While not what they had in mind, The Commodore relative file format might technically fit the bill. It had fixed "pages" (disk sectors) with pointers to dynamic "content" (data).
So, you open a McD's franchise at the South Pole once the new "highway" is done and the tourists start rolling in.
"What a wise investment," you think to yourself. "Not only do I get all the usual perks of running a McDonalds... but I can use the old grease as a building material!"
If it's bad for Jack Valenti, it's probably good for us.
I don't like the idea of DRM at all, but if I have a chance to choose between industry-controlled DRM (with the consequences being higher prices, and lack of choice) and government-controlled DRM (here, you get higher prices, lack of choice, and jail time); I'd rather stick with the industry.
Sorry, but it isn't the job of the government to protect us from wetting our own pants, nor to tell us how to clean them if we do. They should only be there to keep us from endangering the public by wearing them around town. Copyright laws already exist to prevent illegal duplication of works -- try enforcing them instead of making MORE laws and feeding the legal system.
That's kindof funny, as part of the reason I stopped playing hardcore was because of all the twinks running around PK'ing with their duped items.
I really did enjoy playing with perma-death (and I also enjoyed those few text muds which had that feature), and as you say, it's a great feeling of accomplishment to have a powerful character whom you've guided up through levels over days or weeks of play.
It sucks when you manage to survive playing against some of the nastiest things in the game through your own skill, and then some joker nails you with the hydra trick because you had a moment of weakness and were nice enough to open a portal when they asked.
When I play now, it's only to see if any interesting things drop (the maps aren't random enough to be interesting), or to socialize with others I know who also play.
NWN has FAR more potential, provided the community support remains strong. What I hope Bioware realizes is that the strength of the game is not in the client, but in the toolset. Their story won't sell it, nor will a linux client. What will keep this thing making money for years to come is the flexibility of the toolset. Allowing the users to create their own stories, and doing so with as little fuss as possible will keep things fresh.
And yes, you can make perma-death in NWN too with the right scripting. I really hope they consider porting the toolset to linux, and perhaps (if nobody has done it yet) making a small GTK wrapper for the server as well. *I* like the command line, but many people would rather have a poity-click way to poke at things.
Unfortunately for us, the unwashed masses of computer consumerism (this would be the VP who decides what to purchase, and the millions of Maw and Paws who just buy whatever Dell/Gateway/Wallmart has on sale) will embrace DRM-enabled technology because they won't know any better.
For them, it's just another of those annoying computer-thangs they have to do when they turn it on. Type in this 256-digit authentication key and place your finger on the needle... yup, can I see the internet now?
For the average consumer, a few errors from the DRM hardware are no different than the "press any key to reboot" message. So their new downloaded mp3 won't play? Oh well, stupid computer. Go download another one or stop trying.
Those who want DRM will cite the falloff of P2P sharing as the sucess of DRM and gleefully charge us an extra $5/month to listen to "premium" content before your neighbor hears it.
We may be nearing the end of an era. If the DRM lobbyists succeed, our personal computers will only be able to access data that has been purchased and licensed (and approved by various agencies). Want to view slashdot? Ok, that'll be a micropayment of 1 cent for every article headline, and 5 cents for every full text. Sure, Taco will keep the charges minimal, but that's just the amount he'll have to pay for certificates that say each article is a valid copyrighted entity. User commentary will take a little longer to post (and be subject to a 25 cent surcharge... to cover the censor review).
Certainly secrecy would be essential as far as the actual implementation, although a well-timed "leak" might serve to boost the RIAA's cause as in "See? We're 31173 HaX0r's too, Buy our stuff or we'll own you anyways."
You find it hard to believe that the antivirus companies (who not long ago announced that they'd NOT report instances of the feds' "Magic Latrene" virus) would bow to the wishes of a multi-billion dollar corporate entity? Ok.
And yes, they'd get in serious trouble with the current Oil-Man pro-big-business administration. Yeah, just like Microsoft was horribly punished for being a monopoly. Ok.
As for the last bit, yeah probably true. But the idea of the RIAA seeding nasty things into your computer is certainly believable... at least as long as Jack "Shotgun" Valenti is in charge.
I concede that the letter of existing laws does not cover the cybercrime variant, however the spirit in which those laws were made should. Not that the spirit of a law is worth anything in this day and age.
It disgusts me that the legal system cannot allow common sense to be used in the arguments of either side. Trespass and Breaking-and-entering are the concepts which apply here, even if the "physical" presense isn't there to fit the wording on the paper.
As far as destruction of property... that depends on the nature of what's done and how recoverable it is. If a punk kid spraypaints my garage with watercolor paints, it's vandalism... but a hose will take care of it. If he uses sulphuric acid to etch grafitti into my sidewalk, that's a bit harder to fix. Assuming backups are done on a daily basis, it's more like the former.
You are correct though, the existing legal system does not handle it. That's why IANAL.:)
It doesn't matter to me what SCO might have. If they enforce claims to AT&T System V bits that exist in linux, then I can always run my stuff in one of the BSD variants.
SCO is just trying to find some way to stay afloat, since their own product is dated and proprietary to the point of uselessness. As they see people porting things to run under a generic unix-a-like, they see their closed market drying up and are desperate to grab anything that floats.
This does bring up (again) a point. There should be some requirement to enforce a patent BEFORE something reaches a critical mass in the marketplace. Holding a patent and then trying to cash in only after everyone else has done your work for you is just underhanded and cheap.
If someone logs into your (wide-open, no password root shell) server without your permission, that's trespass.
If someone hacks your server to get in, that's trespass and breaking-and-entering.
If someone changes your web-site, etc., while they're there... that's destruction of property.
There are already well-established laws to deal with these crimes, and those laws have ranges of punishments appropriate for the severity of the offense. Why should special "digital" versions be created when existing laws already work?
This country needs fewer laws, and better enforcement of the ones it already has. More laws simply make more money for lawyers, and more loopholes for the rich and powerful.
'The Alexandria facility is a private, miniature version of the kind of public Internet-monitoring capability the Bush administration wants the federal government to develop to protect the nation's electronic infrastructure.'
Protect from whom?
One of the basic assumptions of a firewall is that all the Bad Guys (TM) are on the outside. Implementing a Nation-wide monitoring station implies that you (a) believe all the Evil HaX0r's are foreign, or (b) you are willing to throw away any pretenses of respecting the privacy of your citizens.
Both are stupid IMHO. If you want to be safe from Evil Internet Danger #37, *YOU* should firewall your machine against it... not expect some government agency to do it for you. This seems to be a basic problem with this generation... instead of standing up for their individual rights and doing things for themselves where possible, they whine at congress and get laws passed.
<example #950> I recently started a bathroom repair project and have to replace the water faucets in my shower. I have the classic three-knob variant with hot, cold, and a valve to shunt the water into the tub or through the shower-head. I wanted to replace those with newer versions. Simple, right?
NO! A law was passed a few years ago that makes it illegal to install this kind of faucet in Michigan. You have to use a pressure-balanced faucet to keep idiots from getting scalded when someone else in the house flushes a toilet.
So, even if I live alone, I have to get a single-knob faucet (which I find harder to adjust) to protect me from an event which can't happen... and even if it did, wouldn't really bother me that much (Duh, step back from the now-hot water stream?). </example>
I knew we were doomed when they banned the rugged all-metal Tonka trucks because parents were afraid their children would use them to beat each other sensless. Now we just render the kids sensless by raising them to be afraid of everything.
Games don't make people violent. Games don't make kids violent. LIFE makes people and kids violent!
How many of you remember your own teenage years? Remember all those hormones? Remember the peer pressure? Things are just as bad today, if not worse... and guess what? THIS generation has far more parents who don't do the job of parenting.
It's up to the parents to protect their kids and teach them right from wrong, not by passing laws to water down violent games or movies, not by whining about how terrible things are... by talking to their kids and helping them with their problems instead of ignoring them and then crying when they turn to hours of violent games to try and escape the lives they can't figure out yet.
IMHO, anyone who says we need more laws to "protect" our kids is saying the government can do a better job of raising them than they can. Maybe they're right... but they should have thought of that before becoming parents.
Ok, so I got my Mom an iMac this summer because she's used windows and agreed with me that she didn't want to deal with the reboot-an-hour syndrome. One of the nice things about Macs has always been how smoothly the system integrates with the hardware (not difficult when you control it, eh?), and of course with OSX, I could say it was a real computer that I could administer from home if need be.
So... bait-and-switch #1... her new email account become a pay subscription. Stupid Steve. Fine, I tell her to use her ISP's email service instead.
Bait-and-switch #2... Upgrade to OSX 10.2 costs arm and leg. Grrrrr, guess Steve feels the power of the Dark Side from Bill and decides if you can't beat 'em...
Bait-and-switch #3... Now ALL the damn iApps are going to cost money (beyond what we've ALREADY PAID by buying the damn thing). Now I'm starting to think maybe I made the wrong choice here.
What could have been a simple easy-to-maintain computer which my recently retired Mother could learn to use and enjoy at home is quickly turning into an money pit of doom.
Why Steve? Why do you have to SQUEEZE every--last--penny out of your product? Damn the users! If they love us, they'll GIVE to The LORD! Ye Shall OPEN your Wallets, and Say-Eth THANK YOU STEVE!
So, now I rethink my plans. My Mom has her computer, and if she has to forego meals once a week so her social-security check can cover the latest upgrade to iTunes... so be it. At least the latest.ogg files will mask the rumbling in her stomache.
What are the odds that any working reel or vinyl record playback equipment will still be operational in 2067? 'Cause that's how long they'll need to hold out before the RIAA allows them to be preserved and converted into a useable format.
In recent news, Santa Claus has brought a string of chaser Christmas lights in to disprove Apple's patent on color-changing hardware devices. When properly installed on a Christmas tree, these lights cause the tree to change colors, and have done so since 1980.
"That Steve Jobs is going to be on my Naughty list this year", says a miffed Santa. "It's one thing to compete in the same toy market as I do, but it's another to try and muscle ME out!"
So if water is the media for tcp/ip, flushing the toilet would be considered a DoS attack? I imagine flushing while someone else is showering would be a DDoS, hence the screams...
I agree. The first time I read The Silmarillion, I was about 11 years old. I had to struggle to make it through, and actually stopped several times because of the stilted biblical-flavor of the language.
A few years later, I read (the whole series) again and could actually follow everything. Many of the events in the LOTR make far more sense when you have the background knowledge that the Silmarillion gives you.
Nowadays, I would venture to say that it would make a remarkable film, but not one that Hollywood would (or could) ever produce.
You know, my initial thought was to respond to this in detail. I played EQ for some time, and eventually got bored with it and quit. Thus, the *GAME* is not any more addictive than any other recreational activity. Many, many people are far more "addicted" to television, sitting in front of the tube letting the hours melt away with absolutely nothing to show for it (and in fact, paying a monthly subscription to a cable company or satellite provider!).
Why don't you go on about how these poor people are being mistreated by the television networks? Afterall, THEY have no say in what they get to watch either. Customer service never pays any attention to the television viewer, and certainly diputes amongst family members over what channel will be turned on are ignored. Why some kids will actually set the VCR up to tape a channel just to keep their sibling from watching something else! Artificial scarcity of resources and regular "spawns" of TV shows are commonplace here too.
It's a game. It's a way to ignore reality for some amount of time so you don't become so depressed/angry at your situation/boss/President/etc, that you go postal. When it starts being more effort than fun, you stop playing it. If you can't do that, you have an addictive personality and need help. Be thankful you're only addicted to a $10/month game instead of crack or trips to the casino!
Not every game needs to have a "win-state". The point of a mud (and EQ is nothing more than a DikuMUD with a graphics engine replacing the room engine) is to enjoy playing it... there often is no ultimate goal (well, for some it was becoming a builder... but you can't do that with Sony), other than to be more powerful than your neighbor. The main difference is that a graphical mud doesn't let you use your imagination the way a text game does. Try reading a book instead of watching a movie sometime, you might get the idea.
Obviously, the people who code Sim-Pr0n will become the most popular entities in your virtual world, and so after some small amount of time, "Sim Ski Resort" will become "Sim Ski-Bunny Ranch", and everything will be subclassed ala Pr0n->ViscousBody->Fluid->Latex->Bondage.
If the marketdroids ever get in, then every other entitiy in the Matrix will have annoying 3d-monkeys clinging to them saying "punch me to buy...". Can you imagine how annoying it will be to have a carefully crafted scene with your top 5 pr0n entities, all starting to make sweet love to you down by the fire.... and then the damn monkeys start popping out of them and jabbering for you to buy more bandwidth.
"So you're saying the DMCA isn't a real copyright issue? I can't really agree with that."
You may not agree with it, but that doesn't make it false. The DMCA has nothing to do with copyright law. Unauthorized reproduction of an existing work is already protected BY Copyright, if you copy something for a purpose other than archival backup or fair use, you are already in violation of the law.
OTOH, the DMCA makes it a crime to build a tool which might allow you to copy (or access) copyrighted material. Under the DMCA, a web browser could be considered illegal, as it translates an encrypted (HTML) data source which might be copyrighted, into a readable (plain text) format.
An equivalent would be if you were to spend years carving an intricate wooden statuette, and then someone threw you in jail because somebody *MIGHT* come along and use it to club someone over the head.
Don't assume that just because something is LAW, that it's automatically JUST or RIGHT. That's only true in a theocracy (where any law is, by definition, the Will of God). The DMCA is a very bad law, created by people with very little technical expertise, and a great deal of fear.
Slashdot Mirror
While not what they had in mind, The Commodore relative file format might technically fit the bill. It had fixed "pages" (disk sectors) with pointers to dynamic "content" (data).
That would have been 1983?
My free time... slipping..... away.........
So, you open a McD's franchise at the South Pole once the new "highway" is done and the tourists start rolling in.
"What a wise investment," you think to yourself. "Not only do I get all the usual perks of running a McDonalds... but I can use the old grease as a building material!"
Yay!
If it's bad for Jack Valenti, it's probably good for us.
I don't like the idea of DRM at all, but if I have a chance to choose between industry-controlled DRM (with the consequences being higher prices, and lack of choice) and government-controlled DRM (here, you get higher prices, lack of choice, and jail time); I'd rather stick with the industry.
Sorry, but it isn't the job of the government to protect us from wetting our own pants, nor to tell us how to clean them if we do. They should only be there to keep us from endangering the public by wearing them around town. Copyright laws already exist to prevent illegal duplication of works -- try enforcing them instead of making MORE laws and feeding the legal system.
Quick!
Someone go patent the idea of the # character, then the evil SCO minions will be locked out of root access to their own systems!
Muahahahaha!
Those that can, do;
Those that cannot, teach;
Those that cannot learn, sue.
Grammer odd not, I think.
-yoda.
141.210.54.217
Then you could make area codes look like:
141.210.54.0/24 for office buildings, or 141.0.0.0/8 for larger areas.
Of course, if they want to be proactive, perhaps we could just go to IPV6 directly (although that's alot of dialing!)
That's kindof funny, as part of the reason I stopped playing hardcore was because of all the twinks running around PK'ing with their duped items.
I really did enjoy playing with perma-death (and I also enjoyed those few text muds which had that feature), and as you say, it's a great feeling of accomplishment to have a powerful character whom you've guided up through levels over days or weeks of play.
It sucks when you manage to survive playing against some of the nastiest things in the game through your own skill, and then some joker nails you with the hydra trick because you had a moment of weakness and were nice enough to open a portal when they asked.
When I play now, it's only to see if any interesting things drop (the maps aren't random enough to be interesting), or to socialize with others I know who also play.
NWN has FAR more potential, provided the community support remains strong. What I hope Bioware realizes is that the strength of the game is not in the client, but in the toolset. Their story won't sell it, nor will a linux client. What will keep this thing making money for years to come is the flexibility of the toolset. Allowing the users to create their own stories, and doing so with as little fuss as possible will keep things fresh.
And yes, you can make perma-death in NWN too with the right scripting. I really hope they consider porting the toolset to linux, and perhaps (if nobody has done it yet) making a small GTK wrapper for the server as well. *I* like the command line, but many people would rather have a poity-click way to poke at things.
Unfortunately for us, the unwashed masses of computer consumerism (this would be the VP who decides what to purchase, and the millions of Maw and Paws who just buy whatever Dell/Gateway/Wallmart has on sale) will embrace DRM-enabled technology because they won't know any better.
For them, it's just another of those annoying computer-thangs they have to do when they turn it on. Type in this 256-digit authentication key and place your finger on the needle... yup, can I see the internet now?
For the average consumer, a few errors from the DRM hardware are no different than the "press any key to reboot" message. So their new downloaded mp3 won't play? Oh well, stupid computer. Go download another one or stop trying.
Those who want DRM will cite the falloff of P2P sharing as the sucess of DRM and gleefully charge us an extra $5/month to listen to "premium" content before your neighbor hears it.
We may be nearing the end of an era. If the DRM lobbyists succeed, our personal computers will only be able to access data that has been purchased and licensed (and approved by various agencies). Want to view slashdot? Ok, that'll be a micropayment of 1 cent for every article headline, and 5 cents for every full text. Sure, Taco will keep the charges minimal, but that's just the amount he'll have to pay for certificates that say each article is a valid copyrighted entity. User commentary will take a little longer to post (and be subject to a 25 cent surcharge... to cover the censor review).
Fear the Future.
Hmmmm, I wonder.
Certainly secrecy would be essential as far as the actual implementation, although a well-timed "leak" might serve to boost the RIAA's cause as in "See? We're 31173 HaX0r's too, Buy our stuff or we'll own you anyways."
You find it hard to believe that the antivirus companies (who not long ago announced that they'd NOT report instances of the feds' "Magic Latrene" virus) would bow to the wishes of a multi-billion dollar corporate entity? Ok.
And yes, they'd get in serious trouble with the current Oil-Man pro-big-business administration. Yeah, just like Microsoft was horribly punished for being a monopoly. Ok.
As for the last bit, yeah probably true. But the idea of the RIAA seeding nasty things into your computer is certainly believable... at least as long as Jack "Shotgun" Valenti is in charge.
True enough.
:)
I concede that the letter of existing laws does not cover the cybercrime variant, however the spirit in which those laws were made should. Not that the spirit of a law is worth anything in this day and age.
It disgusts me that the legal system cannot allow common sense to be used in the arguments of either side. Trespass and Breaking-and-entering are the concepts which apply here, even if the "physical" presense isn't there to fit the wording on the paper.
As far as destruction of property... that depends on the nature of what's done and how recoverable it is. If a punk kid spraypaints my garage with watercolor paints, it's vandalism... but a hose will take care of it. If he uses sulphuric acid to etch grafitti into my sidewalk, that's a bit harder to fix. Assuming backups are done on a daily basis, it's more like the former.
You are correct though, the existing legal system does not handle it. That's why IANAL.
It doesn't matter to me what SCO might have. If they enforce claims to AT&T System V bits that exist in linux, then I can always run my stuff in one of the BSD variants.
SCO is just trying to find some way to stay afloat, since their own product is dated and proprietary to the point of uselessness. As they see people porting things to run under a generic unix-a-like, they see their closed market drying up and are desperate to grab anything that floats.
This does bring up (again) a point. There should be some requirement to enforce a patent BEFORE something reaches a critical mass in the marketplace. Holding a patent and then trying to cash in only after everyone else has done your work for you is just underhanded and cheap.
In short, SCO -- Blow Me.
Why do all the lawyers insist on creating new versions of every law and crime just because they happen to occur in the "digital" realm?
Let's see... hax0r kid defaces web-site.
1. Trespassing.
2. Breaking-and-Entering.
3. (possible) malicious destruction of private property.
If someone logs into your (wide-open, no password root shell) server without your permission, that's trespass.
If someone hacks your server to get in, that's trespass and breaking-and-entering.
If someone changes your web-site, etc., while they're there... that's destruction of property.
There are already well-established laws to deal with these crimes, and those laws have ranges of punishments appropriate for the severity of the offense. Why should special "digital" versions be created when existing laws already work?
This country needs fewer laws, and better enforcement of the ones it already has. More laws simply make more money for lawyers, and more loopholes for the rich and powerful.
'The Alexandria facility is a private, miniature version of the kind of public Internet-monitoring capability the Bush administration wants the federal government to develop to protect the nation's electronic infrastructure.'
Protect from whom?
One of the basic assumptions of a firewall is that all the Bad Guys (TM) are on the outside. Implementing a Nation-wide monitoring station implies that you (a) believe all the Evil HaX0r's are foreign, or (b) you are willing to throw away any pretenses of respecting the privacy of your citizens.
Both are stupid IMHO. If you want to be safe from Evil Internet Danger #37, *YOU* should firewall your machine against it... not expect some government agency to do it for you. This seems to be a basic problem with this generation... instead of standing up for their individual rights and doing things for themselves where possible, they whine at congress and get laws passed.
<example #950>
I recently started a bathroom repair project and have to replace the water faucets in my shower. I have the classic three-knob variant with hot, cold, and a valve to shunt the water into the tub or through the shower-head. I wanted to replace those with newer versions. Simple, right?
NO! A law was passed a few years ago that makes it illegal to install this kind of faucet in Michigan. You have to use a pressure-balanced faucet to keep idiots from getting scalded when someone else in the house flushes a toilet.
So, even if I live alone, I have to get a single-knob faucet (which I find harder to adjust) to protect me from an event which can't happen... and even if it did, wouldn't really bother me that much (Duh, step back from the now-hot water stream?).
</example>
I knew we were doomed when they banned the rugged all-metal Tonka trucks because parents were afraid their children would use them to beat each other sensless. Now we just render the kids sensless by raising them to be afraid of everything.
Games don't make people violent.
Games don't make kids violent.
LIFE makes people and kids violent!
How many of you remember your own teenage years? Remember all those hormones? Remember the peer pressure? Things are just as bad today, if not worse... and guess what? THIS generation has far more parents who don't do the job of parenting.
It's up to the parents to protect their kids and teach them right from wrong, not by passing laws to water down violent games or movies, not by whining about how terrible things are... by talking to their kids and helping them with their problems instead of ignoring them and then crying when they turn to hours of violent games to try and escape the lives they can't figure out yet.
IMHO, anyone who says we need more laws to "protect" our kids is saying the government can do a better job of raising them than they can. Maybe they're right... but they should have thought of that before becoming parents.
Ok, so I got my Mom an iMac this summer because she's used windows and agreed with me that she didn't want to deal with the reboot-an-hour syndrome. One of the nice things about Macs has always been how smoothly the system integrates with the hardware (not difficult when you control it, eh?), and of course with OSX, I could say it was a real computer that I could administer from home if need be.
.ogg files will mask the rumbling in her stomache.
So... bait-and-switch #1... her new email account become a pay subscription. Stupid Steve. Fine, I tell her to use her ISP's email service instead.
Bait-and-switch #2... Upgrade to OSX 10.2 costs arm and leg. Grrrrr, guess Steve feels the power of the Dark Side from Bill and decides if you can't beat 'em...
Bait-and-switch #3... Now ALL the damn iApps are going to cost money (beyond what we've ALREADY PAID by buying the damn thing). Now I'm starting to think maybe I made the wrong choice here.
What could have been a simple easy-to-maintain computer which my recently retired Mother could learn to use and enjoy at home is quickly turning into an money pit of doom.
Why Steve? Why do you have to SQUEEZE every--last--penny out of your product? Damn the users! If they love us, they'll GIVE to The LORD! Ye Shall OPEN your Wallets, and Say-Eth THANK YOU STEVE!
So, now I rethink my plans. My Mom has her computer, and if she has to forego meals once a week so her social-security check can cover the latest upgrade to iTunes... so be it. At least the latest
Way to go Apple.
"We wouldn't want to diminish their trademark, now would we?"
Instead of "trademark" say "arbitrary club-membership handed out to the highest bidder at the USPTO."
What are the odds that any working reel or vinyl record playback equipment will still be operational in 2067? 'Cause that's how long they'll need to hold out before the RIAA allows them to be preserved and converted into a useable format.
In recent news, Santa Claus has brought a string of chaser Christmas lights in to disprove Apple's patent on color-changing hardware devices. When properly installed on a Christmas tree, these lights cause the tree to change colors, and have done so since 1980.
"That Steve Jobs is going to be on my Naughty list this year", says a miffed Santa. "It's one thing to compete in the same toy market as I do, but it's another to try and muscle ME out!"
So if water is the media for tcp/ip, flushing the toilet would be considered a DoS attack? I imagine flushing while someone else is showering would be a DDoS, hence the screams...
I agree. The first time I read The Silmarillion, I was about 11 years old. I had to struggle to make it through, and actually stopped several times because of the stilted biblical-flavor of the language.
A few years later, I read (the whole series) again and could actually follow everything. Many of the events in the LOTR make far more sense when you have the background knowledge that the Silmarillion gives you.
Nowadays, I would venture to say that it would make a remarkable film, but not one that Hollywood would (or could) ever produce.
And you guys thought they couldn't find a way to make computers really expensive again!
You know, my initial thought was to respond to this in detail. I played EQ for some time, and eventually got bored with it and quit. Thus, the *GAME* is not any more addictive than any other recreational activity. Many, many people are far more "addicted" to television, sitting in front of the tube letting the hours melt away with absolutely nothing to show for it (and in fact, paying a monthly subscription to a cable company or satellite provider!).
Why don't you go on about how these poor people are being mistreated by the television networks? Afterall, THEY have no say in what they get to watch either. Customer service never pays any attention to the television viewer, and certainly diputes amongst family members over what channel will be turned on are ignored. Why some kids will actually set the VCR up to tape a channel just to keep their sibling from watching something else! Artificial scarcity of resources and regular "spawns" of TV shows are commonplace here too.
It's a game. It's a way to ignore reality for some amount of time so you don't become so depressed/angry at your situation/boss/President/etc, that you go postal. When it starts being more effort than fun, you stop playing it. If you can't do that, you have an addictive personality and need help. Be thankful you're only addicted to a $10/month game instead of crack or trips to the casino!
Not every game needs to have a "win-state". The point of a mud (and EQ is nothing more than a DikuMUD with a graphics engine replacing the room engine) is to enjoy playing it... there often is no ultimate goal (well, for some it was becoming a builder... but you can't do that with Sony), other than to be more powerful than your neighbor. The main difference is that a graphical mud doesn't let you use your imagination the way a text game does. Try reading a book instead of watching a movie sometime, you might get the idea.
Obviously, the people who code Sim-Pr0n will become the most popular entities in your virtual world, and so after some small amount of time, "Sim Ski Resort" will become "Sim Ski-Bunny Ranch", and everything will be subclassed ala Pr0n->ViscousBody->Fluid->Latex->Bondage.
If the marketdroids ever get in, then every other entitiy in the Matrix will have annoying 3d-monkeys clinging to them saying "punch me to buy...". Can you imagine how annoying it will be to have a carefully crafted scene with your top 5 pr0n entities, all starting to make sweet love to you down by the fire.... and then the damn monkeys start popping out of them and jabbering for you to buy more bandwidth.
"So you're saying the DMCA isn't a real copyright issue? I can't really agree with that."
You may not agree with it, but that doesn't make it false. The DMCA has nothing to do with copyright law. Unauthorized reproduction of an existing work is already protected BY Copyright, if you copy something for a purpose other than archival backup or fair use, you are already in violation of the law.
OTOH, the DMCA makes it a crime to build a tool which might allow you to copy (or access) copyrighted material. Under the DMCA, a web browser could be considered illegal, as it translates an encrypted (HTML) data source which might be copyrighted, into a readable (plain text) format.
An equivalent would be if you were to spend years carving an intricate wooden statuette, and then someone threw you in jail because somebody *MIGHT* come along and use it to club someone over the head.
Don't assume that just because something is LAW, that it's automatically JUST or RIGHT. That's only true in a theocracy (where any law is, by definition, the Will of God). The DMCA is a very bad law, created by people with very little technical expertise, and a great deal of fear.