You're right; I should delete or rephrase my comment. (I don't think I can, though.)
After reading a couple more articles about this, though, my impression is that they are ultimately going after Usenet itself by going after those who provide the services.
As the legitimate owner of ~400 legally purchased CD's, do I not have the right to download MP3's to use on my own MP3 player instead of ripping them myself? Downloading an MP3 instead of ripping it is often faster, and usually gets me a better quality audio file than if I were to rip it myself. As a paying customer of an NNTP provider, should I not be allowed to pursue my fair use rights in this regard? And if the RIAA is interferring with this, can they be sued for violating my rights?
I own almost 400 CD's and didn't want to go through the hassle of ripping all of them, so I downloaded a lot of them to put on my MP3 player. It was easier than having to continuously switch out CD's, and the quality of the.MP3's I download are usually better than the ones I rip. (Not to mention that many of my older CD's just don't rip properly.) How is this illegal? Or even immoral?
Whatever....they'll never stop file-sharing and will play catch-up forever with technology-savvy individuals who are smarter than they are.
Please read my response to Plutonite's post below. Or, you're welcome to contact me via my photo website listed below my Slashdot username (http://www.pbase.com/artyler) and I'll happily email you a copies of the complaints, affidavits, etc.
We're not rubes; it's the system, and if you ever find yourself mired in a legal nightmare like this, you'll discover very quickly why people talk about the difficulties of sueing someone with deeper pockets than you.
Thanks for your comments; in a normal world justice would prevail and he'd at least get his IRA funds restored. Our justice system is insane, though, and banks with deep pockets are very good at frustrating efforts to hold them to account for their actions. Example: during the trial my father and his counsel were barred from any mention whatsoever of the fact that he had had cancer. In the end, their law firm was better than my father's law firm, and having more resources to commit to a case like that makes a huge difference. My father's case, and specifically the fact that his IRA was cleaned out in a case of identity theft, is very unique. He's spoken to other law firms, and most of them are shocked when they hear the story --- they've never heard of such a thing happening. Despite their sympathy, however, litigating a case this complex is very expensive, and considered too risky to take on contingency. So when you've had all your money stolen from you, what are your options? The case is now on appeal with the Wisconsin State Supreme Court, and was dismissed from Federal Court (for jurisdictional reasons, I believe). And the kicker? My father, who has his law degree but never practiced law during his career, is litigating it himself pro se because he can't afford to keep paying attorneys to help him.
Thanks for your fury.:) I left out many other details that make the case even more ludicrous and infuriating (like the FBI refusing to complete an investigation that would have resulted in her being brought to justice and helped the trial against the bank, because "we've been busy since 9/11", for example), but I didn't think Slashdot was the place to yammer on about the rest of the insanity.
5 or 6 years ago my father came down with cancer, and his wife (now ex) took over the regular task of managing the finances of the household, etc. (This was in Wisconsin.) She also took it upon herself to fraudulently clean out his "Federally Protected" IRA, all of his *non-joint* accounts, filed false tax returns, and then ran up tens of thousands of dollars in debt in his name (hiding the statements and records to keep the game going as long as possible). She even bought a $20,000 diamond ring and a Mercedes for herself -- all while my Father was going through radiation treatment and surgery, etc. Finally, the house of cards came tumbling down, the police were notified, and she admitted everything.
The result, 5 years later: We found out that the bank had known this fraud was taking place on his accounts (we have one of their internal documents explicitly stating this), yet they covered this up during the discovery process and only gave it to us years later. She's never been arrested nor paid any restitution for what she did, the "Federally Protected" IRA was never reinstated, and a judge in Wisconsin had my father put in jail for refusing to give her his car, which the judge had mistakenly awarded to both of them during the divorce trial. My father sued the bank and has recovered nothing to date.
I was just going to post something similar to what you wrote, but since you beat me to it I'll just say that I agree with you completely. The way I look at it, until they've managed to instill wants and needs, etc. into robots, it's hard for me to think of them as being anything but complex computer programs with large databases. (And in this case replicate the databases between the robots based on some rules?)
I give them a lot of credit for trying, but I guess I don't really see much here in the way of emergent behavior. (Or maybe I'm missing something?)
No matter how hard the **AA's of the world try and no matter how much money they throw at their problem, they will NEVER, EVER stop determined people from obtaining their content for free. They will always be reacting to the proactive.
Furthermore, the harder they try, the more they're just going to end up pissing off their ever-dwindling base of consumers. Right or wrong and for better or worse, it's reality.
(The above concept applies to the dumb-fsking war on terrorism, too, but I won't even begin ranting about that horrorshow.)
"Security researchers at eEye Digital Security have discovered a serious flaw in Symantec's enterprise antivirus software that could be used by hackers to create a self-replicating "worm" attack against Symantec users.
Because Symantec has not yet confirmed the existence of the problem, much less patched it, eEye is offering few details on the vulnerability, which was first disclosed late Wednesday."
Either Symantec is lying, or someone is guily of some very excessive and reckless self-promotion. It smells like excessive self-promotion to me, but I'm not privy to the details so who knows.
What kinds of information do you specifically look for on Usenet? Give me an example and I'll do a search to see if I can find useful info.
I'd never say Usenet is better than the web --- they're totally different 'animals'. I would say that Usenet is better for certain things, though. The Usenet archive purchased from Deja by Google allows you to go back decades to find information that would have expired long ago on the web. Looking for information on a vague system error? Try Google Groups sometime --- I think you'll be amazed by the wealth of information contained within. You can search by author (check out some of the threads Linus has participated in), sort by date, etc. I'm baffled to hear people say Usenet has never proven informative.
I just didn't agree with the interviewer's statement that Usenet is no longer useful, or Templeton's statement that Usenet had stagnated.
I do agree with him that it can be a great place to have an online discussion; it's sometimes necessary to plonk a few individuals beforehand, but by no means is it difficult as many in here suggest.
What method are you using to access Usenet? If you're just browsing through all of the posts in a group you'll most likely have to wade through the festering shit as you mention.
I'm assuming you've never used Google Groups to get information from Usenet. If you have, but still opine as you do, then all my sig are belong to you.
# You were involved in the early days of Usenet. Today, Usenet news seems to me to be only slightly more useful than the average Nigerian scam letter. Are you disappointed?
Not at all. What's amazing is that even though USENET has stagnated and not added much new since the 80s, it's still the best way to read an online conversation.
I couldn't disagree more. While there are definitely groups that have unfortunately descended into the chaos of uncontrollable spam and retarded flame-wars, many are thriving with great information. Even the ones infested with crap can be useful by using Google Groups search to glean the content out.
I think it would be great if, once biological processes are understood better, they could be applied to IT to make systems faster or more efficient, etc...Our biological systems have evolved over billions of years; assuming Darwin was correct, it's seems pretty safe to say that they must be incredibly robust and efficient. Why not learn from them?
The problem I have with the reverse (computers -> biology) is that we won't know how it will affect the evolution of our species. (Just take a look around you sometime to see just how polluted our gene-pool already appears to be....)
If so, hiding the terms contained within should technically be considered "misrepresentation" and thus be subject to relief. (If taken to court)
The problem with this is that, by that time, it probably doesn't matter. The company may agree to remove your name from their databases, but may have already sold your name to third parties. Whether this would then warrant damages I don't know....
(I'm not a lawyer --- any real ones out there know more?)
Slashdot Mirror
Like farts in the wind
Your data floats free from you
Your porn's now public
You're right; I should delete or rephrase my comment. (I don't think I can, though.)
After reading a couple more articles about this, though, my impression is that they are ultimately going after Usenet itself by going after those who provide the services.
When I've ripped in the past I've experienced random issues with clipping/skipping, even when I see no noticeable scratches on the CD.
As the legitimate owner of ~400 legally purchased CD's, do I not have the right to download MP3's to use on my own MP3 player instead of ripping them myself? Downloading an MP3 instead of ripping it is often faster, and usually gets me a better quality audio file than if I were to rip it myself. As a paying customer of an NNTP provider, should I not be allowed to pursue my fair use rights in this regard? And if the RIAA is interferring with this, can they be sued for violating my rights?
Just wondering...
WTF? Usenet predates the WWW and is essentially just a protocol; they might as well sue "email" as well.
I own almost 400 CD's and didn't want to go through the hassle of ripping all of them, so I downloaded a lot of them to put on my MP3 player. It was easier than having to continuously switch out CD's, and the quality of the .MP3's I download are usually better than the ones I rip. (Not to mention that many of my older CD's just don't rip properly.) How is this illegal? Or even immoral?
Whatever....they'll never stop file-sharing and will play catch-up forever with technology-savvy individuals who are smarter than they are.
Please read my response to Plutonite's post below. Or, you're welcome to contact me via my photo website listed below my Slashdot username (http://www.pbase.com/artyler) and I'll happily email you a copies of the complaints, affidavits, etc.
We're not rubes; it's the system, and if you ever find yourself mired in a legal nightmare like this, you'll discover very quickly why people talk about the difficulties of sueing someone with deeper pockets than you.
Thanks for your comments; in a normal world justice would prevail and he'd at least get his IRA funds restored. Our justice system is insane, though, and banks with deep pockets are very good at frustrating efforts to hold them to account for their actions. Example: during the trial my father and his counsel were barred from any mention whatsoever of the fact that he had had cancer. In the end, their law firm was better than my father's law firm, and having more resources to commit to a case like that makes a huge difference. My father's case, and specifically the fact that his IRA was cleaned out in a case of identity theft, is very unique. He's spoken to other law firms, and most of them are shocked when they hear the story --- they've never heard of such a thing happening. Despite their sympathy, however, litigating a case this complex is very expensive, and considered too risky to take on contingency. So when you've had all your money stolen from you, what are your options? The case is now on appeal with the Wisconsin State Supreme Court, and was dismissed from Federal Court (for jurisdictional reasons, I believe). And the kicker? My father, who has his law degree but never practiced law during his career, is litigating it himself pro se because he can't afford to keep paying attorneys to help him.
:) I left out many other details that make the case even more ludicrous and infuriating (like the FBI refusing to complete an investigation that would have resulted in her being brought to justice and helped the trial against the bank, because "we've been busy since 9/11", for example), but I didn't think Slashdot was the place to yammer on about the rest of the insanity.
Thanks for your fury.
5 or 6 years ago my father came down with cancer, and his wife (now ex) took over the regular task of managing the finances of the household, etc. (This was in Wisconsin.) She also took it upon herself to fraudulently clean out his "Federally Protected" IRA, all of his *non-joint* accounts, filed false tax returns, and then ran up tens of thousands of dollars in debt in his name (hiding the statements and records to keep the game going as long as possible). She even bought a $20,000 diamond ring and a Mercedes for herself -- all while my Father was going through radiation treatment and surgery, etc. Finally, the house of cards came tumbling down, the police were notified, and she admitted everything.
The result, 5 years later: We found out that the bank had known this fraud was taking place on his accounts (we have one of their internal documents explicitly stating this), yet they covered this up during the discovery process and only gave it to us years later. She's never been arrested nor paid any restitution for what she did, the "Federally Protected" IRA was never reinstated, and a judge in Wisconsin had my father put in jail for refusing to give her his car, which the judge had mistakenly awarded to both of them during the divorce trial. My father sued the bank and has recovered nothing to date.
Your money is not safe, and no one cares.
I was just going to post something similar to what you wrote, but since you beat me to it I'll just say that I agree with you completely. The way I look at it, until they've managed to instill wants and needs, etc. into robots, it's hard for me to think of them as being anything but complex computer programs with large databases. (And in this case replicate the databases between the robots based on some rules?)
I give them a lot of credit for trying, but I guess I don't really see much here in the way of emergent behavior. (Or maybe I'm missing something?)
SSSSSnap! Very subtle snark!
And then if that website gets hacked and all the collected information is taken, you get the added bonus of some pretty funny irony!
I kid, but I like your idea.
...was surfing *a lot* of porn to get that much malware on their computer!
No matter how hard the **AA's of the world try and no matter how much money they throw at their problem, they will NEVER, EVER stop determined people from obtaining their content for free. They will always be reacting to the proactive.
Furthermore, the harder they try, the more they're just going to end up pissing off their ever-dwindling base of consumers. Right or wrong and for better or worse, it's reality.
(The above concept applies to the dumb-fsking war on terrorism, too, but I won't even begin ranting about that horrorshow.)
From the eWeek article:
"Security researchers at eEye Digital Security have discovered a serious flaw in Symantec's enterprise antivirus software that could be used by hackers to create a self-replicating "worm" attack against Symantec users. Because Symantec has not yet confirmed the existence of the problem, much less patched it, eEye is offering few details on the vulnerability, which was first disclosed late Wednesday."
Either Symantec is lying, or someone is guily of some very excessive and reckless self-promotion. It smells like excessive self-promotion to me, but I'm not privy to the details so who knows.
What kinds of information do you specifically look for on Usenet? Give me an example and I'll do a search to see if I can find useful info.
I'd never say Usenet is better than the web --- they're totally different 'animals'. I would say that Usenet is better for certain things, though. The Usenet archive purchased from Deja by Google allows you to go back decades to find information that would have expired long ago on the web. Looking for information on a vague system error? Try Google Groups sometime --- I think you'll be amazed by the wealth of information contained within. You can search by author (check out some of the threads Linus has participated in), sort by date, etc. I'm baffled to hear people say Usenet has never proven informative.
I just didn't agree with the interviewer's statement that Usenet is no longer useful, or Templeton's statement that Usenet had stagnated.
I do agree with him that it can be a great place to have an online discussion; it's sometimes necessary to plonk a few individuals beforehand, but by no means is it difficult as many in here suggest.
What method are you using to access Usenet? If you're just browsing through all of the posts in a group you'll most likely have to wade through the festering shit as you mention.
I'm assuming you've never used Google Groups to get information from Usenet. If you have, but still opine as you do, then all my sig are belong to you.
# You were involved in the early days of Usenet. Today, Usenet news seems to me to be only slightly more useful than the average Nigerian scam letter. Are you disappointed?
Not at all. What's amazing is that even though USENET has stagnated and not added much new since the 80s, it's still the best way to read an online conversation.
I couldn't disagree more. While there are definitely groups that have unfortunately descended into the chaos of uncontrollable spam and retarded flame-wars, many are thriving with great information. Even the ones infested with crap can be useful by using Google Groups search to glean the content out.
I think it would be great if, once biological processes are understood better, they could be applied to IT to make systems faster or more efficient, etc...Our biological systems have evolved over billions of years; assuming Darwin was correct, it's seems pretty safe to say that they must be incredibly robust and efficient. Why not learn from them?
The problem I have with the reverse (computers -> biology) is that we won't know how it will affect the evolution of our species. (Just take a look around you sometime to see just how polluted our gene-pool already appears to be....)
And I think I have a decent chance of taking home the prize.
If so, hiding the terms contained within should technically be considered "misrepresentation" and thus be subject to relief. (If taken to court)
The problem with this is that, by that time, it probably doesn't matter. The company may agree to remove your name from their databases, but may have already sold your name to third parties. Whether this would then warrant damages I don't know....
(I'm not a lawyer --- any real ones out there know more?)
So they finally got too bored with trying to cure cancer?