Number one, whomever moderated this post as a Troll doesn't understand the moderation system. HomerJ brings up a good point: many people here have complained about the substance of TPM, so why are people hopping mad about not being able to buy it on DVD?
I accept Lucasfilm's position that they want to make the DVD releases "special" by enhancing them with additional work. However, I don't understand why Lucas would require more than a supervisory role to get the job done. Think about what items would be on a "default" TPM DVD: - the movie: only widescreen version, can't include a pan & scan version unless released as a dual-sided, dual-layer DVD based on the length of the movie, even without lots of extras - theatrical trailers: which we've already downloaded as Quicktime videos, but it would be nice to see them on a larger screen - cast & crew notes: which would be regurgitated from the immense amount of material already written about the movie - other features: Dolby Digital soundtrack, which would have to be downmixed from the Dolby Digital EX soundtrack (info here), subtitles, alternate language soundtracks, perhaps. - packaging: simple DVD carrier
What on this list would Lucas need to personally manage? Perhaps he would supervise a pan & scan mixing of the movie itself, but other than that, I don't see what the big deal is. If he wants to include more features than what I've listed, he could certainly create an enhanced version later; and by stating this upfront he probably wouldn't even impact the sales of the initial DVD significantly.
I think the reason they're not releasing it on DVD initially is to ensure that they've milked this cash cow as efficiently as possible. Think about it: many of us who would purchase the DVD but not the VHS version of the movie will probably rent it at least once. And the more voracious of us would probably not hold out until 2005 to purchase a copy of the movies for our libraries, so they would probably buy the VHS version anyway (widescreen, collectors version with all the goodies, of course - certainly more than $20). So what they're really saying is that they have such huge sales projections in the home video market that the 3% of the market with DVD players is not important to them. And another item to consider is that a third- or fourth-generation of DVD might be on the market in 2005, perhaps Lucas thinks he can make a better product, hence more money, later.
All of that being said, let me say that I enjoyed the overall story of the movie, the cinematics, and even some of the Jar-Jar slapstick. I would purchase the "default" DVD I decribed, perhaps for even more than the $20-$25 average price. However, I'm not going to lose sight of the fact that the major movie market is one that responds passively to its fan base (each individual either pays to see or own a copy of a movie or they don't, and the studios don't know any of us from Adam), and that fan feedback plays very little role in the process, except for those who participate in test screenings. The reason why many Slashdotters wants a DVD copy of the movie for their collections is due to its cultural significance, technical excellence, and Natalie Portman.;)
Who says humans have to land on the surface of Mars on their first mission there? A group of humans could travel to Mars, remain in geosynchronous orbit, and remotely control a landing craft. They would be able to control it in real time, which would guarantee a higher rate of success in landing a probe there. Granted, the cost of the mission and the risk would be greater, but only incrementally so when compared to a human-occupied landing craft.
I still haven't seen the letter, but it sounded like an unreasonably vague statement of the responsibilities of an employer who had employees that telecommuted full- or part-time. The specific examples they cited - CTS, unsafe stairs, electrical fires - as violations of OSHA regs by the employer are what really fanned the fires.
I am a systems analyst who spends a 40-hour week mostly in the office, but I dial in occasionally from my home PC to respond to system problems that I am paged about. When I am on call, it is 24/7.
My company hired me for this position on the condition that I could/would do this. They've provided me with no equipment to help with this, nor did they ever promise to. I don't really mind this, but I wonder if this reiteration of these regulations will scare them into requiring me to come to work to fix problems, versus purchasing telecommuting equipment for my home.
If I'm dialed into the Internet for pleasure or dialed into our corporate network for work, I can't see how my company is any more liable for what happens at home during either circumstance.
These regulations, as described, seem needlessly vague. Many modern professions require some form of work away from the office.
The regulations, as described in the article, are needlessly vague. They seem locked on the idea that workplaces must be fixed, communal locations.
I'll bet my employer wouldn't like it much if I refused to dial into work to fix problems because they didn't purchase OSHA-approved office furniture and a computer with ergonomic features. Perhaps the government will relax a bit and allow employees to sign a limited liability waiver with their employer.
If enforced at the state or lower levels, this could really burn a lot of employer's butts!
Unlike the many comments that comprise a Slashdot thread, ESR's articles are concise, grammatically correct, and insightful. The fact that he's well known helps this cause. This particular article's content will likely cause the DVD Consortium some headaches as the press interested in the story confront them with the facts ESR espouses.
I doubt you (Foogle) or I would have much of a chance of being heard outside of Slashdot on this issue anyways!
The root of this whole mess are the facts that EToys has money, NSI has control over DNS, and the US justice system has more than its reasonable share of ignorant jurisdiction over the Internet. It's a fact that if Etoy's and EToys' positions were reversed, that EToys' domain name would not have been impounded. This needs to be publicized outside of regular Internet news outlets to inform the public of yet another area of activity where money and influence yields undeserved/unnecessary/unethical power.
RIAA already makes money off of users of both MiniDisc (which is great!) and Audio CD recorders since portions of the price paid for each piece of media go to them. Plus, consumer MiniDisc recorders have mandatory SCMS enforcement.
The problem that they have is with any company trying to ride the MP3 wave with success that doesn't involve them. They think that since they represent the owners of the lion's share of desirable recorded music that they're somehow entitled to profit off of every conceivable delivery mechanism, regardless of its legal uses.
The fact that no Napster server is involved with the actual file transmission says a lot. RIAA might have a leg to stand on if Napster, even briefly, hosted the MP3 files in question or streamed the content from their server.
Napster creates a software tool that in and of itself does not infringe upon copyrights. The argument for its legality would be similar to those made for document copiers. The RIAA is creating more negative publicity for themselves.
On a related note, does anyone here read the recording industry trades (BillBoard, etc.)? If so, could you comment on the type of coverage these RIAA news stories get, and if it's positive or negative?
The real problem is that microprocessor MHz has become the preeniment spec that consumers initially look at in this market. I've seen people compare completely different configurations and think that the one with the higher MHz rating (but perhaps lower cost) is better. The larger companies can take unsold machines and cannibalize them for replacement parts. Smaller PC vendors feel the sting of quick price drops in CPUs before other system components, which leads them to overclock rather than eat the cost of old CPU's.
They have every right to apply for a patent for it. And if they submit no conflicting prior art, it's up to the Patent Office to get into the 90's and find the prior art, if it exists. They would then grant or not grant the patent in a fair manner.
It's the Patent Office that's broken, not the entrepreneurs who are trying to be the first to create and license what they believe are unique solutions.
Many of the opinions I've seen have defended Microsoft's business practices and do not think they should be found in violation of antitrust laws; however, they have accepted the fact that Microsoft is a monopoly. Since the Antitrust laws apply to a company's actions in a defined market during a defined time period, is it safe to assume that regardless of how they achieved their market dominance, Microsoft should be subject to the applicable laws just as any other company with a monopoly would?
This seems like a simple question, but many of the pundits appear to assume that a decade of legal actions can't lead add up to one or more illegal actions.
I found that this article focused on the areas of the findings where, if you believe the e-mail which was brought into evidence, Microsoft damned themselves.
What's to stop PTC from deciding to port Pro/E to Linux and distributing with it a certain Linux distribution, with the option of installing just Pro/E or Linux+Pro/E?
I've read through most of the finding of fact and I think this is the best summary of what was found by Judge Jackson (without getting into details): - For the last 10 years, Microsoft has had 90% or greater of the market share for Intel-based PC operating systems and is a monopoly in that market. - This market dominance has led many OEMs to pre-install Windows on the PCs they manufacture and has also resulted in a large number of ISVs that develop applications for Windows primarily or exclusively. - Since ISVs spend more of their time and costs on developing for Windows, they are less likely to develop for other Intel-compatible OS's. This makes the OS's less attractive to a significant number of potential users. - Microsoft does not determine the price of Windows with regard to competitors products. - Another Intel-compatible OS's barrier to entry in the market is that Microsoft requires OEMs to not ship computers without pre-installed operating systems. Since many don't sell or see a large market for PCs with non-Windows operating systems, they sell all of their PCs with Windows. - Applications which Microsoft believes will "commoditize" Windows (Netscape, Java, etc.) suffer a barrier to entry on Windows as shown by Microsoft's marketing tactics, refusal to release programming information, and their own product development outside of the operating system space.
I thought the beginning was one of the most well-written introductions to a legal document since it clearly explained the terminology used. The whole document is written clearly, in my estimation.
I think this has the potential to precipitate a situation in which Microsoft agrees to only sell Windows to consumers directly, and existing PC OEM bundling agreements are voided. In that case, MS would probably be prohibited from bundling any software with computer systems for at least a few years. In fact, a side effect could be a ban on pre-install of any operating system whatsoever on PCs, but I doubt it.
Contrast this to the music industry, whose contribution to the art form, beyond providing a distribution channel they happen to enjoy a monopoly on, and perhaps a place to record and master (which any technically savvy musician can do in their own home), is negligable at best and quite often destructive.
I'm against the stranglehold that the Big Five have on media distribution, but I don't think that your statement holds water. It takes quite a bit of equipment just to make decent-sounding stereo recordings at home from a linear or non-linear multitrack system. Most of the big studios are not owned by record companies anyways. Don't even try to tell me that an album with the production quality of Dream Theater's Scenes From a Memory could be made in even 1% of home studios.
I have the same setup and have noticed some of what you described on a few 128kb/s MP3's, but not on any 160's or 192's. I'm using Win98 with the latest drivers, WinAMP, and an MDS-JE510. Remember that the MP3 stream is uncompressed on the fly when you listen to it or redirect its output to a file or audio device.
Your recommendation is good if you're wanting to record stuff that you have the uncompressed source of, but I like to be able to create a pick list of whatever MP3s I want and record a custom MD!
I would like to be able to do this under the BeOS - if the Maui release doesn't include complete drivers (digital out, MIDI) for the Vortex2 cards I will probably ignore it. Sick of waiting.
I've skimmed the specs and I'm quite enthused about the possibilities. I don't think this is intended to displace MIDI as much as it is to unify next-generation digital audio behind a connection system composed of mostly commodity components. MIDI cannot handle real-time CD-quality digital audio transfer - its intended use is for low-latency messaging and triggering. The latency in this system will probably enable it to displace MIDI Sync and dedicated SMPTE channels.
The only part of the system that is costly is the chip required for encoding/decoding/d/a-converting of the audio. This is an advantage over fiber-based systems, even though Toslink-based SPDIF connections have gotten pretty cheap. And of course, embedded logic will have to be developed for more complicated instruments and gear to harness its capabilities.
Gibson is showing great vision with this product and I'm anxious to see a demo of its capabilities.
From what I saw at my school (University at Buffalo), the deals for vending and cafeteria beverage sales were handled as separate services that companies could bid for. Coke and Pepsi were always the winners, but in the six years I was there each vendor secured one of the two services. They flipped services one time during the six years, I think.
One very negative side to this is that the division which handled the cafeterias and vending took over some convenience stores located in the dorms, which didn't have any beverage deals and had a great selection. Once they became subject to the larger beverage deal, which at that time was Coke-only for point-of-sale/cafeteria beverages, Pepsi was not the only vendor banned from the store. Bottled water, Snapple, VeryFine, and others were all pushed out, since Coke claimed to have competetive products. They never convinced me that Fruitopia competed with Snapple. 8)
The Star Trek: New Frontier novels by Peter David have set up a pretty strong set of characters; they are the crew of the USS Excalibur (a ship name also used in the B5 spin-off Crusade, right?). I started reading this series mainly because I've always liked Mr. David's work and his previous Star Trek novels have always been a great read.
No holographic doctors, no Borg, but an even mix of gender (especially the character Burgoyne), quite a few non-human characters, and a security chief (Zak Kebron) who can actually keep things under control!
Berman and co. seem to have been loathe to tap into the book-writing side of the franchise for TV ideas. This may be because many of those writers don't want to be tied down by a weekly series. I've never seen this topic addressed, though.
Slashdot Mirror
Number one, whomever moderated this post as a Troll doesn't understand the moderation system. HomerJ brings up a good point: many people here have complained about the substance of TPM, so why are people hopping mad about not being able to buy it on DVD?
;)
I accept Lucasfilm's position that they want to make the DVD releases "special" by enhancing them with additional work. However, I don't understand why Lucas would require more than a supervisory role to get the job done. Think about what items would be on a "default" TPM DVD:
- the movie: only widescreen version, can't include a pan & scan version unless released as a dual-sided, dual-layer DVD based on the length of the movie, even without lots of extras
- theatrical trailers: which we've already downloaded as Quicktime videos, but it would be nice to see them on a larger screen
- cast & crew notes: which would be regurgitated from the immense amount of material already written about the movie
- other features: Dolby Digital soundtrack, which would have to be downmixed from the Dolby Digital EX soundtrack (info here), subtitles, alternate language soundtracks, perhaps.
- packaging: simple DVD carrier
What on this list would Lucas need to personally manage? Perhaps he would supervise a pan & scan mixing of the movie itself, but other than that, I don't see what the big deal is. If he wants to include more features than what I've listed, he could certainly create an enhanced version later; and by stating this upfront he probably wouldn't even impact the sales of the initial DVD significantly.
I think the reason they're not releasing it on DVD initially is to ensure that they've milked this cash cow as efficiently as possible. Think about it: many of us who would purchase the DVD but not the VHS version of the movie will probably rent it at least once. And the more voracious of us would probably not hold out until 2005 to purchase a copy of the movies for our libraries, so they would probably buy the VHS version anyway (widescreen, collectors version with all the goodies, of course - certainly more than $20). So what they're really saying is that they have such huge sales projections in the home video market that the 3% of the market with DVD players is not important to them. And another item to consider is that a third- or fourth-generation of DVD might be on the market in 2005, perhaps Lucas thinks he can make a better product, hence more money, later.
All of that being said, let me say that I enjoyed the overall story of the movie, the cinematics, and even some of the Jar-Jar slapstick. I would purchase the "default" DVD I decribed, perhaps for even more than the $20-$25 average price. However, I'm not going to lose sight of the fact that the major movie market is one that responds passively to its fan base (each individual either pays to see or own a copy of a movie or they don't, and the studios don't know any of us from Adam), and that fan feedback plays very little role in the process, except for those who participate in test screenings. The reason why many Slashdotters wants a DVD copy of the movie for their collections is due to its cultural significance, technical excellence, and Natalie Portman.
...is that the people that cancel the service and receive their rebates will probably not be allowed to join MSN in the future!
They're really going to be hurting when Microsoft buys the Internet!
Ironically, to many of the potential customers Microsoft was targeting with this promotion, Windows *is* the Internet.
Who says humans have to land on the surface of Mars on their first mission there? A group of humans could travel to Mars, remain in geosynchronous orbit, and remotely control a landing craft. They would be able to control it in real time, which would guarantee a higher rate of success in landing a probe there. Granted, the cost of the mission and the risk would be greater, but only incrementally so when compared to a human-occupied landing craft.
I still haven't seen the letter, but it sounded like an unreasonably vague statement of the responsibilities of an employer who had employees that telecommuted full- or part-time. The specific examples they cited - CTS, unsafe stairs, electrical fires - as violations of OSHA regs by the employer are what really fanned the fires.
I am a systems analyst who spends a 40-hour week mostly in the office, but I dial in occasionally from my home PC to respond to system problems that I am paged about. When I am on call, it is 24/7.
My company hired me for this position on the condition that I could/would do this. They've provided me with no equipment to help with this, nor did they ever promise to. I don't really mind this, but I wonder if this reiteration of these regulations will scare them into requiring me to come to work to fix problems, versus purchasing telecommuting equipment for my home.
If I'm dialed into the Internet for pleasure or dialed into our corporate network for work, I can't see how my company is any more liable for what happens at home during either circumstance.
These regulations, as described, seem needlessly vague. Many modern professions require some form of work away from the office.
The regulations, as described in the article, are needlessly vague. They seem locked on the idea that workplaces must be fixed, communal locations.
I'll bet my employer wouldn't like it much if I refused to dial into work to fix problems because they didn't purchase OSHA-approved office furniture and a computer with ergonomic features. Perhaps the government will relax a bit and allow employees to sign a limited liability waiver with their employer.
If enforced at the state or lower levels, this could really burn a lot of employer's butts!
Unlike the many comments that comprise a Slashdot thread, ESR's articles are concise, grammatically correct, and insightful. The fact that he's well known helps this cause. This particular article's content will likely cause the DVD Consortium some headaches as the press interested in the story confront them with the facts ESR espouses.
I doubt you (Foogle) or I would have much of a chance of being heard outside of Slashdot on this issue anyways!
It's spelled "millennium".
They have enough control to "hold" the domain name so that none of the other registrars can issue it. From one of the previous Wired articles:
Network Solutions spokeswoman Sheryl Regan said the domain name registrar routinely shuts down contested domain names when court orders are issued.
"We put a domain name on hold so no one has access to it," Regan said.
And NSI is the incumbent registrar, which brings with it many advantages...
The root of this whole mess are the facts that EToys has money, NSI has control over DNS, and the US justice system has more than its reasonable share of ignorant jurisdiction over the Internet. It's a fact that if Etoy's and EToys' positions were reversed, that EToys' domain name would not have been impounded. This needs to be publicized outside of regular Internet news outlets to inform the public of yet another area of activity where money and influence yields undeserved/unnecessary/unethical power.
RIAA already makes money off of users of both MiniDisc (which is great!) and Audio CD recorders since portions of the price paid for each piece of media go to them. Plus, consumer MiniDisc recorders have mandatory SCMS enforcement.
The problem that they have is with any company trying to ride the MP3 wave with success that doesn't involve them. They think that since they represent the owners of the lion's share of desirable recorded music that they're somehow entitled to profit off of every conceivable delivery mechanism, regardless of its legal uses.
The fact that no Napster server is involved with the actual file transmission says a lot. RIAA might have a leg to stand on if Napster, even briefly, hosted the MP3 files in question or streamed the content from their server.
Napster creates a software tool that in and of itself does not infringe upon copyrights. The argument for its legality would be similar to those made for document copiers. The RIAA is creating more negative publicity for themselves.
On a related note, does anyone here read the recording industry trades (BillBoard, etc.)? If so, could you comment on the type of coverage these RIAA news stories get, and if it's positive or negative?
The real problem is that microprocessor MHz has become the preeniment spec that consumers initially look at in this market. I've seen people compare completely different configurations and think that the one with the higher MHz rating (but perhaps lower cost) is better. The larger companies can take unsold machines and cannibalize them for replacement parts. Smaller PC vendors feel the sting of quick price drops in CPUs before other system components, which leads them to overclock rather than eat the cost of old CPU's.
Friends and relatives continue to buy me subscriptions to PC Magazine, which has become bathroom-reading material in the wake of the Web.
Sadder still: with all of the ads in it, it's only good for about one sitting.
They have every right to apply for a patent for it. And if they submit no conflicting prior art, it's up to the Patent Office to get into the 90's and find the prior art, if it exists. They would then grant or not grant the patent in a fair manner.
It's the Patent Office that's broken, not the entrepreneurs who are trying to be the first to create and license what they believe are unique solutions.
Many of the opinions I've seen have defended Microsoft's business practices and do not think they should be found in violation of antitrust laws; however, they have accepted the fact that Microsoft is a monopoly. Since the Antitrust laws apply to a company's actions in a defined market during a defined time period, is it safe to assume that regardless of how they achieved their market dominance, Microsoft should be subject to the applicable laws just as any other company with a monopoly would?
This seems like a simple question, but many of the pundits appear to assume that a decade of legal actions can't lead add up to one or more illegal actions.
Found this while checking out Linux Today:
TLS: Arne W. Flones - Findings of Fact, A Two-Themed Opus
I found that this article focused on the areas of the findings where, if you believe the e-mail which was brought into evidence, Microsoft damned themselves.
What's to stop PTC from deciding to port Pro/E to Linux and distributing with it a certain Linux distribution, with the option of installing just Pro/E or Linux+Pro/E?
I've read through most of the finding of fact and I think this is the best summary of what was found by Judge Jackson (without getting into details):
- For the last 10 years, Microsoft has had 90% or greater of the market share for Intel-based PC operating systems and is a monopoly in that market.
- This market dominance has led many OEMs to pre-install Windows on the PCs they manufacture and has also resulted in a large number of ISVs that develop applications for Windows primarily or exclusively.
- Since ISVs spend more of their time and costs on developing for Windows, they are less likely to develop for other Intel-compatible OS's. This makes the OS's less attractive to a significant number of potential users.
- Microsoft does not determine the price of Windows with regard to competitors products.
- Another Intel-compatible OS's barrier to entry in the market is that Microsoft requires OEMs to not ship computers without pre-installed operating systems. Since many don't sell or see a large market for PCs with non-Windows operating systems, they sell all of their PCs with Windows.
- Applications which Microsoft believes will "commoditize" Windows (Netscape, Java, etc.) suffer a barrier to entry on Windows as shown by Microsoft's marketing tactics, refusal to release programming information, and their own product development outside of the operating system space.
I thought the beginning was one of the most well-written introductions to a legal document since it clearly explained the terminology used. The whole document is written clearly, in my estimation.
I think this has the potential to precipitate a situation in which Microsoft agrees to only sell Windows to consumers directly, and existing PC OEM bundling agreements are voided. In that case, MS would probably be prohibited from bundling any software with computer systems for at least a few years. In fact, a side effect could be a ban on pre-install of any operating system whatsoever on PCs, but I doubt it.
The "Renegade Version" of Highlander II is better than "The Sickening". But just stay away from Highlander III!
Contrast this to the music industry, whose contribution to the art form, beyond providing a distribution channel they happen to enjoy a monopoly on, and perhaps a place to record and master (which any technically savvy musician can do in their own home), is negligable at best and quite often destructive.
I'm against the stranglehold that the Big Five have on media distribution, but I don't think that your statement holds water. It takes quite a bit of equipment just to make decent-sounding stereo recordings at home from a linear or non-linear multitrack system. Most of the big studios are not owned by record companies anyways. Don't even try to tell me that an album with the production quality of Dream Theater's Scenes From a Memory could be made in even 1% of home studios.
I have the same setup and have noticed some of what you described on a few 128kb/s MP3's, but not on any 160's or 192's. I'm using Win98 with the latest drivers, WinAMP, and an MDS-JE510. Remember that the MP3 stream is uncompressed on the fly when you listen to it or redirect its output to a file or audio device.
Your recommendation is good if you're wanting to record stuff that you have the uncompressed source of, but I like to be able to create a pick list of whatever MP3s I want and record a custom MD!
I would like to be able to do this under the BeOS - if the Maui release doesn't include complete drivers (digital out, MIDI) for the Vortex2 cards I will probably ignore it. Sick of waiting.
I've skimmed the specs and I'm quite enthused about the possibilities. I don't think this is intended to displace MIDI as much as it is to unify next-generation digital audio behind a connection system composed of mostly commodity components. MIDI cannot handle real-time CD-quality digital audio transfer - its intended use is for low-latency messaging and triggering. The latency in this system will probably enable it to displace MIDI Sync and dedicated SMPTE channels.
The only part of the system that is costly is the chip required for encoding/decoding/d/a-converting of the audio. This is an advantage over fiber-based systems, even though Toslink-based SPDIF connections have gotten pretty cheap. And of course, embedded logic will have to be developed for more complicated instruments and gear to harness its capabilities.
Gibson is showing great vision with this product and I'm anxious to see a demo of its capabilities.
From what I saw at my school (University at Buffalo), the deals for vending and cafeteria beverage sales were handled as separate services that companies could bid for. Coke and Pepsi were always the winners, but in the six years I was there each vendor secured one of the two services. They flipped services one time during the six years, I think.
One very negative side to this is that the division which handled the cafeterias and vending took over some convenience stores located in the dorms, which didn't have any beverage deals and had a great selection. Once they became subject to the larger beverage deal, which at that time was Coke-only for point-of-sale/cafeteria beverages, Pepsi was not the only vendor banned from the store. Bottled water, Snapple, VeryFine, and others were all pushed out, since Coke claimed to have competetive products. They never convinced me that Fruitopia competed with Snapple. 8)
The Star Trek: New Frontier novels by Peter David have set up a pretty strong set of characters; they are the crew of the USS Excalibur (a ship name also used in the B5 spin-off Crusade, right?). I started reading this series mainly because I've always liked Mr. David's work and his previous Star Trek novels have always been a great read.
No holographic doctors, no Borg, but an even mix of gender (especially the character Burgoyne), quite a few non-human characters, and a security chief (Zak Kebron) who can actually keep things under control!
Berman and co. seem to have been loathe to tap into the book-writing side of the franchise for TV ideas. This may be because many of those writers don't want to be tied down by a weekly series. I've never seen this topic addressed, though.