In Britain it's illegal to watch broadcast analog TV without a non-cheap license. The police have vans which pick up the tiny signals leaked by every working TV set. They drive to houses of non-subscribers, and when their probes detect a signal they fine you for stealing broadcast TV.
Failure to pay the fine results in months of jail time. Michael Moore's TV nation once showed a clip of a young welfare mother who was in jail because she couldn't pay the fine.
That's the treatment you can expect from a western democracy.
Do you really think a *corporation* is going to let you off any easier?
In the pre-Internet days I remember reading, probably in Goldmine magazine, of the many laws the United States uses to prevent (large scale) importation of (analog) music.
In the early '80s I used to buy very cheap "Greatest Hits" albums of US artists, on cassette, from places like Spain. The US record companies and distributors raised a big fuss about these *legitimate* recordings. They had paid a lot of money for exclusive US distribution rights for say, Jimi Hendrix, and did not want to be undersold by cheap products licensed for the poorer parts of Europe and Asia. Today the only imported music I see in shops is expensive stuff.
If anyone could point me to good information on the current US laws on music importation I'd like to see how they compare to France's.
It's interesting how corporations love Free Trade for non-intellectual property, but hate it for intellectual property.
Sir, the question included athiests. I am an athiest, and I'd guess the % of Slashdot atheists is higher than you expect -- not a "small minority."
Judeo-Xtian religions are alike in this way: it is not illegal to practice them in the USA. The gummint uses public health laws against the practice of Santaria. The gummint uses drug laws against the practice of Native American Church (by non-Indians). Many schools expel Wiccan students.
In the case of classical music the songwriting credits are in the public domain. You are free to record yourself playing all the parts and sell or give away the result.
The orchestra and conductor probably own the rights to anything you are likely to find on LP/CD. Even if you find something recorded in the 1920s the guy who transferred it to CD owns the copyright. I find it a huge flaw with copyright law that merely changing formats grants another copyright.
You might have success making MP3s off of Edison cylinders or older 78s yourself if you have the equipment.
Many corporations do automated network backup. An Uberworm could attempt to start some of the more common backup programs.
Many admins think they save money but not cycling the tapes very often. I don't know which would be worse: A virus that merely does a backup of empty files, or one that is good at getting itself safely backed up.
Forty years ago the government stepped in and shut down then practice of "payola." Payola involved record labels paying radio stations to broadcast new songs to the public in the hopes of driving up record sales. The record companies were very angry that the government wouldn't let them pay to "serve" their copyrighted material to all radio "desktops."
The record companies want to hook you with free music. The Napster controversy is about who gets to decide on the bait: the major labels or the listeners.
Authorities in the Philippines today arrested what experts are calling a "three one three three seven." The three one three three seven is believed to have written a virus that exploited poor security in a popular email program.
And now back to your regularly scheduled movie, "Sneakers" with Dan Ackroyd.
I recall the pre-Altos version of M-Net running on an Atari 800. M-Net went Unix very early.
I remember when Chinet was announced on the Altos version of M-Net, perhaps when Chinet went to Altos. M-Net already had half a dozen modems then, and a chat system called "party". (Party supported piping the output of Unix commands into the chatspace, a wonderful feature.)
Jerry Pournelle came to visit M-Net but left -- he found the threaded discussion software "Picospan" too hard to use. This was back when he was known as a science fiction writer, before he got a job writing a column about the hardware he couldn't install for Byte.
I released a freeware 8bit Atari disk sector editor and gave my contact address as..!umich!m-net!ecs, and everyone who saw it commented that it was rediculous to give an email address as the contact address for software.
Is there anything in Microsoft's Win32 codecs which would legally prevent them from running under WINElib? I'm imagining an open source ASF player with both native codecs and WINElib support of Win32 codecs.
It would be wonderful if Microsoft licensed the codecs in a way that was compatible with the GPL, though.
The GPL doesn't require the DVD consortium to supply the source code to the court, the GPL requires the DVD consortium to grant the court the right to distribute.
In other words, the DVD consortium would be in violation of the GPL if they ask the court to seal the records...
...other normal DVD players can't play the encrypted contents
Correct, but Linux DVD players will be able to play back these DVD-R disks by ignorning the keys. Linux DVD players will also ignore region codes.
Soon users of mainstream operating systems will be clamoring for aftermarket device drivers to play import (and bootleg) DVDs, and not much longer after that the wizards of Hong Kong will be selling component DVD players with DeCSS chips. (Currently, they sell region-ignoring component DVD players).
According to the latest issue of 'eMedia', the Pioneer DVR-S201 DVD-R costs $5,400 and blanks retail as low as $33. Many, but not all, regular DVD players can play disks burned with this unit. Hoei Sangyo is selling a $20,000 stand-alone duplicator which can burn three DVD-Rs at a time. Compare that $33 dollar price to the $40 list price of Shakespeare in Love (Collector's Series).
Another consideration is DiVX. I would guess those DiVX disks are selling for about a dollar a pound. Who wants to bet that DeCSS will be the only way to play them after DiVX shuts down its modem-based authentication service.
History Lesson: Sony, a plaintiff in this suit, convinced the US government that sales of blank audio cassettes hurt the business of Sony Music. Now they get a royalty on every blank sold. Did they educate their users that copying is wrong? No, they introduced a 74 minute cassette named "CD-it".
A GPL'ed Carmack-written Winmodem driver would be a very good thing for free software and free hardware.
Currently, Winmodems are evil little beasts with shoddy drivers and no public specifications. John Carmack is one of the few people who could convince a modem manufacturer to disclose Winmodem specifications. A high performance open source driver, released under GPL or other sufficiently viral license would give a jolt to Open Hardware.
I agree with you that a closed-source vendor-supplied Linux winmodem driver, and apparently Lucent has done this, is bad for everyone.
1. More companies like Loki porting closed software, especially "emphemera" like games and tax software. 2. Richard Stallman needs to explain to my wife why she must edit.Xdefaults and then recompile/xrdb it to change the default emacs font. 3. Where is the GUI tape/CDR backup program? 4. The sign of bad a bad Windows helpdesk is "reinstall Windows". The sign of bad Linux help is "recompile the kernel". Either make more things available in binary form for mainstream distributions or (shudder) make kernel recompilation graphical and bulletproof. Until a small cult believes having a stock kernel is a virtue this isn't going to get fixed.
Lotus is planning to ship Domino, the server piece, for Linux shortly.
Lotus has no plans to ship the Notes client for Linux.
In theory Domino can be used as a POP/IMAP server with other clients without the groupware features that you are choosing Notes for in the first place.
Caldera is open-sourcing their installer at the same time that RedHat is making a new proprietary installer.
( "Red Hat, meanwhile, is developing its own installation program that it will not offer to the community" -- PC Week online http://www.zdnet.com/pcweek/stories/linux/news/0,6 423,2310504,00.html )
I hope that RedHat and other makers of proprietary installers are not tempted use the proprietary/secret/NDA probing algorithms that hardware manufacturers offer them and instead insist on open hardware specifications.
A preview for DiCaprio's next movie, I think _The Beach_, played on opening day before TPM. SW fans laughed out loud at the trailer least three times during close-ups of DiCaprio emoting.
I did too, and I had no problems with his work in Titanic or Celebrity.
Slashdot Mirror
In Britain it's illegal to watch broadcast analog TV without a non-cheap license. The police have vans which pick up the tiny signals leaked by every working TV set. They drive to houses of non-subscribers, and when their probes detect a signal they fine you for stealing broadcast TV.
Failure to pay the fine results in months of jail time. Michael Moore's TV nation once showed a clip of a young welfare mother who was in jail because she couldn't pay the fine.
That's the treatment you can expect from a western democracy.
Do you really think a *corporation* is going to let you off any easier?
In the pre-Internet days I remember reading, probably in Goldmine magazine, of the many laws the United States uses to prevent (large scale) importation of (analog) music.
In the early '80s I used to buy very cheap "Greatest Hits" albums of US artists, on cassette, from places like Spain. The US record companies and distributors raised a big fuss about these *legitimate* recordings. They had paid a lot of money for exclusive US distribution rights for say, Jimi Hendrix, and did not want to be undersold by cheap products licensed for the poorer parts of Europe and Asia. Today the only imported music I see in shops is expensive stuff.
If anyone could point me to good information on the current US laws on music importation I'd like to see how they compare to France's.
It's interesting how corporations love Free Trade for non-intellectual property, but hate it for intellectual property.
Sir, the question included athiests. I am an athiest, and I'd guess the % of Slashdot atheists is higher than you expect -- not a "small minority."
Judeo-Xtian religions are alike in this way: it is not illegal to practice them in the USA. The gummint uses public health laws against the practice of Santaria. The gummint uses drug laws against the practice of Native American Church (by non-Indians). Many schools expel Wiccan students.
STUDY (not read) shall be my motto.
In the case of classical music the songwriting credits are in the public domain. You are free to record yourself playing all the parts and sell or give away the result.
The orchestra and conductor probably own the rights to anything you are likely to find on LP/CD. Even if you find something recorded in the 1920s the guy who transferred it to CD owns the copyright. I find it a huge flaw with copyright law that merely changing formats grants another copyright.
You might have success making MP3s off of Edison cylinders or older 78s yourself if you have the equipment.
Why stop at truncating all of the files to nil?
Many corporations do automated network backup. An Uberworm could attempt to start some of the more common backup programs.
Many admins think they save money but not cycling the tapes very often. I don't know which would be worse: A virus that merely does a backup of empty files, or one that is good at getting itself safely backed up.
Forty years ago the government stepped in and shut down then practice of "payola." Payola involved record labels paying radio stations to broadcast new songs to the public in the hopes of driving up record sales. The record companies were very angry that the government wouldn't let them pay to "serve" their copyrighted material to all radio "desktops."
The record companies want to hook you with free music. The Napster controversy is about who gets to decide on the bait: the major labels or the listeners.
From the desk of your local network affilliate:
Authorities in the Philippines today arrested what experts are calling a "three one three three seven." The three one three three seven is believed to have written a virus that exploited poor security in a popular email program.
And now back to your regularly scheduled movie, "Sneakers" with Dan Ackroyd.
Did the 1982 version of Chinet run Unix?
..!umich!m-net!ecs, and everyone who saw it commented that it was rediculous to give an email address as the contact address for software.
I recall the pre-Altos version of M-Net running on an Atari 800. M-Net went Unix very early.
I remember when Chinet was announced on the Altos version of M-Net, perhaps when Chinet went to Altos. M-Net already had half a dozen modems then, and a chat system called "party". (Party supported piping the output of Unix commands into the chatspace, a wonderful feature.)
Jerry Pournelle came to visit M-Net but left -- he found the threaded discussion software "Picospan" too hard to use. This was back when he was known as a science fiction writer, before he got a job writing a column about the hardware he couldn't install for Byte.
I released a freeware 8bit Atari disk sector editor and gave my contact address as
Is there anything in Microsoft's Win32 codecs which would legally prevent them from running under WINElib? I'm imagining an open source ASF player with both native codecs and WINElib support of Win32 codecs.
It would be wonderful if Microsoft licensed the codecs in a way that was compatible with the GPL, though.
RIAA's members "create" (publish) or manufacture or distribute 90% of the recorded music in the USA.
What is left? Can anyone name some of the 10% of albums neither published, stamped, or distributed by RIAA members?
I enjoyed the joke, but...
The GPL doesn't require the DVD consortium to supply the source code to the court, the GPL requires the DVD consortium to grant the court the right to distribute.
In other words, the DVD consortium would be in violation of the GPL if they ask the court to seal the records...
...other normal DVD players can't play the encrypted contents
Correct, but Linux DVD players will be able to play back these DVD-R disks by ignorning the keys. Linux DVD players will also ignore region codes.
Soon users of mainstream operating systems will be clamoring for aftermarket device drivers to play import (and bootleg) DVDs, and not much longer after that the wizards of Hong Kong will be selling component DVD players with DeCSS chips. (Currently, they sell region-ignoring component DVD players).
According to the latest issue of 'eMedia', the Pioneer DVR-S201 DVD-R costs $5,400 and blanks retail as low as $33. Many, but not all, regular DVD players can play disks burned with this unit. Hoei Sangyo is selling a $20,000 stand-alone duplicator which can burn three DVD-Rs at a time. Compare that $33 dollar price to the $40 list price of Shakespeare in Love (Collector's Series).
Another consideration is DiVX. I would guess those DiVX disks are selling for about a dollar a pound. Who wants to bet that DeCSS will be the only way to play them after DiVX shuts down its modem-based authentication service.
History Lesson: Sony, a plaintiff in this suit, convinced the US government that sales of blank audio cassettes hurt the business of Sony Music. Now they get a royalty on every blank sold. Did they educate their users that copying is wrong? No, they introduced a 74 minute cassette named "CD-it".
A GPL'ed Carmack-written Winmodem driver would be a very good thing for free software and free hardware.
Currently, Winmodems are evil little beasts with shoddy drivers and no public specifications. John Carmack is one of the few people who could convince a modem manufacturer to disclose Winmodem specifications. A high performance open source driver, released under GPL or other sufficiently viral license would give a jolt to Open Hardware.
I agree with you that a closed-source vendor-supplied Linux winmodem driver, and apparently Lucent has done this, is bad for everyone.
1. More companies like Loki porting closed software, especially "emphemera" like games and tax software. .Xdefaults and then recompile/xrdb it to change the default emacs font.
2. Richard Stallman needs to explain to my wife why she must edit
3. Where is the GUI tape/CDR backup program?
4. The sign of bad a bad Windows helpdesk is "reinstall Windows". The sign of bad Linux help is "recompile the kernel". Either make more things available in binary form for mainstream distributions or (shudder) make kernel recompilation graphical and bulletproof. Until a small cult believes having a stock kernel is a virtue this isn't going to get fixed.
Lotus is planning to ship Domino, the server piece, for Linux shortly.
Lotus has no plans to ship the Notes client for Linux.
In theory Domino can be used as a POP/IMAP server with other clients without the groupware features that you are choosing Notes for in the first place.
Caldera is open-sourcing their installer at the same time that RedHat is making a new proprietary installer.
6 423,2310504,00.html )
( "Red Hat, meanwhile, is developing its own installation program that it will not offer to the community" -- PC Week online http://www.zdnet.com/pcweek/stories/linux/news/0,
I hope that RedHat and other makers of proprietary installers are not tempted use the proprietary/secret/NDA probing algorithms that hardware manufacturers offer them and instead insist on open hardware specifications.
A preview for DiCaprio's next movie, I think _The Beach_, played on opening day before TPM. SW fans laughed out loud at the trailer least three times during close-ups of DiCaprio emoting.
I did too, and I had no problems with his work in Titanic or Celebrity.