Technology moves much faster then any of the law making parts of our government.
Plenty of laws do not require "updating". e.g. you can't invent a new weapon, kill someone with it and "get away with murder". On the basis that the weapon you used isn't mentioned in laws against murder.
A blanket law could harm innocent people, look at the rampant abuse of the DMCA?
The DMCA certainly isn't "blanket", it can give to recordings of the same thing different status just because different machines were used to make the recording. It's also a good example of what can go wrong when laws are frequently altered in complex ways.
That proves the parent poster's arguement exactly. How many of those works survive today? How many more would have survived had even one of the works fans been allowed to keep and distribute copies in the public domain, despite there being no commercial incentive to the original creators to maintain distribution?
Traditionally Copyright Libraries would have also preserved works which were not a commercial sucess. If copyright is X years from first publication then all the librarian need do is label a book with a date in the future (assuming that the printer hasn't already done this.) When you have copyright as "author's life plus X" or where the term can retrospectivly change you need a complex system to work out when something becomes public domain. In addition with more books being published and longer copyright terms Copyright Libraries just cannot keep even one copy of every book published.
The fact that there is such a thing as copyright (or patents) is what stimulates creation, and thereby serves the public interest.
Actually it is a theory that copyright stimulates creation and publication. Even if it does there may be well be optimal copyright models and terms. There are plenty of examples of things which are benefical in moderation and harmful in excess.
Let me make the distinction between "Our constitution gives Congress the right.." (the law itself), and "to serve the public interest" (the effect the law has).
You can't always make such a distinction. Since in some places, most notably the First Ammendment, the limits on the power of the US Congress specifically relate to the effect a law has. Regardless of whatever the intent of the law might have been.
Um, how did the company collapse? If the doors simply shut, then someone still owns the IP (stockholders possibly). Even if it went bankrupt, someone probably retained rights to the IP, either a previous investor, debtor, or something.
It's perfectly possible for no-one, including the copyright holder, to know who that rights holder is. The longer the length of copyright the more cases there will be of this happening. Especially when there is no requirement for any kind of papertrail of copyright ownership to exist.
AFAICT the only valid business logic for buying a LINUX license is to comfort skitish investors and/or customers with the knowledge that there is no legal liability.
Assuming that buying such a licence dosn't create legal liabilities.
Software should be held to whatever quality standards the customer requires, regardless of it's proprietary or open development process.
Or rather "whatever quality standards are applicable on a case by case basis". Which also addresses issues such as statutory regulations, regardless of if the customer is initially aware of these.
For products where quality IS important, published documentation, including source, code-change-history, published test-cases and results of running those tests cases, etc. can help ensure quality.
Something which open source licences tend not to obstruct.
Commercial outfits typically rely on outside auditors or "trust us" to show that they probably ship quality code.
N.B. "Commercial" != "Proprietary".
At best, they publish their test cases and the results of those tests. If we are really lucky, a few outsiders have reviewed the code and pronounced it good.
In the proprietary software field the software licencing can easily make it difficult for independent review to take place.
You can wipe out a server hard drive with less than 10 characters and an "enter" on most Unix/Linux systems.
One machine vs tens of thousands.
I'm quite familiar with the Microsoft recommendations for big projects like this. Claiming Microsoft would "sell a complex system [of this magnitude] with the claim idiots can administer it" is flat out false. They recommend highly trained proffesionals, testing in an offline environment and strict change control procedures.
"Recommend" means just that. Also what definition is Microsoft using for "highly trained professionals"? Do they mean MSCE (or similar).
Really, I'd expect Microsoft to have designed the two very different operating systems to NOT take each other's patches. It couldn't have been that hard to do, just toss some identifier in there somewhere in the file and if XP sees a win2k id or vice versa, refude to install the update.
With many patches you can download from Microsoft's websites this is exactly what happens. Maybe SUS was developed by a different team/contractor. Microsoft had better fix this before the "black hats" work out how to make use of this "feature".
This isn't Microsoft that ballsed it up, nor is it inherently the fault of DWP. Chances are it's an underpaid sysadmin somewhere who hit the wrong checkbox when rolling out the patch.
If someone can manage this by selecting the "wrong checkbox" then the system is broken by design. Microsoft sell a complex system with the claim idiots can administer it. The DWP employ/contract idiots to administer a complex, but vital, system. Niether of these are "innocent parties".
Problem isn't the platform as much as the implementation.
It looks like a problem with SUS.
I'd say that someone bollocksed the whole thing up, which could be just as tragic rolling out a linux upgrade or whatever.
If you implimented something similar on Linux. Except that it's a lot harder to put Linux into an unbootable state which is difficult to recover from and less likely that a Linux workstation will vital locally stored data which means you can't simply wipe and reimage.
We've got to educate the people spending our money on large computer systems to spend part of that money on more testing!
There were "testing" (best keep those involved away from any Ukranian nuclear reactors). I suspect that the problem is more with a lack of understanding of the basics.
Re:Digestion, dubbing, censoring, etc.
on
TV Piracy is Next
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· Score: 1
The problem is most anime aren't meant for kids here, in Canada, because the subject matter is too mature for all adults who think all anime are toons for kids. So what do these idiots do with these anime? They market them to kids and then cut scenes and euphemize "disturbing" ones.
You'd have though that after 20 or so years TV executives would have gained a clue about this.
There is clear evidence that the execs are getting worried about TV sharing. Recently one of the head honchos behind the new Battlestar Galactica posted to a message board appealing for users not to download the show (which is getting rave reviews in the UK/Ireland) but does not air in the US until January.
The unusual thing here being that it's the US audience being kept waiting.
An interesting point here, is that they are not just worried about people stealing intellectual property, but they are worried that people looking at shows before they air, means that actual Nielson figures will not reflect how many people actually watch the show -- very relevent for Sci-Fi.
On the other hand they will already have a whole set of ratings data prior to any US broadcast.
Re:It's their own fault.
on
TV Piracy is Next
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I've gotten sick of trying to record shows that shift around without warning. Nothing is more frustrating to come home and watch a tape of Enterprise only to find out it's been bumped for the Bachelor.
This is also a good way for a broadcaster to lose viewers who would otherwise be watching "live". I suspect what most people want with TV series is a fixed timeslot with episodes in the order the writer intended them to be in.
A good compromise would be for the studios to set up portals where people can download the episodes direct, without commercials for a subscription fee.
Which may also mean that programming which dosn't work well on broadcast TV (especially US broadcast TV) might actually be cost effective to make.
Re:I look forward to the imminent death of TV!
on
TV Piracy is Next
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· Score: 1
The rights to Joey were bought by Five, which intends to show the series sometime in the first half of next year.
This is the problem. It certainly should not take months for a TV programme to cross the Atlantic. Sticking video tapes on cargo ships would be quicker (even if the ship was travelling West). 20 years ago air freight was used to enable programmes to be broadcast within hours from various parts of the planet. Now the technology is available for members of the public to watch programmes within hours (sometimes minutes) of their being broadcast anywhere on the planet. Yet TV companies can spend months even getting to the point of showing programmes it's self evident their potential viewers want to see.
Re:I look forward to the imminent death of TV!
on
TV Piracy is Next
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· Score: 1
Why should someone in Ireland have to wait and not get to see the show at the exact same time as the people in the US?
Or at least within hours, due to the time zone difference. Even then why should the US be first most of the time... It would be perfectly possible to have a channel which repeats 8 hours of content 3 times or 6 hours 4 times.
I bought my copy of Half-Life 2 from Steam as I knew come 8am GMT I would be able to start playing the game like anyone in the US.
Or someone from anywhere else. Howcome TV companies cannot get concepts which computer games companies, even book publishers, can understand?
I'm in the UK, so I have to wait for US-made shows to make it to our networks. The.ca country makes me think this is a Canadian article, and wonder if Canada is as behind telly shows as the UK is.
This can happen. Even more ironic is that quite a lot of "American TV" is made in Canada. Since it costs less...
Re:Allow copying and increase profits!
on
TV Piracy is Next
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· Score: 1
Ever seen the commercial of the guy who will "Fight for you" if you're in an accident? So... make one of the show's characters get in an accident in one episode, call that lawyer, and then show how that lawyer kicks some legal ass and gets them serious money for their injury. Ever seen those plumbing commercials? Have a show where everything goes wrong with the plumbing (it could be made very comical and funny) and show the plumber showing up on time, smelling clean, and fixing the pipes. How difficult could that be?
The problem with this is that there arn't that many global legal and plumbing firms.
Most of the legitimate music websites simply take their dollar price and stick a pound sign on instead. iTunes is the only big exception, and even that costs 79p (~$1.50) a track.
A situation which will get worst, considering that the US Doller is continuing to drop in value.
I hate watching TV because of all the ads and the fact that each pay channel usually only has 1 or 2 shows that are worth watching, forcing you to buy the whol damn lot just to get the few shows you want.
Or even worst you might have to buy channels you have no interest in at all, just to get the channels which have some content you might want to watch.
My time is worth something, and if I can see a movie with a running time of 90 mins in 90 mins instead of 120 mins that 30 mins I just saved right there - and no, I'm not incontinent and don't need a four minute toilet break every ten minutes.
The broadcasters expect you to keep watching when the adverts come on. The likes of electricity supply companies know this is nonsense, to the point that you could probably get a decent estimate of viewership from peaks due to electric kettles and water pumps (due to toilet usage)... (It's not unknown for people to be employed to watch TV and start up gas turbine power plants immediatly a commercial break comes up.)
But why buy the DVD's when I downloaded it already for free? Because I still believe content creators should be paid.
Though no doubt it's the middle men who get most of the money.
DVD region codes are an example of localisation, not globalisation.
Or even "anti-globalisation". It's a case of trans national corporations wanting to pick and choose what kind of globalisation happens.
It seems that getting a region-free DVD player in North America is a lot tougher than it is in Europe
What happens is that North America tends to get most movie DVDs first (as well as often getting to see most movies). When DVD was mostly used for movies it was everywhere outside R1 who wanted region free players. What has changed is that DVDs are also being used for TV series. With R1 often being the last. Because the US has a unique system called "syndication" which effectivly equates to repeating programmes until no advertiser will pay them (even cutting the content to make more space for ads). Everywhere else on the planet broadcasters buy a licence for a certain number of showings from the copyright holder.
Re:TV is actually worse than movies...
on
TV Piracy is Next
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· Score: 1
TV providers seem to have missed this little thing called "globalization".
The idea of "globalization" is apparently that manufacturers and "providers" can get their raw materials and labour where-ever they like. It appearently isn't intended for the benefit of customers (or even retailers)...
A: "Have you seen [movie title] yet? It's really cool"
B: "Cool. I'll go to the cinema next week and see it"
There may still be staggered releases of movies, but if it's only a few days most people can live with it. Once it gets beyond about 2 weeks people will consider alternative means.
A: "Have you seen [TV series] yet? It's really cool"
B: "No. Come ask again in a few years, when it'll be on TV here. That is, if it is popular enough to be internationally sold at all. And if it is priced so reasonably that some TV channel picks it up."
Months to years in staggered scheduling is the problem here. As is also the tendency to release first in the US, where series are often shown in a not sequential way. Even when doing this effectivly discourages people from watching. As with so many things we have somehow ended up with a US and a "rest of the world" doing TV series. Do US viewers actually want series to be shown in discontinuious blocks and even out of order?
I suspect the problem with advertising in BitTorrent distro'd TV episodes is the issue of counting how many people actually *see* the ads.
Assuming that the creator of the video file dosn't cut the ads. Which can easily account for a quarter to a third of the output. I wonder how much of this downloading is due to people not wanting to have to wait months to years to watch something. Especially when the latest episode is being discussed over the Internet as soon as it has been broadcast anywhere on the planet.
Slashdot Mirror
Technology moves much faster then any of the law making parts of our government.
Plenty of laws do not require "updating". e.g. you can't invent a new weapon, kill someone with it and "get away with murder". On the basis that the weapon you used isn't mentioned in laws against murder.
A blanket law could harm innocent people, look at the rampant abuse of the DMCA?
The DMCA certainly isn't "blanket", it can give to recordings of the same thing different status just because different machines were used to make the recording.
It's also a good example of what can go wrong when laws are frequently altered in complex ways.
That proves the parent poster's arguement exactly. How many of those works survive today? How many more would have survived had even one of the works fans been allowed to keep and distribute copies in the public domain, despite there being no commercial incentive to the original creators to maintain distribution?
Traditionally Copyright Libraries would have also preserved works which were not a commercial sucess. If copyright is X years from first publication then all the librarian need do is label a book with a date in the future (assuming that the printer hasn't already done this.) When you have copyright as "author's life plus X" or where the term can retrospectivly change you need a complex system to work out when something becomes public domain.
In addition with more books being published and longer copyright terms Copyright Libraries just cannot keep even one copy of every book published.
The fact that there is such a thing as copyright (or patents) is what stimulates creation, and thereby serves the public interest.
Actually it is a theory that copyright stimulates creation and publication. Even if it does there may be well be optimal copyright models and terms.
There are plenty of examples of things which are benefical in moderation and harmful in excess.
Let me make the distinction between "Our constitution gives Congress the right .." (the law itself), and "to serve the public interest" (the effect the law has).
You can't always make such a distinction. Since in some places, most notably the First Ammendment, the limits on the power of the US Congress specifically relate to the effect a law has. Regardless of whatever the intent of the law might have been.
Um, how did the company collapse? If the doors simply shut, then someone still owns the IP (stockholders possibly). Even if it went bankrupt, someone probably retained rights to the IP, either a previous investor, debtor, or something.
It's perfectly possible for no-one, including the copyright holder, to know who that rights holder is.
The longer the length of copyright the more cases there will be of this happening. Especially when there is no requirement for any kind of papertrail of copyright ownership to exist.
AFAICT the only valid business logic for buying a LINUX license is to comfort skitish investors and/or customers with the knowledge that there is no legal liability.
Assuming that buying such a licence dosn't create legal liabilities.
Software should be held to whatever quality standards the customer requires, regardless of it's proprietary or open development process.
Or rather "whatever quality standards are applicable on a case by case basis". Which also addresses issues such as statutory regulations, regardless of if the customer is initially aware of these.
For products where quality IS important, published documentation, including source, code-change-history, published test-cases and results of running those tests cases, etc. can help ensure quality.
Something which open source licences tend not to obstruct.
Commercial outfits typically rely on outside auditors or "trust us" to show that they probably ship quality code.
N.B. "Commercial" != "Proprietary".
At best, they publish their test cases and the results of those tests. If we are really lucky, a few outsiders have reviewed the code and pronounced it good.
In the proprietary software field the software licencing can easily make it difficult for independent review to take place.
You can wipe out a server hard drive with less than 10 characters and an "enter" on most Unix/Linux systems.
One machine vs tens of thousands.
I'm quite familiar with the Microsoft recommendations for big projects like this. Claiming Microsoft would "sell a complex system [of this magnitude] with the claim idiots can administer it" is flat out false. They recommend highly trained proffesionals, testing in an offline environment and strict change control procedures.
"Recommend" means just that. Also what definition is Microsoft using for "highly trained professionals"? Do they mean MSCE (or similar).
Really, I'd expect Microsoft to have designed the two very different operating systems to NOT take each other's patches. It couldn't have been that hard to do, just toss some identifier in there somewhere in the file and if XP sees a win2k id or vice versa, refude to install the update.
With many patches you can download from Microsoft's websites this is exactly what happens. Maybe SUS was developed by a different team/contractor. Microsoft had better fix this before the "black hats" work out how to make use of this "feature".
With EDS's current track record I think they'd be perfect for running an Identity Card Scheme....
For EDS, paid for by EDS, though.
This isn't Microsoft that ballsed it up, nor is it inherently the fault of DWP. Chances are it's an underpaid sysadmin somewhere who hit the wrong checkbox when rolling out the patch.
If someone can manage this by selecting the "wrong checkbox" then the system is broken by design.
Microsoft sell a complex system with the claim idiots can administer it. The DWP employ/contract idiots to administer a complex, but vital, system. Niether of these are "innocent parties".
Problem isn't the platform as much as the implementation.
It looks like a problem with SUS.
I'd say that someone bollocksed the whole thing up, which could be just as tragic rolling out a linux upgrade or whatever.
If you implimented something similar on Linux. Except that it's a lot harder to put Linux into an unbootable state which is difficult to recover from and less likely that a Linux workstation will vital locally stored data which means you can't simply wipe and reimage.
We've got to educate the people spending our money on large computer systems to spend part of that money on more testing!
There were "testing" (best keep those involved away from any Ukranian nuclear reactors). I suspect that the problem is more with a lack of understanding of the basics.
The problem is most anime aren't meant for kids here, in Canada, because the subject matter is too mature for all adults who think all anime are toons for kids. So what do these idiots do with these anime? They market them to kids and then cut scenes and euphemize "disturbing" ones.
You'd have though that after 20 or so years TV executives would have gained a clue about this.
There is clear evidence that the execs are getting worried about TV sharing. Recently one of the head honchos behind the new Battlestar Galactica posted to a message board appealing for users not to download the show (which is getting rave reviews in the UK/Ireland) but does not air in the US until January.
The unusual thing here being that it's the US audience being kept waiting.
An interesting point here, is that they are not just worried about people stealing intellectual property, but they are worried that people looking at shows before they air, means that actual Nielson figures will not reflect how many people actually watch the show -- very relevent for Sci-Fi.
On the other hand they will already have a whole set of ratings data prior to any US broadcast.
I've gotten sick of trying to record shows that shift around without warning. Nothing is more frustrating to come home and watch a tape of Enterprise only to find out it's been bumped for the Bachelor.
This is also a good way for a broadcaster to lose viewers who would otherwise be watching "live".
I suspect what most people want with TV series is a fixed timeslot with episodes in the order the writer intended them to be in.
A good compromise would be for the studios to set up portals where people can download the episodes direct, without commercials for a subscription fee.
Which may also mean that programming which dosn't work well on broadcast TV (especially US broadcast TV) might actually be cost effective to make.
The rights to Joey were bought by Five, which intends to show the series sometime in the first half of next year.
This is the problem. It certainly should not take months for a TV programme to cross the Atlantic. Sticking video tapes on cargo ships would be quicker (even if the ship was travelling West). 20 years ago air freight was used to enable programmes to be broadcast within hours from various parts of the planet.
Now the technology is available for members of the public to watch programmes within hours (sometimes minutes) of their being broadcast anywhere on the planet.
Yet TV companies can spend months even getting to the point of showing programmes it's self evident their potential viewers want to see.
Why should someone in Ireland have to wait and not get to see the show at the exact same time as the people in the US?
Or at least within hours, due to the time zone difference. Even then why should the US be first most of the time... It would be perfectly possible to have a channel which repeats 8 hours of content 3 times or 6 hours 4 times.
I bought my copy of Half-Life 2 from Steam as I knew come 8am GMT I would be able to start playing the game like anyone in the US.
Or someone from anywhere else. Howcome TV companies cannot get concepts which computer games companies, even book publishers, can understand?
I'm in the UK, so I have to wait for US-made shows to make it to our networks. The .ca country makes me think this is a Canadian article, and wonder if Canada is as behind telly shows as the UK is.
This can happen. Even more ironic is that quite a lot of "American TV" is made in Canada. Since it costs less...
Ever seen the commercial of the guy who will "Fight for you" if you're in an accident? So... make one of the show's characters get in an accident in one episode, call that lawyer, and then show how that lawyer kicks some legal ass and gets them serious money for their injury. Ever seen those plumbing commercials? Have a show where everything goes wrong with the plumbing (it could be made very comical and funny) and show the plumber showing up on time, smelling clean, and fixing the pipes. How difficult could that be?
The problem with this is that there arn't that many global legal and plumbing firms.
Most of the legitimate music websites simply take their dollar price and stick a pound sign on instead. iTunes is the only big exception, and even that costs 79p (~$1.50) a track.
A situation which will get worst, considering that the US Doller is continuing to drop in value.
I hate watching TV because of all the ads and the fact that each pay channel usually only has 1 or 2 shows that are worth watching, forcing you to buy the whol damn lot just to get the few shows you want.
Or even worst you might have to buy channels you have no interest in at all, just to get the channels which have some content you might want to watch.
My time is worth something, and if I can see a movie with a running time of 90 mins in 90 mins instead of 120 mins that 30 mins I just saved right there - and no, I'm not incontinent and don't need a four minute toilet break every ten minutes.
The broadcasters expect you to keep watching when the adverts come on. The likes of electricity supply companies know this is nonsense, to the point that you could probably get a decent estimate of viewership from peaks due to electric kettles and water pumps (due to toilet usage)... (It's not unknown for people to be employed to watch TV and start up gas turbine power plants immediatly a commercial break comes up.)
But why buy the DVD's when I downloaded it already for free? Because I still believe content creators should be paid.
Though no doubt it's the middle men who get most of the money.
DVD region codes are an example of localisation, not globalisation.
Or even "anti-globalisation". It's a case of trans national corporations wanting to pick and choose what kind of globalisation happens.
It seems that getting a region-free DVD player in North America is a lot tougher than it is in Europe
What happens is that North America tends to get most movie DVDs first (as well as often getting to see most movies). When DVD was mostly used for movies it was everywhere outside R1 who wanted region free players.
What has changed is that DVDs are also being used for TV series. With R1 often being the last. Because the US has a unique system called "syndication" which effectivly equates to repeating programmes until no advertiser will pay them (even cutting the content to make more space for ads). Everywhere else on the planet broadcasters buy a licence for a certain number of showings from the copyright holder.
TV providers seem to have missed this little thing called "globalization".
The idea of "globalization" is apparently that manufacturers and "providers" can get their raw materials and labour where-ever they like. It appearently isn't intended for the benefit of customers (or even retailers)...
A: "Have you seen [movie title] yet? It's really cool"
B: "Cool. I'll go to the cinema next week and see it"
There may still be staggered releases of movies, but if it's only a few days most people can live with it. Once it gets beyond about 2 weeks people will consider alternative means.
A: "Have you seen [TV series] yet? It's really cool"
B: "No. Come ask again in a few years, when it'll be on TV here. That is, if it is popular enough to be internationally sold at all. And if it is priced so reasonably that some TV channel picks it up."
Months to years in staggered scheduling is the problem here. As is also the tendency to release first in the US, where series are often shown in a not sequential way. Even when doing this effectivly discourages people from watching.
As with so many things we have somehow ended up with a US and a "rest of the world" doing TV series.
Do US viewers actually want series to be shown in discontinuious blocks and even out of order?
I suspect the problem with advertising in BitTorrent distro'd TV episodes is the issue of counting how many people actually *see* the ads.
Assuming that the creator of the video file dosn't cut the ads. Which can easily account for a quarter to a third of the output.
I wonder how much of this downloading is due to people not wanting to have to wait months to years to watch something. Especially when the latest episode is being discussed over the Internet as soon as it has been broadcast anywhere on the planet.