they're finally fixing the problem.
if I go to McDonalds and eat all of the food I ordered, I have bad manners.
Nonsense. A better analogy would be paying $7.99 for an all-you-can-eat buffet and stuffing your pockets with food to eat later. It's not fair to the other customers, who are subsidizing your gluttony.
That's because there is a practical limit to how much of the available content it is possible to acquire. This is not the case with the internet. Once you acquire the connection, you instantly acquire access to all of the content, for no additional cost. If librarians could do this with books, they would jump at the chance.
Personally, I couldn't stand Zelazny's prose, so by the end of book 5, reading it had become a tedious chore. I never even cracked book 6. I might like the miniseries somewhat better... Lots of gratuitious action and dialogue, which will translate well to the screen. And the books are fairly short -- all ten combined are shorter than the Lord of the Rings trilogy -- so I don't see screen time as being too big an issue.
Besides which, pulpy novels are easier to adapt. Amber is pure pulp sci-fantasy, so it will be much harder to screw up than something as weighty as Dune.
With the exception of NPiA, I didn't even like the books. But I'm looking forward to the miniseries.
Not true.
Of course not. The second one would be a replacement, not a backup.
This is probably what kept "Dark Side of the Moon" on the charts for ~15 years. Vinyl wore out quickly, and needed to be replaced. I don't think this would have happened if consumers had had the ability to create perfect backup copies.
I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with making backups, just that they do affect the industry.
You're missing the point. Yes, photocopiers *can* be used for piracy, and not every use is legitimate. My point was that the four "fair use" defenses can *all* be applied to some photocopies, whereas only *one* of them (half of one, at that) can be applied to use of the CD copier.
Photocopying an entire book is actually a much better analogy for what the CD copier does. However, this is *not* the typical use for a photocopier. You cannot say the same for the CD copier.
Indeed. And to point out another flaw in the photocopier analogy, there is only one real-world "fair use" defense for this machine (in the U.S.): The purpose of the copy.
The "character" of the copy cannot be used as a defense, since it is effectively identical to the original.
The "nature of the copyrighted work" cannot be used as a defense, since we are almost invariably talking about for-profit, commercially produced CDs (no one who could create their own original CDs would need this machine to help them make copies.)
The "relative amount" cannot be used as a defense, since the CD is copied in its entirety.
And the "effect on the market" cannot be used as a defense, since even legitimate backup copies take sales away from the industry.
The only legitimate "purposes" that I can see for using this machine are backups and space-shifting (though I don't know what legal standing these have). When was the last time you "backed up" a book with a photocopier?
So let's stop clouding the issue with this ridiculous book/photocopier analogy.
(IANAL)
You're right. How silly of me. Karma whores NEVER reach the cap... It just wouldn't make sense. ;-)
Yet you're still here today. Why? So that you can post redundant karma-whoring rants about how much it sucks?
Seriously, if the April 1 stories annoy you that much, just go away and come back tomorrow. Or does someone have a gun to your head?
This claim is attached in some way to just about every p2p article I've seen at /., and while I
agree that Kazaa et al. should remain legal, I
take issue with this line of reasoning.
It's funny how when the story is about school shooters and video games, there are dozens of comments saying that "correlation does not indicate causation." Where are these comments now?
The plain fact is that a correlation between filesharing and the RIAA's financial vicissitudes does not indicate causation on either side of the coin. The RIAA cannot claim that file sharing causes a loss, and two-faced slashdotters cannot claim that file sharing causes a gain. There are simply too many other variables.
What is more likely, IMHO, is that file sharing *and* the RIAA's profitability are both driven largely by the same external factors -- those that influence the public's overall interest in recorded music. Naturally, this would cause them to rise and fall at the same time.
However, my real point is that even if file sharing does causally benefit the RIAA, it is still the RIAA's decision how/whether to exploit their intellectual property rights. They have every right to make the wrong decision.
Yes.
You might be surprised. As far as ordering food is concerned, this is nothing new. The Cinema Grill franchise has been operating successfully under this "capitalistic bubble" for over 25 years.
Yes, let's. Every human being has a responsibility NOT to rape any other human being. And that, IMHO, is where the responsibility for rape begins and ends.
why shouldn't he be abused for his obviously self-destructive tendencies?
The same reason that you shouldn't be shot in the head by another motorist for driving self-destructively. Falling victim to road rage is one forseeable consequence of driving like an idiot, but that does not mean that it is "deserved."
Stop Prisoner Rape
Yes, in fact there are only eight other films that have had as many. Of those, all but two went on to win Best Picture. (The two that lost were Mary Poppins and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?)
Interesting choice of words, given the too-close-for-comfort ties between Enron and Washington :-)
Interesting. That clears up my question.
(I will leave the debate as to whether they do a better job or not for someone else).
To clarify my comment, yes, I believe that asking a large number of questions about mathematics will more accurately reflect the student's knowledge and aptitude than asking only one or two. Particularly when, as in this case, they are given ample opportunity to get the answer from another source (i.e., cheat). Is this really a controversial opinion?
But isn't this what standardized tests like the SAT and ACT are for? And don't these standardized tests do a better job?
Maybe I'm missing the point.