Actually it's generally *not* legal. It's been pretty clearly established that as far as US copyright law is concerned, the "second copy rule" (backup in case the original is lost) does not apply to downloading a version of the copyrighted material over the Internet.
Not that I would argue that it should be illegal, just that it has all been set up by the content holders to work that way - they just make too much money selling consumers the same content in new formats. Though if you downloaded a crappy quality version of a movie that you already owned on DVD, I doubt anyone would bother to sue. Basically, is it illegal? Yes. Is it unethical? Personally, I don't think so.
What's really murky (ethically more than legally) are things like movies with tons of formats released. If you own the DVD (or the VHS tape!), should that give you the right to the BD? Or if you own the 2D BD, do you have a right to copy the 3D BD? How about the reverse? What about unrated versions, special editions, director's cuts, remasters, etc? Or if you bought it on iTunes, but you actually want to watch it on a non-Apple device?
A lot of people hate the idea of buying digital-only copies of movies, but when done correctly (ie. with centralized rights and the ability to stream to any device in perpetuity, regardless of format, service, whatever) it seems like the best way to treat a right to a movie as an actual right to watch that movie, not some bastardized right to one specific physical version on one specific format of the same damn movie. Ultraviolet seems to be an attempt to do this, but given that it has no model for compensating the content providers (why would Apple want to pay to stream a movie to you if you bought it on Amazon, or vice-versa) it's probably going to be DOA...
Yeah, but I think he's talking about arcade ROMs, not home console games. If he just wanted to play an old video game there are still plenty of used consoles available on eBay, etc.
Original arcade ROMs, on the other hand, can be *really* hard to find, and legally licensed ROM images aren't much easier (which was what his post meant).
Yep. PS3 is also the same Netflix pile of ugly, which is such a shame because the possibilities on that platform are nearly endless.
Then again, it does follow Netflix' business model - only make it usable enough to keep the customer subscribed, not to keep them using it. With a flat rate streaming subscription the more usable they make it, the smaller their profit margin...
Actually, there is TONS of Linux support. Almost every network-connected TV and BD player runs Linux these days. There is just no Linux *desktop* support...
(Ironically, for all the disadvantages if they had stuck with Flash it would be supported on Linux desktops...)
We'll see - none of those recently proposed cuts have taken effect yet, and sounds like even if they do they were just made irrelevant by a plan to spend $450B on a new "jobs act". Calling the insane way the US govt throws around money lately "Austerity" is a joke...
You forgot to add "price" in there. My system is quiet, fast, and relatively small - but using an SSD and efficient cooling/case, it's not particularly cheap. Not Mac-Mini small either, though, more mini-tower small. But if you really want quiet and fast an SSD is pretty much a requirement these days...
Actually, I do consider the "economically" weak factor the most important as well, but also the hardest to defend as far as "inherent value". And...
1) destroying gold that way is not worth discussing in an economic sense, unless you plan to get your hands on thousands of tons of gold and sprinkle it in the ocean. And even then it's still not destroyed, just harder to recover - if it were economically worth it someone would figure it out.
2) The scarcity of gold does NOT particularly depend on mining technology. It would depend on finding a *new* source that is so huge and easily mined that it would influence supply, and while that is theoretically possible it's unlikely. But it also helps explain why it's a bad monetary standard, which was my point.
And you have argued two COMPLETELY OPPOSITE points in one post - that it's not stable but it is stable. Which is it? I'd argue that means it's not stable, or at least not controllable, which is why it's not the "standard" any more...
No, these are the same types of policies that FDR through Johnson (and even Nixon in many cases) followed to various extents and resulted in the greatest growth of the middle class in any country in the history of the world.
You would prefer to return to pre-1930 or post 2000 policies that completely screw the middle class? Awesome.
Except the law in question now defines presence as any significant affiliates (of which Amazon has TONS in CA). Not to mention Lab126 (the people who make the Kindle), which is a wholly owned subsidiary designed (until this law) to bypass the physical presence issue. So yes, they were skirting the taxes.
The selective choice of text from my post is your doing, not mine. Cuts to benefits is Austerity, and I never said anything otherwise. If *everything* the tea party represented was Austerity, I don't think I would have been questioning his meaning...
John Edwards? Yeah, he's a nut job and/or fraud, but his goal is to get on TV and make money from the TV network paying for his show. Most of the TV evangelists' goals are to get on TV and convince thousands of people to send them their hard earned cash for their own personal motives and gain.
Why would you think that? He's been against the Bush tax cuts, pro regulation of the mortgage industry and financial markets, anti Wall Street bailouts, pro massive recession/job package expenditure, pro health care reform, pro tariffs on Chinese imports until they stop messing with their currency, and believe social democracy is the direction the US should be heading. There will always be exceptions, but you will not be able to find 1/10th the examples of supporting big business over social programs.
"Intrinsic value" is an economic term, and as such, it's by definition vague;)
It's a combination of scarcity, permanence (you can't destroy it - but feel free to delete your bitcoins), physical qualities (and yes, being nice for jewelry is a quality), and it has tended to hold its value over a LONG time (which is the weakest of those arguments IMO, but that's economics for you...)
Oil doesn't have a very well defined intrinsic value, because it is easily produced (the *current* scarcity is artificial based on production quotas), it has no permanence (its usefulness is based on consuming it), and its physical qualities/usefulness are not inherently valuable (there are alternatives, and if we don't start using them we're screwed).
Basically, the WHOLE POINT of a good monetary "standard" is that it is supposed to be STABLE and allow growth. Gold is not really the most stable standard because of all the speculation and inability of governments to control that - which is why we abandoned the gold standard. Its scarcity basically rewards saving and punishes debt (ie. tends to be deflationary), which means it's horrible for risk (think: the entire US tech industry). And it's not great for economic growth because the money supply is limited by mining gold.
Given all that, oil would be HUGELY worse for that stability....
Ok, but if Krugman is a television psychic, his Friedman equivalents are television evangelists. At least the psychic knows what he's saying is bullshit, and he doesn't try to fleece the masses listening to him.
Now, if people would look at that, look at it's history and act upon that, we wouldn't be having these issue in Washington.
So far NOTHING about the US reaction to the recession has resembled Austerity (and in fact you could go back 100 years and not find a good example of Austerity in the US. And early info on Obama's speech today has that it's not going to start any time soon...
Though, rereading your post, there is a chance that you are referring to the conservative/tea party platform of massive cuts to taxes, spending, and basic benefits (ie Austerity) and how it's deadlocking the US government given the current Administration's plans, in which case I agree with you:)
Well, RICO laws have never been *successfully* prosecuted in cases that have not involved economic gain. For example, it was used to prosecute leaders of the Catholic Church who covered up child molestation, as well as abortion clinic protesters blocking patients from entering. Neither suit was successful, and in the second case the US Supreme Court decided it.
So, if the "organization" was profiting from their hacking, I say fuck 'em, that's a criminal syndicate. If they were just defacing web sites for political purposes (or to be dicks), well, it's still criminal, but not racketeering. In any case "organization" and "racketeering" operations are described in detail in the Act, so no need for me to define it:)
Probably not - RICO laws would be used to go after the leaders who didn't directly hack the computers, but just funded, ordered, and profited from the crime. The "poor dumb kid" would only get caught up in it if he was part of an organization, in which case he probably wasn't poor or dumb in the first place (and still might be able to plea bargain by informing on his higher ups...)
Exactly. It was applied to Michael Milken (just used insider trading rather than hacking computers) as well as some corrupt police departments and even the Catholic Church. Basically applicable anywhere you organize a group that carries out crimes with the consent of the leaders, and want some way of taking out said leaders pretending to "keep their hands clean"...
I shredded and threw away the papers that came with my ATM card years ago. Are you suggesting banks send out new ATMs cards to everyone who wants a cert so it looks more official? And then do the same every time their cert is updated? That seems like a major strike against physical security as well as the "it just costs too much to implement" argument...
...requires you to deal with the inherent limits to email attachment size...
Actually, there is no "inherent" limit to email attachment size (within reason), just mail client/server/service imposed limits.
For example, Gmail limits attachments to 25MB. A fairly high quality black and white scan (way beyond normal fax) only takes up about 150K as a PDF. A "fax quality" scan is a lot less. So that's over 160 pages of high quality or over 500 pages of fax-quality documents in an email. Even with a 10MB limit that's going to be 60-200 pages, which is WAY more than 99.99% of the faxes sent today need.
and then a scripted attack hits and drains hundreds of billions before bringing the economy to a standstill
Great for a movie plot, but luckily in the real world there are plenty of other safeguards guaranteeing these things don't pass a level those companies consider "painful".
Not that I'm not saying the system isn't a bit bizarre - my CC number was used just a few weeks ago to make a couple of fraudulent purchases before the account was automatically disabled. In the end it was both disturbing how easy it was for someone to use my credit card, and impressive how a couple of minor charges were so quickly and accurately detected as fraud...
Part of my point - a company like Amazon is NOT going to hire operators to call 100 million+ customers. They'd much prefer an insecure system with occasional fraud.
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Actually it's generally *not* legal. It's been pretty clearly established that as far as US copyright law is concerned, the "second copy rule" (backup in case the original is lost) does not apply to downloading a version of the copyrighted material over the Internet.
Not that I would argue that it should be illegal, just that it has all been set up by the content holders to work that way - they just make too much money selling consumers the same content in new formats. Though if you downloaded a crappy quality version of a movie that you already owned on DVD, I doubt anyone would bother to sue. Basically, is it illegal? Yes. Is it unethical? Personally, I don't think so.
What's really murky (ethically more than legally) are things like movies with tons of formats released. If you own the DVD (or the VHS tape!), should that give you the right to the BD? Or if you own the 2D BD, do you have a right to copy the 3D BD? How about the reverse? What about unrated versions, special editions, director's cuts, remasters, etc? Or if you bought it on iTunes, but you actually want to watch it on a non-Apple device?
A lot of people hate the idea of buying digital-only copies of movies, but when done correctly (ie. with centralized rights and the ability to stream to any device in perpetuity, regardless of format, service, whatever) it seems like the best way to treat a right to a movie as an actual right to watch that movie, not some bastardized right to one specific physical version on one specific format of the same damn movie. Ultraviolet seems to be an attempt to do this, but given that it has no model for compensating the content providers (why would Apple want to pay to stream a movie to you if you bought it on Amazon, or vice-versa) it's probably going to be DOA...
Yeah, but I think he's talking about arcade ROMs, not home console games. If he just wanted to play an old video game there are still plenty of used consoles available on eBay, etc.
Original arcade ROMs, on the other hand, can be *really* hard to find, and legally licensed ROM images aren't much easier (which was what his post meant).
Or Vudu if you actually want new movies with a great user interface. Though you have to pay new movie rental (over-)prices in that case...
Yep. PS3 is also the same Netflix pile of ugly, which is such a shame because the possibilities on that platform are nearly endless.
Then again, it does follow Netflix' business model - only make it usable enough to keep the customer subscribed, not to keep them using it. With a flat rate streaming subscription the more usable they make it, the smaller their profit margin...
Actually, there is TONS of Linux support. Almost every network-connected TV and BD player runs Linux these days. There is just no Linux *desktop* support...
(Ironically, for all the disadvantages if they had stuck with Flash it would be supported on Linux desktops...)
We'll see - none of those recently proposed cuts have taken effect yet, and sounds like even if they do they were just made irrelevant by a plan to spend $450B on a new "jobs act". Calling the insane way the US govt throws around money lately "Austerity" is a joke...
You forgot to add "price" in there. My system is quiet, fast, and relatively small - but using an SSD and efficient cooling/case, it's not particularly cheap. Not Mac-Mini small either, though, more mini-tower small. But if you really want quiet and fast an SSD is pretty much a requirement these days...
Actually, I do consider the "economically" weak factor the most important as well, but also the hardest to defend as far as "inherent value". And...
1) destroying gold that way is not worth discussing in an economic sense, unless you plan to get your hands on thousands of tons of gold and sprinkle it in the ocean. And even then it's still not destroyed, just harder to recover - if it were economically worth it someone would figure it out.
2) The scarcity of gold does NOT particularly depend on mining technology. It would depend on finding a *new* source that is so huge and easily mined that it would influence supply, and while that is theoretically possible it's unlikely. But it also helps explain why it's a bad monetary standard, which was my point.
And you have argued two COMPLETELY OPPOSITE points in one post - that it's not stable but it is stable. Which is it? I'd argue that means it's not stable, or at least not controllable, which is why it's not the "standard" any more...
No, these are the same types of policies that FDR through Johnson (and even Nixon in many cases) followed to various extents and resulted in the greatest growth of the middle class in any country in the history of the world.
You would prefer to return to pre-1930 or post 2000 policies that completely screw the middle class? Awesome.
Cigarettes, for example, become currency in economically anarchic situations.
You have just explained why they are NOT a stable currency. I don't think that's a particularly good argument for you there...
Except the law in question now defines presence as any significant affiliates (of which Amazon has TONS in CA). Not to mention Lab126 (the people who make the Kindle), which is a wholly owned subsidiary designed (until this law) to bypass the physical presence issue. So yes, they were skirting the taxes.
The selective choice of text from my post is your doing, not mine. Cuts to benefits is Austerity, and I never said anything otherwise. If *everything* the tea party represented was Austerity, I don't think I would have been questioning his meaning...
John Edwards? Yeah, he's a nut job and/or fraud, but his goal is to get on TV and make money from the TV network paying for his show. Most of the TV evangelists' goals are to get on TV and convince thousands of people to send them their hard earned cash for their own personal motives and gain.
Why would you think that? He's been against the Bush tax cuts, pro regulation of the mortgage industry and financial markets, anti Wall Street bailouts, pro massive recession/job package expenditure, pro health care reform, pro tariffs on Chinese imports until they stop messing with their currency, and believe social democracy is the direction the US should be heading. There will always be exceptions, but you will not be able to find 1/10th the examples of supporting big business over social programs.
"Intrinsic value" is an economic term, and as such, it's by definition vague ;)
It's a combination of scarcity, permanence (you can't destroy it - but feel free to delete your bitcoins), physical qualities (and yes, being nice for jewelry is a quality), and it has tended to hold its value over a LONG time (which is the weakest of those arguments IMO, but that's economics for you...)
Oil doesn't have a very well defined intrinsic value, because it is easily produced (the *current* scarcity is artificial based on production quotas), it has no permanence (its usefulness is based on consuming it), and its physical qualities/usefulness are not inherently valuable (there are alternatives, and if we don't start using them we're screwed).
Basically, the WHOLE POINT of a good monetary "standard" is that it is supposed to be STABLE and allow growth. Gold is not really the most stable standard because of all the speculation and inability of governments to control that - which is why we abandoned the gold standard. Its scarcity basically rewards saving and punishes debt (ie. tends to be deflationary), which means it's horrible for risk (think: the entire US tech industry). And it's not great for economic growth because the money supply is limited by mining gold.
Given all that, oil would be HUGELY worse for that stability....
Ok, but if Krugman is a television psychic, his Friedman equivalents are television evangelists. At least the psychic knows what he's saying is bullshit, and he doesn't try to fleece the masses listening to him.
Now, if people would look at that, look at it's history and act upon that, we wouldn't be having these issue in Washington.
So far NOTHING about the US reaction to the recession has resembled Austerity (and in fact you could go back 100 years and not find a good example of Austerity in the US. And early info on Obama's speech today has that it's not going to start any time soon...
Though, rereading your post, there is a chance that you are referring to the conservative/tea party platform of massive cuts to taxes, spending, and basic benefits (ie Austerity) and how it's deadlocking the US government given the current Administration's plans, in which case I agree with you :)
Yeah, seriously? Ron Paul = Austrian School devotee. Paul Krugman is pretty close to the opposite there.
Well, RICO laws have never been *successfully* prosecuted in cases that have not involved economic gain. For example, it was used to prosecute leaders of the Catholic Church who covered up child molestation, as well as abortion clinic protesters blocking patients from entering. Neither suit was successful, and in the second case the US Supreme Court decided it.
So, if the "organization" was profiting from their hacking, I say fuck 'em, that's a criminal syndicate. If they were just defacing web sites for political purposes (or to be dicks), well, it's still criminal, but not racketeering. In any case "organization" and "racketeering" operations are described in detail in the Act, so no need for me to define it :)
Probably not - RICO laws would be used to go after the leaders who didn't directly hack the computers, but just funded, ordered, and profited from the crime. The "poor dumb kid" would only get caught up in it if he was part of an organization, in which case he probably wasn't poor or dumb in the first place (and still might be able to plea bargain by informing on his higher ups...)
Exactly. It was applied to Michael Milken (just used insider trading rather than hacking computers) as well as some corrupt police departments and even the Catholic Church. Basically applicable anywhere you organize a group that carries out crimes with the consent of the leaders, and want some way of taking out said leaders pretending to "keep their hands clean"...
I shredded and threw away the papers that came with my ATM card years ago. Are you suggesting banks send out new ATMs cards to everyone who wants a cert so it looks more official? And then do the same every time their cert is updated? That seems like a major strike against physical security as well as the "it just costs too much to implement" argument...
...requires you to deal with the inherent limits to email attachment size...
Actually, there is no "inherent" limit to email attachment size (within reason), just mail client/server/service imposed limits.
For example, Gmail limits attachments to 25MB. A fairly high quality black and white scan (way beyond normal fax) only takes up about 150K as a PDF. A "fax quality" scan is a lot less. So that's over 160 pages of high quality or over 500 pages of fax-quality documents in an email. Even with a 10MB limit that's going to be 60-200 pages, which is WAY more than 99.99% of the faxes sent today need.
and then a scripted attack hits and drains hundreds of billions before bringing the economy to a standstill
Great for a movie plot, but luckily in the real world there are plenty of other safeguards guaranteeing these things don't pass a level those companies consider "painful".
Not that I'm not saying the system isn't a bit bizarre - my CC number was used just a few weeks ago to make a couple of fraudulent purchases before the account was automatically disabled. In the end it was both disturbing how easy it was for someone to use my credit card, and impressive how a couple of minor charges were so quickly and accurately detected as fraud...
Part of my point - a company like Amazon is NOT going to hire operators to call 100 million+ customers. They'd much prefer an insecure system with occasional fraud.