We apologize sincerely for aiding in your arrest and torture. We at yahoo do not agree with reasons given for your arrest but they offered us a lot of money. Please accept this Yahoo branded T-shirt, coffee mug, nose plug, cyanide pill and Testicle NumCream TM. I hope they will make your incarceration more bearable. We have also made a small donation in your name to Amnesty International. We know you would appreciate that.
Enjoying your SONY paychek, you corporate shill? -AC
Actually these people provide my paycheck. I just happen to be a pedant, who dislikes mis information. Can you refute there was porn on beta? Can you refute there is porn on blu-ray? how about the sales figures? People holding contrary opinions aren't always shills.
a excerpt from an article:
Aside from the occasionally repeated myth that only Sony made Beta machines (easily refuted by a visit to BetaInfoGuide), the other often-repeated assertion is that a major factor in Beta's demise was that the adult movie industry didn't get behind it. It's an odd statement because there doesn't appear to be a shred of evidence to support it. Pick the name of any of the 1980's major porn video distributors (IMDB is good for this), google the name along with the word "Betamax," and you'll turn up all kinds of references to releases in Beta and VHS. PC world
WWII might have been a great deal more expensive in terms of humans lives, duration, and overall destruction is it wasn't for the people at Bletchley park and their counterparts in the US Army Signals Intelligence Service. It's unfortunate that their contribution remained a secret for so long. Imagine how much damage Yamamoto could have done if his strategies and feints weren't all known to the Americans or if all the German troop movements weren't deduced from their communications.
It's funny, but you make a good point. Pornography has definitely played a part in the history of media format wars and is credited in part for the win of VHS over Beta. Sony wouldn't allow porn on betamax. More recently, Sony initially refused to allow porn on the Blu-ray format, but I think they have quietly relented on that. So it is not too far fetched to say that DivX support may have something to do with porn. At the very least, the legacy DivX libraries other posters have mentioned may play some role in the decision of support. But, of course, a lot of those libraries probably contain a fair amount of, *ahem*, adult material. It certainly won't hurt PS3 sales!
In the end though, my guess is that adding DivX support is not a huge technological problem, and given the fierce battle Sony and Microsoft are engaged in, each wants as many bullet points as possible. In the end, competition is good for the consumer! Actually both your stories are myths. Beta did in fact have porn on it in every time span VHS did. The myth that it didn't may have been common and motivated people to buy VHS but Beta did indeed have porn. The myth itself is what likely had influence.
HD DVD vs Blu-ray is even less influence due to the wide scale spread of porn on the internet but also because it's untrue. The CEO of Digital Playgrounds (a Porn studio) complained Sony wasn't giving him enough support and claimed Sony didn't want porn on blu-ray at a Porn conference. Immediately afterwards Vivid announced a line up of hd porn for blu-ray. It seems it was just grapes from one studio that wanted more support. It doesn't seem Sony had any ban or policy against porn on blu-ray ever.
I've read a few dozen times people chiming in saying the PS3 isn't a good media center because it didn't support DivX, I suppose this is a move to address that.
A little perspective is needed for this statement. 5 million PS3's have been sold, and a little over 210,000 HDDVD addons have been sold. We can accept the fact that not all PS3's are purchased with movies in mind (in fact, only 40% of PS3 owners know about BluRay movie playback on PS3), while 100% of HDDVD addon purchases are done with the full intent of playing HDDVD movies.
These facts don't tip the scales, but I think they need to be considered. The 40% is somewhat misleading, the survey was a random telephone survey which asked that if you had a PS3 in the house and if you knew it played blu-ray could play HD movies. They did not ask if the person was the person who used the console etc.. Sale bears out the fact that PS3 owners don't buy movies in the same proportion as HD DVD player owners as the media sales are 2:1 while the install base is 5:1 (US) I've been advised in Japan media sales are 9:1 and install base is similarly 9:1.
If the 2:1 ratio is true, then why would Sony make such statements??? Simple--most Blu-Ray sales are from the PS3. Blu-Ray may have a big lead in outright sales of drive mechanisms, but I doubt many PS3 owners watch more than the occasional Blu-Ray movie... They view the whole ability to play Blu-Ray movies as a "plus" whereas someone who's buying an HD-DVD player is buying it to watch movies.
Frankly, I'd love to see actual sales numbers of HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray discs. 2:1 is not players, 2:1 is media. it's 2:1 averaged over the last 9 months. For players its' 5:1 including the PS3 and 360 HD DVD attachment.
Sony doesn't understand that it's evil. Their hardware functionality is dictated by their ownership of content. Everything they do is infused with copy protection; another word for that is "preventing the creation of value for the customer." They would generate a LOT MORE MONEY for stockholders by splitting themselves up into a hardware company and a content company. The copy protection thing, it sort of defacto for almost every industry that has any IP at the moment. I agree sony occasionally makes good hardware and if sony music/movies weren't hindering them Sony could be a powerful brand again.
These things are still far to expensive. The jump between VHS quality and DVD quality was HUGE!! Not only did you start getting things like director's commentary and deleted scenes, but you got a much more "cinema like" experience. 5.1 dolby (in multiple languages if you need it), 16x9 Aspect ratio etc. etc. etc.
Blu-ray/hddvd don't offer THAT huge of a jump from DVD....certainly not enough of an improvement to justify their [still] astronomical prices, not to mention the limited selection of titles. It depends on your TV. if you have a standard 480i, then no there isn't much of a difference. If you have a 720p or 1080i/p then in fact there is a huge difference. A difference that no one can deny. It's the same or greater as the difference between VHS and DVD in quality. As well the adoption of HDTV's have increased drastically in the past year. So arguements of about few HDTV's no longer hold.
If Sony's calling it a stalemate, then HD-DVD is already ahead. If all Sony can manage with it's PR department is to call the situation a "stalemate," then HD-DVD likely ahead in real terms. Incidentally, I just conducted an informal, non-scientific poll here in the office. Of 20+ people, only two had heard of Blu-Ray. Half had heard of HD-DVD, but almost all were able to figure out what it was by the name alone. It makes me think that HD-DVD has an advantage just because of its name. From all sources Blu-ray is still outselling HD DVD 2:1. Has so for the last 9 months, Blu ray is in a comfortable lead. But sony may have correctly spotted that widespread adoption is hindered by the format war. So While it's 2:1 lead may eventually kill off HD DVD, it will for sure delay the adoption of a HD format. This is likely a preamble to some sort of reconciliation with Toshiba and maybe an attempt to merge and enable hybrid players for the good of the industry.
I'd put MD in the loss column, and DVD was not Sony. (Sony and Phillips abandoned their multimedia disc idea and switched to Toshiba et al.'s version, which eventually became DVD.. so Sony supported it eventually, but it wasn't their format.)
3.5" disks, the CD (split with Phillips, who's no stranger to failed formats themselves *cough* cd-i *cough*), and Betacam they get, though.:) Disks and CDs are pretty good successes, admittedly. Depending on if you consider markets outside the US. The MD format was a smashing success all over Asia. North America just didn't have the need for it and thus it failed there.
Even memstick/memstick duo can be seen as a tepid warm success or at least not an outright failure. I mis called the DVD thing.
In any case it's habitual failure but common failure.
They have not. There's at least 18 months left in this silly war, and Sony never wins format wars. I'm buying the new Samsung dual-format player in January because the war is going to continue.
Sony has to outsell the 360 by over 200,000 units every month for until 2012 just to catch up. Depends on the market, Sony has lost the US, has a solid #2 in Japan and in several other markets.
Also sony have won formats. they are roughy 1:1 success vs failures.
Wins:
3.5" floppy CD DVD Sort of MD BetaCam
Loses: Betamax memstick UMD ATRAC
It's not as clear as you have put it. At the moment Blu-ray is still outselling HD DVD despite a late start.
Why? Really why is it important to anyone but themselves that they succeed? Because the competition (as well as Sony) have shown when they are on top they will be tyrants. So the best situation for gamers is a fairly close race and some diversity. The wii has a good install base, but some games will never come to the wii. So we need a Alternative to the 360 to continue to exist. Remember how each player failed when they dominated. Remember that competition improves markets and products. Thus int he interest of capitalism and gaming we need them not to fold up. Competition is good.
As long as America has cheap Mexican labor, they won't need robotic labor. One of the main reasons for Japans enthusiasm for robotic helps has to do with their demographics shift and their general xenophobia/aversion to immigration from poorer Asian countries.
Log in to my.nintendo.com and the FAQ is near the top of the page. It basically just says you can't transfer the games to someone else, and that it only tracks games purchased after the association.
It must've been in the Wii Shop account creation that the info was, but I very specifically remember reading this, and I didn't go looking for it on my own. My understanding though was that deleting your Wii Shop account permanently closed it, however, if you went to another Wii and registered your my.nintendo.com account there first, you would move the account. I remember it specifically said that if you did the transfer, the games would stop working on the old console, which would imply you were supposed to do the transfer first. Excerpted from the FAQ section: Q: Can I register games that I purchase on my Wii Virtual Console?
A: Yes! But, you must first link your Wii Shop Channel to your My Nintendo profile. Once this link is created, the Virtual Console games you download will automatically be added to the list of registered games.
Please note that this Wii Shop Channel/My Nintendo link is not created when you register your serial number using My Nintendo's Product Registration program. This link is created using the Wii Console (Wii Shop Channel). Click here for more information on how to link your Wii Shop Channel to your My Nintendo profile.
Q: Why should I register my products?
A: Registering your games and systems will immediately unlock cool stuff on Nintendo.com. This cool stuff includes screen savers, wallpaper, and icon sets for your personal computer. The more games you register, the more your status as a Nintendo NSider grows. NSiders who register multiple games will periodically become eligible for special offers.
Wii owners, you can register the serial number for your newly purchased Wii console and receive a free 90-day warranty extension! This 90-day warranty extension is exclusive to newly purchased Wii consoles and not available for any other system.
Keep checking Nintendo.com for updates on the latest promotions for NSiders.
Click here to start registering your products now!
The association is for advertising and Nintendo record keeping/market research purpose only. They do not allow your games to transfer between linked wii's. I remember reading this section as well before I opted for the exchange. I asked them about it specifically before the exchange. After my conversation with a wii help desk rep, reading all this, and my experience with the exchange I have opted to never buy from the Virtual console.
So why not a refurb? I've had startlingly good luck with refurbished things over the years - it seems like they get the QC that units coming off of the assembly line don't get. Even thinking about it, I can't remember ever having a refurbished product break, and I've bought plenty of refurbished things over the years. I have too. they tend not to last as long. Someone linked to an article that stated refurbed 360's had double the failure rate of new 360's (360's returned after repair were more likely to fail again then new). I can't find the post. It was regarding a RROD article a while back. for optical drives, the electric motor in them has a finite lifespan. Refurbs are used products thus anything I get back is likely to have consumed part of that lifespan. Thats why refurbs are always cheaper. Wear and tear from usage will degrade their expected lifespans. Since I bought mine new and I don't get a discount on the defective drive, I didn't see a good reason to accept a diminished product for full price. Especially since optical drives are the first things to fail on most consoles (360's being the exception).
As well wear and tear in transit both ways can affect failure rates.
Having a strong economy isn't the end-all, be-all, and perhaps the unwashed masses don't really care about big-picture things like this -- so perhaps cheaper Beatles music is better for society as a whole in the short term. But, here's the thing: cheap Beatles music would not affect my life one bit. I can already buy the Beatles catalog in its entirety for a small fraction of my paycheck. It's not like it's air or water. But clean air and clean water are important to me, and I rely on the government's help for those. If a rollback to a 28-year copyright system resulted in a 1% reduction in the GNP next year because our entertainment money started going toward Russian download sites and Chinese CD pressing plants, we might not notice the effects right away, but those points add up. We might all be boiling the frog slowly while we enjoy our cheap Beatles music. California has one of the largest economies in the world. Eclipsing most nations. It's industries are primarily IP related thus it's economy is tied to IP laws. However Cheap Beatles music may not benefit anyone, but the free Dissemination of ideas do benefit society as almost all IP is built on other IP. If IP laws are too lax the motivation for people to release material and to release designs will be diminished. Too harsh and innovation is hurt for fear of violation. a 28 year monopoly on IP seems more reasonable then a 99 year monopoly. The Us was built on stolen European IP and China/Russia/India are building with stolen IP as well.
You may enact restrictive laws but it hurts you more in the long run then it hurts china/Russia/India.
and how much did Public Knowledge give in campaign contributions this year? How much do they plan on 'donating' in 2008?
'Cause I'm thinking the industries that give millions might not be in favor of any legislation that would do any of this stuff.
And I'm thinking that the millions of dollars are gonna talk louder. While the ultra-cynical side of me believes everything you just said, political currency is not simply measured in dollars. some small non-profit groups bat a lot higher then their pay scale due to representing or are thought a large number of people. An organization like NAACP can have influence on politicians and policy beyond their actual yearly income. Sometimes it works in other ways other then campaign donations. Union X pledges support for you campaign in return you must vote against policy Y. Organization Z supplies volenteers for your campaign but you must support legislation A. Group B threatens to protest and pull string in constituency C which is a important swing constituency. etc.
So while they may not be able to donate much (in fact the RIAA won't donate much either) they may still have influence if we make enough noise about it. The RIAA doesn't get influence from direct bribing but more subtle things. Mostly establishing relationships with policy makers and convince them of the RIAA position. RIAA pays the contact not the congressman. The congressman hopes after his political career has run it's course that he can be the paid contact. A Active politician won't endanger his career by taking an open bribe but more subtle things go on to diffuse this. For instance does anyone actually think Cheney isn't going to get a large number of highly paid speaking engagements from haliburton after his presidency is over? But it's not contravening any laws that he enacted policy helping Haliburton because he's done all the things necessary to make any case against him impossible.
The problem is you tried to do it after the fact. The my.nintendo.com FAQ specifically says that games you purchase before associating your shop channel account with your my.nintendo.com account don't get registered.
If it wasn't in the manual, it was in the user agreement when you create the Wii shop channel account. They were very specific that that was the reason for associating it. Can you direct me to the page I can't find it. And no I registered before purchasing and my.Nintendo account displays all 3 of the games I purchased. No luck transferring to the new wii. I may have missed something but here are the details:
Monday:
Got wii,
set up wii,
put in wii sports played a bit. Tuesday:
Resitered for my.nintendo,
linked to wii using shop channel settings, registered CC
bought $20 of VC points,
bought supermario world, ninja gaiden i, Bonks revenge.
Tried to swap wii sports with Re4, disc read error,
Tried to put in zelda, disk read error, kept swapping found it works less then half the time. Lots of odd clicking noises.
Backup games onto SD card called support.
support advised to send it for repair, wouldn't guarantee I wouldn't get refurbed wii's or parts. Also advised wii games non transferable.
Wednesday
went to EB to exchange, no wii's at any location
Left name/num and got in writing a statement they will honor an exchange when ever they get a wii in
thursday a week later
EB calsl has wii to exchange
Unassociated wii, Formatted memory
Exchanged wii
Went home with wii
set up wii
Associated wii with My.nintendo account
Registered CC
Attempted to copy VC channels/games. Won't allow files to be copied.
Wed a couple weeks later
Posted some annoyed diatribe against Nintendo and X-box live.
If I missed a step, or can salvage any of the games in anyway I'd be glad to do so but So far no luck. A lot of mis information exists on the net (some guy on some random forum claimed you can still play them off the card you just can't copy it. blatant lie).
Are you aware that nothing on live actually requires a credit card? Gold membership and points cards are available at pretty much every store that sells games - and they are priced exactly the same as buying points through the console/web site. You are aware that is irrelevant. I object to the policy. You may be able to circumvent it but the policy itself is not that great. I can certainly circumvent Chinese political speech laws when in china if I just don't say anything however that doesn't make the policy wrong.
So your VC purchases were worth less to you than your fear of a refurbished unit. What do you expect Nintendo to do about that? You haven't even verified if they'd send you a refurbished unit. They wouldn't guarantee it wasn't refurbished. Most repair centres use refubs (xbox certainly does as does Sony) And yes the $20 in VC was worth less then the higher rate of future breakdowns on the new unit. However does Nintendo really expect me not to complain with such policies? Remember this is slashdot, I thought we objected to unreasonably restrictive DRM but apparently Nintendo gets a free Pass?
Create a my.nintendo.com account and tie it to your Wii. If you get a new Wii, you change the association on your my.nintendo.com account and the games will stop working on the old system and be available on the new one.
I don't remember the specifics of how to do it, but I believe it was all mentioned in the Wii manual. If not there, then at my.nintendo.com. Did so after exchange, no luck. Nintendo explicitly said the games are non transferable between machines. The manual does not provide instructions for this. It is explicitly not possible and the my.nintendo.com account is more for advertising.
Wikipedia does link to an article which has an interview with a Nintendo rep who claims, "Nintendo will offer support to help Wii owners with problems to recover their games [if your console breaks]," so it looks like the GP 'should' have went through Nintendo to replace their console if they wanted to keep their downloaded games. Not saying the should *have* to, just seems like that's Nintendo's policy. (http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=148658)
As I said, maybe I'm misunderstanding you. But from everything I've read, you shouldn't have been able to transfer your games off your girlfriend's console and back to a new console, and I suspect that's not actually what happened. -Trillian I don't think he actually did move the wii games. Nintendo told me I was out of luck. The mechanism they have is "repair" where they either transfer all the contents to another wii and reset the encrypt keys to the new one or they fix your old one by giving you refurbed parts. It wasn't acceptable because the wii was brand new and I would not accept refurbed parts and they couldn't guarantee a new wii was coming back. I opted to exchange and lose my $20 in wii points but it also meant anything I purchased will be at the mercy of Nintendo's policies, and essentially only last as long as my wii. PSN and live attach it to your account not your machine per se.
Slashdot Mirror
Dear sir or madam,
We apologize sincerely for aiding in your arrest and torture. We at yahoo do not agree with reasons given for your arrest but they offered us a lot of money. Please accept this Yahoo branded T-shirt, coffee mug, nose plug, cyanide pill and Testicle NumCream TM. I hope they will make your incarceration more bearable. We have also made a small donation in your name to Amnesty International. We know you would appreciate that.
Regards
Jerry Yang
Actually these people provide my paycheck. I just happen to be a pedant, who dislikes mis information. Can you refute there was porn on beta? Can you refute there is porn on blu-ray? how about the sales figures? People holding contrary opinions aren't always shills.
a excerpt from an article: Aside from the occasionally repeated myth that only Sony made Beta machines (easily refuted by a visit to BetaInfoGuide), the other often-repeated assertion is that a major factor in Beta's demise was that the adult movie industry didn't get behind it. It's an odd statement because there doesn't appear to be a shred of evidence to support it. Pick the name of any of the 1980's major porn video distributors (IMDB is good for this), google the name along with the word "Betamax," and you'll turn up all kinds of references to releases in Beta and VHS. PC world
Blu ray porno.
WWII might have been a great deal more expensive in terms of humans lives, duration, and overall destruction is it wasn't for the people at Bletchley park and their counterparts in the US Army Signals Intelligence Service. It's unfortunate that their contribution remained a secret for so long. Imagine how much damage Yamamoto could have done if his strategies and feints weren't all known to the Americans or if all the German troop movements weren't deduced from their communications.
In the end though, my guess is that adding DivX support is not a huge technological problem, and given the fierce battle Sony and Microsoft are engaged in, each wants as many bullet points as possible. In the end, competition is good for the consumer! Actually both your stories are myths. Beta did in fact have porn on it in every time span VHS did. The myth that it didn't may have been common and motivated people to buy VHS but Beta did indeed have porn. The myth itself is what likely had influence.
HD DVD vs Blu-ray is even less influence due to the wide scale spread of porn on the internet but also because it's untrue. The CEO of Digital Playgrounds (a Porn studio) complained Sony wasn't giving him enough support and claimed Sony didn't want porn on blu-ray at a Porn conference. Immediately afterwards Vivid announced a line up of hd porn for blu-ray. It seems it was just grapes from one studio that wanted more support. It doesn't seem Sony had any ban or policy against porn on blu-ray ever.
I've read a few dozen times people chiming in saying the PS3 isn't a good media center because it didn't support DivX, I suppose this is a move to address that.
Because they're too lazy to convert 500 gigs of porn.
These facts don't tip the scales, but I think they need to be considered. The 40% is somewhat misleading, the survey was a random telephone survey which asked that if you had a PS3 in the house and if you knew it played blu-ray could play HD movies. They did not ask if the person was the person who used the console etc.. Sale bears out the fact that PS3 owners don't buy movies in the same proportion as HD DVD player owners as the media sales are 2:1 while the install base is 5:1 (US) I've been advised in Japan media sales are 9:1 and install base is similarly 9:1.
Frankly, I'd love to see actual sales numbers of HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray discs. 2:1 is not players, 2:1 is media. it's 2:1 averaged over the last 9 months. For players its' 5:1 including the PS3 and 360 HD DVD attachment.
Blu-ray/hddvd don't offer THAT huge of a jump from DVD....certainly not enough of an improvement to justify their [still] astronomical prices, not to mention the limited selection of titles. It depends on your TV. if you have a standard 480i, then no there isn't much of a difference. If you have a 720p or 1080i/p then in fact there is a huge difference. A difference that no one can deny. It's the same or greater as the difference between VHS and DVD in quality. As well the adoption of HDTV's have increased drastically in the past year. So arguements of about few HDTV's no longer hold.
3.5" disks, the CD (split with Phillips, who's no stranger to failed formats themselves *cough* cd-i *cough*), and Betacam they get, though.
Even memstick/memstick duo can be seen as a tepid warm success or at least not an outright failure. I mis called the DVD thing.
In any case it's habitual failure but common failure.
They have not. There's at least 18 months left in this silly war, and Sony never wins format wars. I'm buying the new Samsung dual-format player in January because the war is going to continue.
Sony has to outsell the 360 by over 200,000 units every month for until 2012 just to catch up. Depends on the market, Sony has lost the US, has a solid #2 in Japan and in several other markets.
Also sony have won formats. they are roughy 1:1 success vs failures.
Wins:
3.5" floppy
CD
DVD
Sort of MD
BetaCam
Loses:
Betamax
memstick
UMD
ATRAC
It's not as clear as you have put it. At the moment Blu-ray is still outselling HD DVD despite a late start.
DRM.
Thank you folks, you've been a wonderful audience! Remember to tip your waitress. So you have decided to boycott all 3?
Why? Really why is it important to anyone but themselves that they succeed? Because the competition (as well as Sony) have shown when they are on top they will be tyrants. So the best situation for gamers is a fairly close race and some diversity. The wii has a good install base, but some games will never come to the wii. So we need a Alternative to the 360 to continue to exist. Remember how each player failed when they dominated. Remember that competition improves markets and products. Thus int he interest of capitalism and gaming we need them not to fold up. Competition is good.
As long as America has cheap Mexican labor, they won't need robotic labor. One of the main reasons for Japans enthusiasm for robotic helps has to do with their demographics shift and their general xenophobia/aversion to immigration from poorer Asian countries.
It must've been in the Wii Shop account creation that the info was, but I very specifically remember reading this, and I didn't go looking for it on my own. My understanding though was that deleting your Wii Shop account permanently closed it, however, if you went to another Wii and registered your my.nintendo.com account there first, you would move the account. I remember it specifically said that if you did the transfer, the games would stop working on the old console, which would imply you were supposed to do the transfer first. Excerpted from the FAQ section:
Q:
Can I register games that I purchase on my Wii Virtual Console?
A:
Yes! But, you must first link your Wii Shop Channel to your My Nintendo profile. Once this link is created, the Virtual Console games you download will automatically be added to the list of registered games.
Please note that this Wii Shop Channel/My Nintendo link is not created when you register your serial number using My Nintendo's Product Registration program. This link is created using the Wii Console (Wii Shop Channel). Click here for more information on how to link your Wii Shop Channel to your My Nintendo profile.
Q:
Why should I register my products?
A:
Registering your games and systems will immediately unlock cool stuff on Nintendo.com. This cool stuff includes screen savers, wallpaper, and icon sets for your personal computer. The more games you register, the more your status as a Nintendo NSider grows. NSiders who register multiple games will periodically become eligible for special offers.
Wii owners, you can register the serial number for your newly purchased Wii console and receive a free 90-day warranty extension! This 90-day warranty extension is exclusive to newly purchased Wii consoles and not available for any other system.
Keep checking Nintendo.com for updates on the latest promotions for NSiders.
Click here to start registering your products now!
The association is for advertising and Nintendo record keeping/market research purpose only. They do not allow your games to transfer between linked wii's. I remember reading this section as well before I opted for the exchange. I asked them about it specifically before the exchange. After my conversation with a wii help desk rep, reading all this, and my experience with the exchange I have opted to never buy from the Virtual console.
As well wear and tear in transit both ways can affect failure rates.
You may enact restrictive laws but it hurts you more in the long run then it hurts china/Russia/India.
'Cause I'm thinking the industries that give millions might not be in favor of any legislation that would do any of this stuff.
And I'm thinking that the millions of dollars are gonna talk louder. While the ultra-cynical side of me believes everything you just said, political currency is not simply measured in dollars. some small non-profit groups bat a lot higher then their pay scale due to representing or are thought a large number of people. An organization like NAACP can have influence on politicians and policy beyond their actual yearly income. Sometimes it works in other ways other then campaign donations. Union X pledges support for you campaign in return you must vote against policy Y. Organization Z supplies volenteers for your campaign but you must support legislation A. Group B threatens to protest and pull string in constituency C which is a important swing constituency. etc.
So while they may not be able to donate much (in fact the RIAA won't donate much either) they may still have influence if we make enough noise about it. The RIAA doesn't get influence from direct bribing but more subtle things. Mostly establishing relationships with policy makers and convince them of the RIAA position. RIAA pays the contact not the congressman. The congressman hopes after his political career has run it's course that he can be the paid contact. A Active politician won't endanger his career by taking an open bribe but more subtle things go on to diffuse this. For instance does anyone actually think Cheney isn't going to get a large number of highly paid speaking engagements from haliburton after his presidency is over? But it's not contravening any laws that he enacted policy helping Haliburton because he's done all the things necessary to make any case against him impossible.
If it wasn't in the manual, it was in the user agreement when you create the Wii shop channel account. They were very specific that that was the reason for associating it. Can you direct me to the page I can't find it. And no I registered before purchasing and my.Nintendo account displays all 3 of the games I purchased. No luck transferring to the new wii. I may have missed something but here are the details:
Monday:
Got wii,
set up wii,
put in wii sports played a bit.
Tuesday:
Resitered for my.nintendo,
linked to wii using shop channel settings, registered CC
bought $20 of VC points,
bought supermario world, ninja gaiden i, Bonks revenge.
Tried to swap wii sports with Re4, disc read error,
Tried to put in zelda, disk read error, kept swapping found it works less then half the time. Lots of odd clicking noises.
Backup games onto SD card called support.
support advised to send it for repair, wouldn't guarantee I wouldn't get refurbed wii's or parts. Also advised wii games non transferable.
Wednesday
went to EB to exchange, no wii's at any location
Left name/num and got in writing a statement they will honor an exchange when ever they get a wii in
thursday a week later
EB calsl has wii to exchange
Unassociated wii, Formatted memory
Exchanged wii
Went home with wii
set up wii
Associated wii with My.nintendo account
Registered CC
Attempted to copy VC channels/games. Won't allow files to be copied.
Wed a couple weeks later
Posted some annoyed diatribe against Nintendo and X-box live.
If I missed a step, or can salvage any of the games in anyway I'd be glad to do so but So far no luck. A lot of mis information exists on the net (some guy on some random forum claimed you can still play them off the card you just can't copy it. blatant lie).
I don't remember the specifics of how to do it, but I believe it was all mentioned in the Wii manual. If not there, then at my.nintendo.com. Did so after exchange, no luck. Nintendo explicitly said the games are non transferable between machines. The manual does not provide instructions for this. It is explicitly not possible and the my.nintendo.com account is more for advertising.
As I said, maybe I'm misunderstanding you. But from everything I've read, you shouldn't have been able to transfer your games off your girlfriend's console and back to a new console, and I suspect that's not actually what happened.
-Trillian I don't think he actually did move the wii games. Nintendo told me I was out of luck. The mechanism they have is "repair" where they either transfer all the contents to another wii and reset the encrypt keys to the new one or they fix your old one by giving you refurbed parts. It wasn't acceptable because the wii was brand new and I would not accept refurbed parts and they couldn't guarantee a new wii was coming back. I opted to exchange and lose my $20 in wii points but it also meant anything I purchased will be at the mercy of Nintendo's policies, and essentially only last as long as my wii. PSN and live attach it to your account not your machine per se.