The author of the article writes: "Remember, HDCP was simply intended to limit the creation of a high-definition VCR capable of recording "protected" content."
Horse hockey.
That's the same line we were fed about region coding ("It's only for new releases").
I don't accept the premise that just because something is in HD or randomly decided by some publisher to be "premium, protected content" that I have to, even should be willing to, forfeit my Betamax rights to space and time shift that content.
Because, naturally, ALL content will be defined as "premium, protected content" in such a world.
Acronym Definition CCNR Call Completion No Reply CCNR Call Completion on No Reply (ISDN) CCNR Canada Committee on Natural Resources CCNR Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility CCNR Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine CCNR Completion of Call Not Responding (telecommunications) CCNR Conseil Canadien des Normes de la Radiotélévision (French: Canadian Broadcast Standards Council)
You wrote: "For the most part, new releases had simultaneous VHS and DVD available, but all the classics, the movies we really wanted, took years before being released."
And some still have yet to be released! I've been waiting for years for the Yul Brynner classic "Taras Bulba"...and MGM doesn't even _hint_ it's on the release schedule...:(
> RE: UN Control of the Net: "We think that that's inappropriate," Ambassador David Gross, the U.S. > coordinator for international communications and information policy at the State Department told > reporters at U.N. offices in Geneva. "The genius of the Internet is that it has been flexible (and) > private sector led."
Really?! DARPA is private sector!? Cool...I never knew...
Re:Changed the view of the US?
on
Bobby Fischer Found
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
> We had the impression that the Soviets were a > bunch of automatons with no respect for human life > that were just waiting to go war for any reason. > How the Soviets were just dying to use chemical > and/or nuclear weapons!
Substitute "Muslims" for "Soviets" and read today's propaganda. Plus ca change...
I'm a Canadian and I work in England and the pain of dealing with this is that I've got to maintain two different versions of my CV, formatted slightly differently for Letter and A4, paper being one of very few metric bits the UK adheres to.
And while I admit I was annoyed about A4 when I first moved here, I like it much better now.
In fact I like all the metric system stuff I've been converted to down the years since the government started introducing it in Canada when I was a kid.
It is disturbing in the extreme that in the week that the BBC stands accused of shoddy journalistic practice that I come across an article on the BBC website that stands as a glaring example of further malpractice.
In the referenced article, the author accuses elements of the open source community of being behind the MyDoom virus.
Two-thirds of the way through the article however, the author declares "There's no proof, of course, but it must be one of the theories at the top of any investigator's list."
This kind of spin is known as "bait and switch" and is rather reminiscent of the tired old question "When did you stop beating your wife?"
The accusation sticks in the mind of the reader, tarnishing the community, even though the author undermines his entire line of reasoning by admitting he's only theorising and has no proof to back up his accusations.
The keyword here is "parenting". Too many parents use the Internet as a babysitting tool rather than actively get involved in parenting their children.
Remember that last famous incident, where the 12-yo ran off with the Marine to Germany? She was spending 8+ hours a day on the net, wasn't it? And her parents thought that was too much so they "limited" her to 5 hours a day? I thought, "what?!". A 12 year old should be out running around playing tag with the neighbourhood kids, not spending even five hours a day sat in front of a computer monitor!
Finally, I leave you with wise words of caution I found on the BBCs public forum on this topic; "Safeguarding children" is the emotional bullet which will kill freedom of expression and ultimately take away our rights for good. Henry, United States
It's not just the Labour MEPs.... this from my Tory MEP.../Taras
Dear Mr. Ciuriak
Thank you for your letter regarding the upcoming Directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions (software patents) currently under discussion in the European Parliament. The vote has now been postponed and is expected to take place on September 23rd. I am replying on behalf of all the West Midlands Conservative MEPs, including Philip Bradbourn, as I am responsible for this issue within the Conservative team.
The European Commission published the draft Directive in February of last year as it become increasingly clear that European law on patenting software needed to be clarified. The aim of the Directive is to set out and defend the status quo in Europe following changes to the patent system in the USA and also planned for Japan. There is a clear intention across the EU Member States to see that Europe does not follow the USA and Japan in allowing widespread patent availability for software and business methods. Copyright will remain the principal method of protecting intellectual property in these cases. I and my UK Conservative colleagues support the general line that the Commission has taken which builds on and clarifies the existing patent law across the European Union and makes it clear that only software which forms part of a technological process will be patentable. This will allow patents to be provided for genuine technical inventions and stimulate European economic development in areas of economic strength like mobile telephony, digital television and computer controlled machine tools to name just a few possibilities. Contrary to the impression given in your letter there is no intention whatsoever to allow generic patenting of software or business methods in Europe.
The proposed Directive would set a fair test for software (deciding whether it has a technical effect) before authorising a patent. Any technical invention in a field outside software can be patented so it does not make sense for technical inventions, which happen to use computers to be excluded from the system. The amendments agreed by the Legal Affairs and Internal Market Committee, and supported by Conservative MEPs, have clarified the test conditions for software (deciding whether it has a technical effect) before authorising a patent. The Parliament amendments improve the text while ensuring that its principles are supported.
Codification of the existing position will also avoid raising complicated issues of the validity of existing patents across Europe or allowing current unpatentable technologies to claim new patents. This will allow European businesses the chance to develop ideas with certainty as to their legal position. It will also reduce the pressure from companies holding permissive American software patents who wish to gain an extension of their patent rights in Europe.
Finally, I must point out that the Directive contains detailed provisions for review of its operation and for early revision should its provisions not work as intended. If it is clear, from the type of inventions being patented or from ongoing legal cases, that the goals of outlawing generic software patents are not being met, then a process of revision can be implemented quickly.
Yours sincerely
Malcolm Harbour MEP Manor Cottage, Manor Road, Solihull, West Midlands B91 2BL Tel: 0121 711 3158 Fax: 0121 711 3159 ASP 14E209, European Parliament, Rue Wiertz, B1047 Brussels Tel: +322 284 5132 Fax: +322 284 9132 Brussels E-Mail: mharbour@europarl.eu.int Web Site: www.torymeps.com
Personally, I run MVS 3.8j, which was IBM's flagship operating system circa 1974.
Pricing has nothing to do with it, eh?
on
The Future of the CD
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
...only 3 percent of consumers polled are buying less music because prices are too high...
Consumers of what were polled...oh, don't get me started on polls...
I live in England these days and new CDs are roughly 13 pounds, which translates very roughly to about CDN$30 or US$18. But when I went home to Canada at Christmas I was astonished at the prices (i.e. cheap compared to Britain!)
Take the new U2 Greatest Hits as a comparison. The CD here is 14 pounds, the DVD 24 pounds (approx.) When I was shopping in Canada at Christmas I saw the CD on sale for the equivalent of 9 pounds and the DVD for the equilvalent of 14 pounds. i.e. I could have bought the DVD in Canada for the price of the CD in the UK!
Last week I bought my first three CDs in absolute ages because Virgin Megastore was dumping stock for 5 & 6 quid a disc...that's ~CDN$13/US$9 or thereabouts. And they were still all CDs to replace old LPs (believe it or not).
The price fixing the entertainment industries are engaging in is just costing them customers. I've just dumped the Sky Movies package 'cause it's just the same old crap over and over again...they claim to show new movies, but they come in, show a couple of dozen times and it's back to the same old filler every night. Booooooooring!!!
I kept Film Four though...gotta support the independent distributors.
The ultimate solution for the record companies has two prongs...Second, bring the unit price more in line with the disposable income of the target market.
Yeah, but they can't do this or they'll be guilty of price fixing, something the DVD industry is coming to terms with now that some brave governments have started tackling the movie industry's "region-coding" scam.../T
What's relevant is that the headline reads "BBC says 'Avoid Explorer'" when the BBC itself said nothing of the kind, but merely quoted said expert as saying that is his recommendation. *That's* misleading../Taz
Do you still consider yourself a Canadian? Do Canada and Canadian issues matter to you anymore? Do you hang out with the other Canadians in Hollywood and go fishing in Algonquin Park with Dan Ackroyd? And which CFL team do you support?
Throughout human history, musicians made their living through their live performances. There was no such thing as a "definitive" version of a song since each and every performance was an individual work in and of itself. It is only in this past century when recorded sound became "property". This "property" depends upon artificially imposed scarcity to thrive, but in the digital age this is a dead concept since such scarcity cannot be enforced in a real and meaningful way (excepting fascistic laws and their enforcers.)
Why do the record companies think they can stop the progress of the technological society? How are artists reconciled to the fact that the days of fat cheques from recordings are essentially over since, as David Bowie himself said, "intellectual property" is in for such a beating in the coming years? Are you and other successful professional musicians ok with the idea of making your money solely from performing on the stage?
Yeah, this is a load of nonsense. Trust me, I live in Coventry and if this had even a whiff of truth the local press, council, everybody would have been all over it like a dirty shirt..../Taz
Actually, APL is still thriving! I know because I've made a living out of supporting it the last 13 years.:-)
Admittedly, it takes a bit of a brain shift to get around it at first, but once you get past the initial culture shock, the power of the language is simply stunning in it's simplicity and intuitiveness. And as for the keyboard, you do end up memorising the locations of the more frequently used primitives, at least, over the years.
When I first started working the in the APL world, I decided I'd better learn the language to get me through those long, boring night shifts (I was just an ops tape jockey back then) and wrote an AP124 tank battle game for 327x terminals, double-blind, real-time...man that was fun for a time.
But the point is we still sell SHARP APL for OS/390, un*x and even do a Linux version (www.soliton.com/Linux/) with cool stuff like a Java interfaces and stuff.
And we're not alone. Vector, the quarterly journal of the British APL Association takes 14 pages to list all the vendors, UG's and associated APL-related organisations.
This whole Napster episode has turned me off in a big way. I've bought a lot of CDs (over 600) which is probably more than most people out there. But you know, after all the stuff I've read about people like ClearChannel & the attitude of the RIAA, MPAA (not to mention Adobe & M$) has just convinced me to basically boycott products propagated by those organisations.
It's been both a trial and a lot of fun, but I've stopped using Windows fulltime now (even at work.) I've not bought a single CD in the last year from an RIAA pimped artist...you'd be surprised at the quality of some of the music coming out of Eastern Europe these days! Unfortunately, I'm still too addicted to movies and so I pay Rupert Murdoch stupid money for the privilege of digital satellite tv, but the day will come...
Basically, there are alternatives out there if you would only stop buying into the propaganda disguised as advertising and seek out alternatives. It ain't easy and most of us are admittedly lazy as hell. But letting these idiots run riot over your wallet, rights and liberties is pretty skank.
Slashdot Mirror
The author of the article writes: "Remember, HDCP was simply intended to limit the creation of a high-definition VCR capable of recording "protected" content."
Horse hockey.
That's the same line we were fed about region coding ("It's only for new releases").
I don't accept the premise that just because something is in HD or randomly decided by some publisher to be "premium, protected content" that I have to, even should be willing to, forfeit my Betamax rights to space and time shift that content.
Because, naturally, ALL content will be defined as "premium, protected content" in such a world.
CCNR? Help? None of these seem correct @ http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/CCNR
Acronym Definition
CCNR Call Completion No Reply
CCNR Call Completion on No Reply (ISDN)
CCNR Canada Committee on Natural Resources
CCNR Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility
CCNR Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine
CCNR Completion of Call Not Responding (telecommunications)
CCNR Conseil Canadien des Normes de la Radiotélévision (French: Canadian Broadcast Standards Council)
You wrote: "For the most part, new releases had simultaneous VHS and DVD available, but all the classics, the movies we really wanted, took years before being released."
:(
And some still have yet to be released! I've been waiting for years for the Yul Brynner classic "Taras Bulba"...and MGM doesn't even _hint_ it's on the release schedule...
> RE: UN Control of the Net: "We think that that's inappropriate," Ambassador David Gross, the U.S.
> coordinator for international communications and information policy at the State Department told
> reporters at U.N. offices in Geneva. "The genius of the Internet is that it has been flexible (and)
> private sector led."
Really?! DARPA is private sector!? Cool...I never knew...
Note the inflation of rhetoric...now it's "hijacking" if some bozo's AP *gives* you an IP address over DHCP...!!
"SUCK!"
Oh, sorry, we're not supposed to say that anymore under the new regime...
Pardon my French, but this is mostly bullshit. Learn more, sput less crap. To wit:
./Taz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg_Antonov
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine
> We had the impression that the Soviets were a
> bunch of automatons with no respect for human life
> that were just waiting to go war for any reason.
> How the Soviets were just dying to use chemical
> and/or nuclear weapons!
Substitute "Muslims" for "Soviets" and read today's propaganda. Plus ca change...
Gah!! IE! Why'd it have to be IE?
I'm a Canadian and I work in England and the pain of dealing with this is that I've got to maintain two different versions of my CV, formatted slightly differently for Letter and A4, paper being one of very few metric bits the UK adheres to.
And while I admit I was annoyed about A4 when I first moved here, I like it much better now.
In fact I like all the metric system stuff I've been converted to down the years since the government started introducing it in Canada when I was a kid.
Informative?! You mean troll, right?
It is disturbing in the extreme that in the week that the BBC stands accused of shoddy journalistic practice that I come across an article on the BBC website that stands as a glaring example of further malpractice.
In the referenced article, the author accuses elements of the open source community of being behind the MyDoom virus.
Two-thirds of the way through the article however, the author declares "There's no proof, of course, but it must be one of the theories at the top of any investigator's list."
This kind of spin is known as "bait and switch" and is rather reminiscent of the tired old question "When did you stop beating your wife?"
The accusation sticks in the mind of the reader, tarnishing the community, even though the author undermines his entire line of reasoning by admitting he's only theorising and has no proof to back up his accusations.
Great, be your own Borg...
The keyword here is "parenting". Too many parents use the Internet as a babysitting tool rather than actively get involved in parenting their children.
Remember that last famous incident, where the 12-yo ran off with the Marine to Germany? She was spending 8+ hours a day on the net, wasn't it? And her parents thought that was too much so they "limited" her to 5 hours a day? I thought, "what?!". A 12 year old should be out running around playing tag with the neighbourhood kids, not spending even five hours a day sat in front of a computer monitor!
Finally, I leave you with wise words of caution I found on the BBCs public forum on this topic;
"Safeguarding children" is the emotional bullet which will kill freedom of expression and ultimately take away our rights for good.
Henry, United States
It's not just the Labour MEPs.... this from my Tory MEP.../Taras
Dear Mr. Ciuriak
Thank you for your letter regarding the upcoming Directive on the
patentability of computer-implemented inventions (software patents)
currently under discussion in the European Parliament. The vote has now
been postponed and is expected to take place on September 23rd. I am
replying on behalf of all the West Midlands Conservative MEPs, including
Philip Bradbourn, as I am responsible for this issue within the
Conservative team.
The European Commission published the draft Directive in February of last
year as it become increasingly clear that European law on patenting
software needed to be clarified. The aim of the Directive is to set out
and defend the status quo in Europe following changes to the patent system
in the USA and also planned for Japan. There is a clear intention across
the EU Member States to see that Europe does not follow the USA and Japan
in allowing widespread patent availability for software and business
methods. Copyright will remain the principal method of protecting
intellectual property in these cases. I and my UK Conservative colleagues
support the general line that the Commission has taken which builds on and
clarifies the existing patent law across the European Union and makes it
clear that only software which forms part of a technological process will
be patentable. This will allow patents to be provided for genuine
technical inventions and stimulate European economic development in areas
of economic strength like mobile telephony, digital television and computer
controlled machine tools to name just a few possibilities. Contrary to the
impression given in your letter there is no intention whatsoever to allow
generic patenting of software or business methods in Europe.
The proposed Directive would set a fair test for software (deciding whether
it has a technical effect) before authorising a patent. Any technical
invention in a field outside software can be patented so it does not make
sense for technical inventions, which happen to use computers to be
excluded from the system. The amendments agreed by the Legal Affairs and
Internal Market Committee, and supported by Conservative MEPs, have
clarified the test conditions for software (deciding whether it has a
technical effect) before authorising a patent. The Parliament amendments
improve the text while ensuring that its principles are supported.
Codification of the existing position will also avoid raising complicated
issues of the validity of existing patents across Europe or allowing
current unpatentable technologies to claim new patents. This will allow
European businesses the chance to develop ideas with certainty as to their
legal position. It will also reduce the pressure from companies holding
permissive American software patents who wish to gain an extension of their
patent rights in Europe.
Finally, I must point out that the Directive contains detailed provisions
for review of its operation and for early revision should its provisions
not work as intended. If it is clear, from the type of inventions being
patented or from ongoing legal cases, that the goals of outlawing generic
software patents are not being met, then a process of revision can be
implemented quickly.
Yours sincerely
Malcolm Harbour MEP
Manor Cottage, Manor Road, Solihull, West Midlands B91 2BL
Tel: 0121 711 3158 Fax: 0121 711 3159
ASP 14E209, European Parliament, Rue Wiertz, B1047 Brussels
Tel: +322 284 5132 Fax: +322 284 9132
Brussels E-Mail: mharbour@europarl.eu.int
Web Site: www.torymeps.com
Personally, I run MVS 3.8j, which was IBM's flagship operating system circa 1974.
...only 3 percent of consumers polled are buying less music because prices are too high...
Consumers of what were polled...oh, don't get me started on polls...
I live in England these days and new CDs are roughly 13 pounds, which translates very roughly to about CDN$30 or US$18. But when I went home to Canada at Christmas I was astonished at the prices (i.e. cheap compared to Britain!)
Take the new U2 Greatest Hits as a comparison. The CD here is 14 pounds, the DVD 24 pounds (approx.) When I was shopping in Canada at Christmas I saw the CD on sale for the equivalent of 9 pounds and the DVD for the equilvalent of 14 pounds. i.e. I could have bought the DVD in Canada for the price of the CD in the UK!
Last week I bought my first three CDs in absolute ages because Virgin Megastore was dumping stock for 5 & 6 quid a disc...that's ~CDN$13/US$9 or thereabouts. And they were still all CDs to replace old LPs (believe it or not).
The price fixing the entertainment industries are engaging in is just costing them customers. I've just dumped the Sky Movies package 'cause it's just the same old crap over and over again...they claim to show new movies, but they come in, show a couple of dozen times and it's back to the same old filler every night. Booooooooring!!!
I kept Film Four though...gotta support the independent distributors.
The ultimate solution for the record companies has two prongs...Second, bring the unit price more in line with the disposable income of the target market.
Yeah, but they can't do this or they'll be guilty of price fixing, something the DVD industry is coming to terms with now that some brave governments have started tackling the movie industry's "region-coding" scam.../T
What's relevant is that the headline reads "BBC says 'Avoid Explorer'" when the BBC itself said nothing of the kind, but merely quoted said expert as saying that is his recommendation. *That's* misleading../Taz
Do you still consider yourself a Canadian? Do Canada and Canadian issues matter to you anymore? Do you hang out with the other Canadians in Hollywood and go fishing in Algonquin Park with Dan Ackroyd? And which CFL team do you support?
Throughout human history, musicians made their living through their live performances. There was no such thing as a "definitive" version of a song since each and every performance was an individual work in and of itself. It is only in this past century when recorded sound became "property". This "property" depends upon artificially imposed scarcity to thrive, but in the digital age this is a dead concept since such scarcity cannot be enforced in a real and meaningful way (excepting fascistic laws and their enforcers.)
Why do the record companies think they can stop the progress of the technological society? How are artists reconciled to the fact that the days of fat cheques from recordings are essentially over since, as David Bowie himself said, "intellectual property" is in for such a beating in the coming years? Are you and other successful professional musicians ok with the idea of making your money solely from performing on the stage?
Yeah, this is a load of nonsense. Trust me, I live in Coventry and if this had even a whiff of truth the local press, council, everybody would have been all over it like a dirty shirt..../Taz
Admittedly, it takes a bit of a brain shift to get around it at first, but once you get past the initial culture shock, the power of the language is simply stunning in it's simplicity and intuitiveness. And as for the keyboard, you do end up memorising the locations of the more frequently used primitives, at least, over the years.
When I first started working the in the APL world, I decided I'd better learn the language to get me through those long, boring night shifts (I was just an ops tape jockey back then) and wrote an AP124 tank battle game for 327x terminals, double-blind, real-time...man that was fun for a time.
But the point is we still sell SHARP APL for OS/390, un*x and even do a Linux version (www.soliton.com/Linux/) with cool stuff like a Java interfaces and stuff.
And we're not alone. Vector, the quarterly journal of the British APL Association takes 14 pages to list all the vendors, UG's and associated APL-related organisations.
APL is very much alive and well!
This whole Napster episode has turned me off in a big way. I've bought a lot of CDs (over 600) which is probably more than most people out there. But you know, after all the stuff I've read about people like ClearChannel & the attitude of the RIAA, MPAA (not to mention Adobe & M$) has just convinced me to basically boycott products propagated by those organisations.
It's been both a trial and a lot of fun, but I've stopped using Windows fulltime now (even at work.) I've not bought a single CD in the last year from an RIAA pimped artist...you'd be surprised at the quality of some of the music coming out of Eastern Europe these days! Unfortunately, I'm still too addicted to movies and so I pay Rupert Murdoch stupid money for the privilege of digital satellite tv, but the day will come...
Basically, there are alternatives out there if you would only stop buying into the propaganda disguised as advertising and seek out alternatives. It ain't easy and most of us are admittedly lazy as hell. But letting these idiots run riot over your wallet, rights and liberties is pretty skank.
Think. (c) IBM Corp.