I see your point, but there is the matter of the DMCA* disallowing the creation of third-party DRM cracks for non-infringing uses by customers who should have their first-sale rights*.
It's all well and good for a manufacturer to make a difficult-to-break DRM system, even one covered by patents, if novel enough ideas are utilized, and use this to any advantage they can wring out of this. But, they should not have the legal control prohibit consumers or third-party developers to transform that bought-and-paid data or hardware to whatever personal use the customer may want.
The ability to litigate your opponents away is not the basis of a "superior product".
(* Non-USA readers may wish to add the phrase "in the US" or "or similar local laws" as applicable.)
There were some messages on the answering machine... some MP3 files from eMusic, Magnatunes, and a few others called to tell you you're wrong.
And for those of you about to make the argument that "Yeah, but you can't get [song/artist/label]'s music on those services": Choose which you like more-- That particular music, or online delivery of unencumbered MP3s... just don't say you have no choice.
Although, unless the company has zero expendetures(sp?), the same processes and ideas apply in order to break even and turn a profit.
Unless, of course, it's a scam that's made to be run into the ground, or a front for cooking books and diverting cashflow. Then it's a success even if it loses.
(Aaaand... Cue the real economist/accountant/businessperson to hand me my rhetorical ass...)
Face it. Even if they were to try, the logistical problems of paying contributors would make any fair "payoff" laughable at best, and impossible at worst, without radically commercializing the whole operation.
So, it can be said that a contributor's chance... ability, even... to be paid is zero. So, when the choice is between nobody being paid and the site-owners being paid, what's your point in griping about not being paid.
Since they can't go Gracenote, and you've still got your copy, no matter what, stop complaining.
It's probably a perfectly good idea, but it's bringing back all those bad memories of those awful, underpowered, amber-screened, functionally useless monstrosities that were my junior-high school's CD-ROM-based InfoTrac machines...shudder..
You could probably get around a lot of that overhead, though, if you somehow generated the extra on the fly. For a consumer-grade application, it could be either a dedicated viewer, or a mini-server that built the pages on the fly somewhere on localhost.
So, if we had, say, shoddily-wired high-voltage mass-marketed DSL rounters that prone to catching fire and burning the house down after too much sustained SMTP and TFTP traffic, it would work to solve this problem?
Correction/addition: Who do you blame if the seat's too far away from the gas pedal that's set too deep to reach in order to drive the car without stretching when one company gave you the seat, the other gave you the gas pedal, and a third gave you the car body and said "have at it!"?
The argument starts to falter however (it doesn't stall, but starts to falter) when you take into account the many different manufacturers and individual parts and programs that go into the thing that's simply called "a working computer".
Who do you blame if the seat's too far away from the gas pedal that's set too deep to reach in order to drive the car without stretching?
Ditto, although it was the other way around for me. I had a friend that would ALWAYS use the emergency brake. He pulled off the freeway and we switched driving. About 20 minutes later, I see that the "BRAKE" light is on. Having had one set of brakes go out on me once, I go into freak-out mode (It didn't help that his brakes were crap and mashed to the floor to stop normally). Four-way-flashers on and slowing down on the freeway, I then realized that I had the emergency brake on all that time.
Luckily, he crashed that car, so the utter destruction of the emergency brake became a non-issue.
Cookies become CAKE if you turn on the proper security levels and warning options. Since it is dependent upon the user's settings, it is considered to be CUP-CAKE (Custom User Permissions based Client-Authorized Knowledge Extraction). However, it seems that PIE is not required to be CAKE, since there is no technical requirement to warn the user.
Sounds like mine. I broke one leg of the cheapo bedframe (the kind that comes with the mattress), so now there's what I'm certain is one of the most structurally heavy-duty junker 486s (dumpster find) I've ever seen holding it up.
Every so often, I need to mine it for jumpers, but other than that, it's "art".
They say something like that about every new media. "It can hold the same as THIS MUCH PAPER!!!" Yeah, in ASCII plaintext. Judging by the size of HDDs being sold now, though, people will just keep finding higher and higher bitrate information types to fill them up.
Slashdot Mirror
I see your point, but there is the matter of the DMCA* disallowing the creation of third-party DRM cracks for non-infringing uses by customers who should have their first-sale rights*.
It's all well and good for a manufacturer to make a difficult-to-break DRM system, even one covered by patents, if novel enough ideas are utilized, and use this to any advantage they can wring out of this. But, they should not have the legal control prohibit consumers or third-party developers to transform that bought-and-paid data or hardware to whatever personal use the customer may want.
The ability to litigate your opponents away is not the basis of a "superior product".
(* Non-USA readers may wish to add the phrase "in the US" or "or similar local laws" as applicable.)
Those words... on the recording contract... they're there for a reason.
It's a wiki. Edit.
There were some messages on the answering machine... some MP3 files from eMusic, Magnatunes, and a few others called to tell you you're wrong.
And for those of you about to make the argument that "Yeah, but you can't get [song/artist/label]'s music on those services": Choose which you like more-- That particular music, or online delivery of unencumbered MP3s... just don't say you have no choice.
Sounds to me like what you would say if your mouth was full.
(chomp-munch-chomp)
"So... mmf... Bill..."
(chomp-munch-gulp)
"Yuh?"
(crunch... chomp-munch-gulp)
"There god?"
(suck-chomp-munch)
"Ah'uh know."
Although, unless the company has zero expendetures(sp?), the same processes and ideas apply in order to break even and turn a profit.
Unless, of course, it's a scam that's made to be run into the ground, or a front for cooking books and diverting cashflow. Then it's a success even if it loses.
(Aaaand... Cue the real economist/accountant/businessperson to hand me my rhetorical ass...)
Face it. Even if they were to try, the logistical problems of paying contributors would make any fair "payoff" laughable at best, and impossible at worst, without radically commercializing the whole operation.
So, it can be said that a contributor's chance... ability, even... to be paid is zero. So, when the choice is between nobody being paid and the site-owners being paid, what's your point in griping about not being paid.
Since they can't go Gracenote, and you've still got your copy, no matter what, stop complaining.
It's probably a perfectly good idea, but it's bringing back all those bad memories of those awful, underpowered, amber-screened, functionally useless monstrosities that were my junior-high school's CD-ROM-based InfoTrac machines. ..shudder..
Holy crap!
I wish I knew about that in college.
You could probably get around a lot of that overhead, though, if you somehow generated the extra on the fly. For a consumer-grade application, it could be either a dedicated viewer, or a mini-server that built the pages on the fly somewhere on localhost.
By Darwinism and averages alone, if they don't.
First you have to convert to oil.
It depends on the sunrise/sunset times.
As well as it might make the computer run faster in a lot of cases if there's "forgotten" software on there that the owner doesn't ever actually use.
So, if we had, say, shoddily-wired high-voltage mass-marketed DSL rounters that prone to catching fire and burning the house down after too much sustained SMTP and TFTP traffic, it would work to solve this problem?
I'll buy stock.
Correction/addition:
Who do you blame if the seat's too far away from the gas pedal that's set too deep to reach in order to drive the car without stretching when one company gave you the seat, the other gave you the gas pedal, and a third gave you the car body and said "have at it!"?
The argument starts to falter however (it doesn't stall, but starts to falter) when you take into account the many different manufacturers and individual parts and programs that go into the thing that's simply called "a working computer".
Who do you blame if the seat's too far away from the gas pedal that's set too deep to reach in order to drive the car without stretching?
Ditto, although it was the other way around for me. I had a friend that would ALWAYS use the emergency brake. He pulled off the freeway and we switched driving. About 20 minutes later, I see that the "BRAKE" light is on. Having had one set of brakes go out on me once, I go into freak-out mode (It didn't help that his brakes were crap and mashed to the floor to stop normally). Four-way-flashers on and slowing down on the freeway, I then realized that I had the emergency brake on all that time.
Luckily, he crashed that car, so the utter destruction of the emergency brake became a non-issue.
Wave g'bye, keep on driving.
Symptom: The computer does not work, or works poorly.
Desired result: Make the computer work correctly.
Okay, so...
Solution 1: Back up documents and reinstall the OS.
Result: Computer works correctly. You win.
Solution 2: Remove spyware using automatic tools and/or manual deletion.
Result: Computer works correctly. You win.
In conclusion...
Who cares? If the job's done, it's done.
I'm certain you could market that. Hell, if I had mod points, I'd call it "Insightful".
Client-authorized knowledge extraction?
Cookies become CAKE if you turn on the proper security levels and warning options. Since it is dependent upon the user's settings, it is considered to be CUP-CAKE (Custom User Permissions based Client-Authorized Knowledge Extraction). However, it seems that PIE is not required to be CAKE, since there is no technical requirement to warn the user.
Sounds like mine. I broke one leg of the cheapo bedframe (the kind that comes with the mattress), so now there's what I'm certain is one of the most structurally heavy-duty junker 486s (dumpster find) I've ever seen holding it up.
Every so often, I need to mine it for jumpers, but other than that, it's "art".
No, no, no, no, no... it's postmodern.
Obviously, cretin, you do not understand the art.
They say something like that about every new media. "It can hold the same as THIS MUCH PAPER!!!" Yeah, in ASCII plaintext. Judging by the size of HDDs being sold now, though, people will just keep finding higher and higher bitrate information types to fill them up.