Though Disney is evil, their animations work much better (even with celebrity voices) because they generally tweak the character design to more accurately match the look of the real person behind the voice
Bingo. FF looks like they were so busy beating off about their polygon count that they forgot that they were actually making entertainment for humans. Mind you, an actual plot might have helped too.;)
Who would want to face jail time for simply writing a program that's completely legal in your native country?
Same people who would come to the USA knowing that Immigration is deliberately letting extra (low waged) techies in to take up the slack in the job market, so that they can "correct" their figures and deport tens of thousands of them when it's convenient (RSN).
If you can make twice as much in the USA as you can in India (while still getting half to two thirds of what a US techie expects), then you'll take the risk.
It isn't a bug that Windows requires rebooting every few days, it's a security feature.
You chuckle, but it actually says in the MSDN docs that the Windows NT family suffers from the "problem" that it doesn't fall over or have to be rebooted as often as Win9x. When applications crash out and leak memory, you don't get it back, so you really should encourage users to reboot every few days.
I put my hand on my heart and swear that this is true.
First, prove to the world that end-to-end is broken. Then, advance proposals to fix it.
If there's one thing our media has taught us, it's that no technical problem takes more than 60 seconds of random typing on a laptop to solve, as long as there are enough A list stars, guns and blowjobs involved.
You're making this way too complicated. Here's an example, data from Amazon:
Answer the question: how do we reward fairly an independent artist who records one great track, and doesn't press a CD padded with crap, and doesn't spend tens of thousands of marketing dollars to buy shelf/warehouse space for it?
They must negotiate the right to publish online separately. They'll just add another clause to the existing contracts and continue as usual. [...] Older content that was not licensed under the newer contracts must be renegotiated for electronic format with the artist
Way to miss the point. This ruling (might, if sustained and interpreted loosely) give Son of Napster the right to distribute music that has previously been published, regardless of the licensing situation. Did you read the article? There were no digital media clauses in the NYT contracts, but the court decision (if carried through) both allows and requires the NYT to publish in that format anyway and reward fairly the copyright holders.
It's not relevant whether the Big 5 record companies have online media contracts with artists, or whether Son of Napster carries Big 5 tracks and/or independent artist tracks. The only salient points are:
The work has previously been published.
The copyright owner is compensation for further publication in other formats.
The relevant question is actually whether Son of Napster has any right at all to publish any work owned by third parties with which it has no previous business relationship, and who have given no agreement for Son of Napster to publish their copyrighted work in any form. I can't see why this ruling gives Son of Napster that right. But it's an all-or-nothing question, not one of individual contracts between record companies and artists.
If the RIAA determines the licensing, it could in theory set "compensation" so high that Napster still can't do anything
Which is why it would almost certainly have to go to binding arbitration and a settlement enforced.
Point taken though, the arbitration will be a nightmare. Consider how you'd calculate the value of any given song traded on Son of Napster. Number of trades (easy to rig)? Chart position? (easy to buy, and screws independent artists and actual real music) User feedback? (easy to rig and buy with enough MTV time).
Also, if you use the same scale to pay independent artists (remember them?) as you use to pay the Big 5 recording companies, either you give a lot of incentive to artists to rig the system, or you give so little to the Big 5 that they'll keep weeping their crocodile tears and buying laws and lawyers to keep making it expensive and difficult for us to buy music.
On balance, I think you're right. This has a long way to go before we get a solution where everyone's happy.
the New York Times would not have to negotiate individually with every one of its former freelancers
And bear in mind that the vast majority of music copyrights are owned by five record companies, not by individual artists. Son of Napster won't have to deal with tens of thousands of artists, just to the Big 5 plus to any independent artist who thinks it's worth their while to send them a bill (which would be a Good Thing, but try and list even ten independent artists that you've seen traded on Napster without their consent).
So if this is workable for the NYT, it's probably workable for Son of Napster.
From the quirky-but-pointless department: every tech company I've worked with has had a project called Genesis that's been running for years, hasn't produce anything, but hasn't been cut. Here's my theory why:
Budget meeting:
PHB #1: We need to half the budget to pay for the CEO's new Ferrari.
PHB #2: How about if we cut this Genesis thing? It's been running for years but nobody really knows what it is or what it's supposed to produce.
PHB #1: You fool! You can't cut Genesis!
PHB #2: Uh, why not?
PHB #1: Say it out loud. Genesis. Genesis!. With a name like that, it must be important. Do you want to be known as the guy who killed Genesis?
PHB #2: Now that you put it like that... OK, let's just cut the training budget again.
[...]the subscribers' accounts may be terminated for violating the ISPs' terms-of-service agreements, which generally bar using the networks for copyright violations.
I always find this clause strange. ISPs' status as common carriers is now fairly well established, but they still choose to be responsible for policing what their customers are doing, beyond the endpoint of their cable.
I can see why ISP's take down content hosted on hardware that they own (http/ftp servers), but by cutting the cable to individual customers, they are acknowleding that they are not common carriers. I can see a clear distinction between serving copyrighted content from their own hardware, and maintaining a bit of dumb cable connecting my home network (which I am responsible for) with the internet. I doubt that the RIAA sends threats to the outfits maintaining the cable coming out of China.
I'm at a loss to understand why ISP's don't have contracts which say "We are a common carrier, you are responsible for your own actions" (which you are), then when they receive a complaint, either completely stonewall (i.e. spend nothing on responding to) the complainer until a court order arrives or just pass on the customer info (responsible for your actions, remember?), then step out of the way and let the (forewarned) customer and the copyright owner slug it out.
By giving themselves power to cut cables over copyright violation, and by protecting their customers from prosecution by passing on warnings, aren't ISPs actually making themselves more liable? Very strange.
So, does anyone know of any (home, retail) ISP that does have a "we're a common carrier, do what you want" clause?
...someone (think rich, dumb and unethical) used (or even intended to use) those factorable numbers to encrypt some original content, then called the DOJ and screamed "DMCA" and that evil software pirates were trying to crack their encryption?
Stupid scenario? Really? In the context of the DMCA, nothing's beyond the pale. Remember the SDMI cracking challenge?
SDMI: Go ahead, crack the encryption.
Researcher: Done it. That was easy. Want to know how?
I always thought they were setting him up for the mature Susami/Tsunami. After all, he gets on best with Susami, and Tsunami is a hottie. Er, for a cartoon character, I mean.;)
Re:That's like MSFT saying it won't ship free brow
on
Adobe Backs Down
·
· Score: 4
Agreed. What have Adobe (and interested others) learned from this?
That they can dictate if and where and when then will meet the EFF.
That the EFF can initiate only small scale protests.
That the EFF can't control these protests.
That the protestors are impotent and that their cheerleaders (us) are liable to dissolve into unproductive bickering.
That's it's possible to have people jailed more or less at will.
That your "climbdown" need only consist of blaming Uncle Sam for pursuing the guy you asked them to prosecute, while at the same time you threaten to have more people jailed in exactly the same way in future.
That last point is the one that sticks in my throat the most. Adobe have won this one, in every possible way.
What I want to know is exactly who in Adobe pressed for this prosecution, and exactly what Adobe has done to them, considering that they now say that it was a mistake.
A man is in jail, Adobe says that's wrong. OK, show us the accountability.
And curse you, CmdrTaco, for getting me hooked on Tenchi.
The worst part is trying to describe it to someone without sounding like a geek freak.
"There's this guy, Tenchi, and he's just this guy, but he lives with all these mega galactic babes, for no real reason, and there's this cat rabbit that turns into a spaceship, and there was this neat arty episode where it's snowing and Tenchi catches a cold and the talking wardrobes show Princes Susami where the magic flower is and she uses it to make him better... no, wait, it's really cool... come back!";)
Quick aside: the last legal indentured servitude contract in the USA (that I know of) was entered into in 1995 in Mississippi.
Of course, anyone who's read the post-termination clauses in a corporate contract of employment recently might argue that indentured servitude is still going strong today.
I can't help but wonder if/. is considering the financi-legal ramifications of proactive reporting. Passively reporting after the fact is one thing, actively organising before the fact quite another. Remember, Adobe has money to burn on frivilous lawsuits, and nothing left to lose in the popularity stakes.
Partially innacurate, but no more so than Adobe's story, so (dis)honours even. Fun though. Let me try one.
For Adobe's Customers/Corporate CEO's: When (when, not if) the security that you rely on is cracked, the DMCA ensures that you won't get to know about the crack until it's already in widespread use, and it ensures that nobody will help you fix it.
What I find intriguing about this is what might happen if (read: when) someone with an underdeveloped sense of ethics tries a similar technique on humans
Sure, life is cheap. Although it's maybe more likely that we'll come at it from the other side.
Let me present this to you. There are more differences between zebra and shetland pony DNA (and they can produce viable offspring) than there are between human and chimpanzee or even gorilla.
There's also some nice work (by Greg Paul I think) that shows deinonychus as a giant wattled killer turkey. Challenging, but fun. It starts from the premise of "So, why do you think dinosaurs didn't have feathers?"
Uh, you know malt whiskey? The good, expensive stuff? Know where the distinctive taste comes from? You know, the warm, earthy, peaty taste?;)
This segues neatly into an "and finally" story on the Scottish news a while back (no web link, sorry) about a pub that was selling fish pickled in whiskey as a traditional Scottish delicacy. It's nothing of the sort, it was a prank played on some tourists that got out of hand. Interesting to see if it actually becomes a genuine "traditional dish". I wonder how traditions got started before there were rich and gullible foreigners to fleece?;)
Slashdot Mirror
Bingo. FF looks like they were so busy beating off about their polygon count that they forgot that they were actually making entertainment for humans. Mind you, an actual plot might have helped too. ;)
Natalie Portscan?
Same people who would come to the USA knowing that Immigration is deliberately letting extra (low waged) techies in to take up the slack in the job market, so that they can "correct" their figures and deport tens of thousands of them when it's convenient (RSN).
If you can make twice as much in the USA as you can in India (while still getting half to two thirds of what a US techie expects), then you'll take the risk.
Any particular objection to doing both, or would your particular version of Historical Dialectic prohibit that?
FYI, Dmitry retains the copyright on the de-munging software. He's not exactly Innocent Joe Cubicle.
Don't get me wrong, the guy should be out and the DMCA should be burned, but let keep our facts straight.
You chuckle, but it actually says in the MSDN docs that the Windows NT family suffers from the "problem" that it doesn't fall over or have to be rebooted as often as Win9x. When applications crash out and leak memory, you don't get it back, so you really should encourage users to reboot every few days.
I put my hand on my heart and swear that this is true.
If there's one thing our media has taught us, it's that no technical problem takes more than 60 seconds of random typing on a laptop to solve, as long as there are enough A list stars, guns and blowjobs involved.
Answer the question: how do we reward fairly an independent artist who records one great track, and doesn't press a CD padded with crap, and doesn't spend tens of thousands of marketing dollars to buy shelf/warehouse space for it?
Way to miss the point. This ruling (might, if sustained and interpreted loosely) give Son of Napster the right to distribute music that has previously been published, regardless of the licensing situation. Did you read the article? There were no digital media clauses in the NYT contracts, but the court decision (if carried through) both allows and requires the NYT to publish in that format anyway and reward fairly the copyright holders.
It's not relevant whether the Big 5 record companies have online media contracts with artists, or whether Son of Napster carries Big 5 tracks and/or independent artist tracks. The only salient points are:
The relevant question is actually whether Son of Napster has any right at all to publish any work owned by third parties with which it has no previous business relationship, and who have given no agreement for Son of Napster to publish their copyrighted work in any form. I can't see why this ruling gives Son of Napster that right. But it's an all-or-nothing question, not one of individual contracts between record companies and artists.
Which is why it would almost certainly have to go to binding arbitration and a settlement enforced.
Point taken though, the arbitration will be a nightmare. Consider how you'd calculate the value of any given song traded on Son of Napster. Number of trades (easy to rig)? Chart position? (easy to buy, and screws independent artists and actual real music) User feedback? (easy to rig and buy with enough MTV time).
Also, if you use the same scale to pay independent artists (remember them?) as you use to pay the Big 5 recording companies, either you give a lot of incentive to artists to rig the system, or you give so little to the Big 5 that they'll keep weeping their crocodile tears and buying laws and lawyers to keep making it expensive and difficult for us to buy music.
On balance, I think you're right. This has a long way to go before we get a solution where everyone's happy.
And bear in mind that the vast majority of music copyrights are owned by five record companies, not by individual artists. Son of Napster won't have to deal with tens of thousands of artists, just to the Big 5 plus to any independent artist who thinks it's worth their while to send them a bill (which would be a Good Thing, but try and list even ten independent artists that you've seen traded on Napster without their consent).
So if this is workable for the NYT, it's probably workable for Son of Napster.
From the quirky-but-pointless department: every tech company I've worked with has had a project called Genesis that's been running for years, hasn't produce anything, but hasn't been cut. Here's my theory why:
Budget meeting:
I'll synopsise it further: don't use AOL.
Further still: don't be the sort of induhvidual who uses AOL.
I always find this clause strange. ISPs' status as common carriers is now fairly well established, but they still choose to be responsible for policing what their customers are doing, beyond the endpoint of their cable.
I can see why ISP's take down content hosted on hardware that they own (http/ftp servers), but by cutting the cable to individual customers, they are acknowleding that they are not common carriers. I can see a clear distinction between serving copyrighted content from their own hardware, and maintaining a bit of dumb cable connecting my home network (which I am responsible for) with the internet. I doubt that the RIAA sends threats to the outfits maintaining the cable coming out of China.
I'm at a loss to understand why ISP's don't have contracts which say "We are a common carrier, you are responsible for your own actions" (which you are), then when they receive a complaint, either completely stonewall (i.e. spend nothing on responding to) the complainer until a court order arrives or just pass on the customer info (responsible for your actions, remember?), then step out of the way and let the (forewarned) customer and the copyright owner slug it out.
By giving themselves power to cut cables over copyright violation, and by protecting their customers from prosecution by passing on warnings, aren't ISPs actually making themselves more liable? Very strange.
So, does anyone know of any (home, retail) ISP that does have a "we're a common carrier, do what you want" clause?
...someone (think rich, dumb and unethical) used (or even intended to use) those factorable numbers to encrypt some original content, then called the DOJ and screamed "DMCA" and that evil software pirates were trying to crack their encryption?
Stupid scenario? Really? In the context of the DMCA, nothing's beyond the pale. Remember the SDMI cracking challenge?
I always thought they were setting him up for the mature Susami/Tsunami. After all, he gets on best with Susami, and Tsunami is a hottie. Er, for a cartoon character, I mean. ;)
Agreed. What have Adobe (and interested others) learned from this?
That last point is the one that sticks in my throat the most. Adobe have won this one, in every possible way.
What I want to know is exactly who in Adobe pressed for this prosecution, and exactly what Adobe has done to them, considering that they now say that it was a mistake.
A man is in jail, Adobe says that's wrong. OK, show us the accountability.
And curse you, CmdrTaco, for getting me hooked on Tenchi.
The worst part is trying to describe it to someone without sounding like a geek freak.
"There's this guy, Tenchi, and he's just this guy, but he lives with all these mega galactic babes, for no real reason, and there's this cat rabbit that turns into a spaceship, and there was this neat arty episode where it's snowing and Tenchi catches a cold and the talking wardrobes show Princes Susami where the magic flower is and she uses it to make him better... no, wait, it's really cool... come back!" ;)
Quick aside: the last legal indentured servitude contract in the USA (that I know of) was entered into in 1995 in Mississippi.
Of course, anyone who's read the post-termination clauses in a corporate contract of employment recently might argue that indentured servitude is still going strong today.
I can't help but wonder if /. is considering the financi-legal ramifications of proactive reporting. Passively reporting after the fact is one thing, actively organising before the fact quite another. Remember, Adobe has money to burn on frivilous lawsuits, and nothing left to lose in the popularity stakes.
Partially innacurate, but no more so than Adobe's story, so (dis)honours even. Fun though. Let me try one.
For Adobe's Customers/Corporate CEO's: When (when, not if) the security that you rely on is cracked, the DMCA ensures that you won't get to know about the crack until it's already in widespread use, and it ensures that nobody will help you fix it.
Uh, yeah, rip off Aliens much? Anyone else catch themselves whispering "What do you mean 'They cut the power'. They're animals, man!".
Sure, life is cheap. Although it's maybe more likely that we'll come at it from the other side.
Let me present this to you. There are more differences between zebra and shetland pony DNA (and they can produce viable offspring) than there are between human and chimpanzee or even gorilla.
"In experiments by Carlos Moraes at the University of Miami, for example, cells that contained a mixture of human nuclear genes and chimpanzee or gorilla mitochondria generally survived"
Where do we draw the line? The experiments are going on right now. Time to decide.
A nice speculative rendition of feathered raptors can be found here:
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~luisrey/html/custom.htmThere's also some nice work (by Greg Paul I think) that shows deinonychus as a giant wattled killer turkey. Challenging, but fun. It starts from the premise of "So, why do you think dinosaurs didn't have feathers?"
Uh, you know malt whiskey? The good, expensive stuff? Know where the distinctive taste comes from? You know, the warm, earthy, peaty taste? ;)
This segues neatly into an "and finally" story on the Scottish news a while back (no web link, sorry) about a pub that was selling fish pickled in whiskey as a traditional Scottish delicacy. It's nothing of the sort, it was a prank played on some tourists that got out of hand. Interesting to see if it actually becomes a genuine "traditional dish". I wonder how traditions got started before there were rich and gullible foreigners to fleece? ;)