The reason why you cant get broadcast TV over the sattelite is basicly the simple rule that each network can have one and only one affiliate that broadcasts to a given area.
If you had broadcast TV on sattelite, people from bostom may watch e.g. NBC new york instead of NBC boston (perhaps becase it has a better local news or something) and then NBC boston looses out (ads etc)
there wouldnt be anywhere near as many virii and worms and crap about.
The design of windows means that it is insecure.
A really great way to make windows more secure: Make it so that by default, windows is installed with an administrator (who you cant actually login to from the login prompt without extra effort) and 1 or more "regular users". a "regular user" basicly has access to all normal stuff (i.e. anything thats not a risk to the system) but if they want to do something thats "risky" (e.g. if they or something they are running wants to add something to "load this at startup") they need to enter the Administrator password first. If they dont, the action is denied (for example, windows returns a "cant open file for writing error" or a "cant write registry key error" or whatever as appropriate.
Some things that should be "restricted": 1.putting any file in c:\windows\system or its sub-folders (such as c:\windows\system\drivers). Also modifying, deleting, changing etc those same files. 2.adding a program to the "this program starts at startup" list (this would also cover drivers, services etc) 3.modifying key Windows Sockets settings (for example, like how some Spyware inserts itself into those places to hook winsock) 4.perhaps there are other key settings that could be blocked (for example, access to certain control panels or changing the display settings or whatever) and 5.there should be a way for someone (with the administrator password) to specificly add extra things to the "block list" (e.g. someone could show settings as to how to stop spyware crap from changing the homepage of M$IE)
Some benifits: 1.Viruses, Worms, Trojan Horses and other crap wouldnt be able to just "silently" install themselves (since it would say "c:\documents\your settings\temp\abc123.tmp.pif wants to write to c:\windows\system\dontdeletethisorwindowswontwork. exe. If you want to allow this, type in the administrator password"
2.Spyware (e.g. Gator, New.Net etc) wouldnt be able to install without specific authorization (for example it would say "c:\downloaded files\newnetinstaller.exe wants to modify winsock settings and install its own custom crap. If you want to allow this, type in the administrator password"
3.On shared computers (e.g. family PCs or kids PCs), the parents could be the only ones that know the administrator password (and therefore prevent the kids from changing the settings)
4.On computers e.g. work machines or machines in labs at schools, the sysadmin would be the only one that knows the administrator password and therefore e.g. you dont get people installing kazza or whatever.
Thats not to say that my system would prevent installing new software, it would only prevent it if: 1.the new software wants to modify important windows settings. 2.you dont have the administrator password. and 3.when the install program gets the error back from windows "cant open file" or whatever, the install will fail in a way that makes the program unusable.
Basicly, this would be a benifit since: 1.if some program wants to do something behind your back (e.g. virus or spyware), you can be notified and more importantly block it. and 2.you can be sure that the users of your machine arent installing anything that messes with the settings or messing with them themselves.
Some might say it would cause problems but I dont believe so. For example, if a kid brings home a new game from school (that he has "borrowed" off a mate or more likely these days gotten that mate to burn him a copy of) and wants to install it, the kid puts the disk in and runs the installer. Then, if it needs to install system things (for example, new DirectX), the box asking for the password will come up and the kid will have to wait for the parents to give the OK before it can be run.
Another benifit is that if the user has to enter the password, its likely that (unless they are so cluless that they think that the "any" key is the
Not targeted to web-site conent but to users. Basicly, you go to the ad company web-site and pick from a range of different "types" of ads (e.g. ads for computer stuff or whatever). Then, anytime you visit a site with the particular providers ads on it, you only get ads from your particular category.
The problem with this I guess is that the categories that are likely to be the most popular arent the ones that bring in the most $$$.
For example, Online Casinos bring in $$$. As do Credit Card companies trying to get you to sign up for their card. And games companies offering promoting the latest "same game as last year with a new name" crap. (although that usually only happens on games related sites). Plus, technology companies (usually those selling tech like dell or whoever) And probobly some others (thanks to Mozilla I dont see many ads)
We know that purely electronic forms of voting are no good (even if they e.g. added a recipt printer to a diebold machine, how would that help?) We also know that other forms (punch cards, lever operated and others) can cause mis-interpretation or confusion. And we know that the old ways (i.e. paper balots, like in australia) are too expensive (mainly to transport, store, audit, track and count all those votes, remembering that the US has a lot more people than australia and a lot more poling booths plus the system is different)
The ideal solution is to use those paper cards like they have for multiple choice tests and things. They have the advantage of a purely paper system in that you can see exactly who you voted for and know that who you voted for is who gets recorded but they are much easier to manage/count than a piece of paper with some boxes that you mark with an X on it.
Other changes I would make: Modify the "right of copyright holders to get information from ISPs" so that they need to provide proof that violation of their copyright actually took place (i.e. they must show proof that the file being served was in fact copyrighted to them and that the file was in fact being served by this machine).
Also, modify point 5 in my first list so that it states "the usable form of the work must be available to anyone holding any legal copy of the work" (e.g. they cant charge huge sums for special versions of movies with subtitles for deaf people or make them but not make them available)
1.exemption that makes it not a DMCA violation to defeat copy protection and copy music, movies, TV shows and other audio-visual content from media for which players are no-longer manufactured commercially onto current formats.
2.exemption that makes it not a DMCA violation to copy public domain content or content for which you have secured the permission of the copyright holder to make copies.
3.exemption that makes it legal to figure out how a copy protection method works to enable your piece of hardware or software to sucessfully play copy-protected works on the condition that the software only allow the playing of original works and not copies.
This would allow e.g. WINE to crack copy protection so that origonal copy-protected games would run (but only if games that arent origonals are prevented from running)
4.an exemption that makes it legal to violate the DMCA if the "protected" content is part of either: 1.a consumable device featuring hardware or 2.a device taking consumable devices that feature hardware and is used to prevent 3rd party companies from cloning the consumable device.
The definition of "consumable device featuring hardware" as it applies above is any device that: A.gets used up/worn out as part of the normal operation of the device and requires regular replacement and B.consists of something other than "media" (that way, the exemption wouldnt apply to e.g. disposable DVDs)
Media is defined as anything where the sole purpose is to store information, i.e. Floppy Disks, Hard Disks, Optical Media, Casette Tapes, Rom Chips, Flash Memory and so on.
and 5.a blanket exemption that makes it legal to defeat copy protection where that protection prevents a disabled person (e.g. deaf, blind) from using that copy protected work (would apply to software, movies, music, books etc). This only applies if a usable copy of the work is not commercially available.
The rationale behind each of these is: 1 would make it legal to defeat copy protection for audio-visual media for which players no-longer exist
2 would make it legal to defeat copy protection for content (software, books, music, movies or whatever) which is in the public domain or for which you have permission from the copyright holder to make copies.
This also means that if you have used a program to create a work that contains copy protection (e.g. the new M$ Office 2003 with DRM features), you can legally crack copy protection on this work since you own the copyright on the work.
3 would make it legal to make a piece of software or hardware that is capable of playing copy protected works as long as it can only play origonal works and doesnt provide a means to defeat the protection. (for example, XBOX emulator that can only play origonal XBOX disks wouldnt be illegal or e.g. WINE implementing support for origonal valid copy-protected games wouldnt be illegal as long as an origonal CD is required to play and it doesnt defeat the protection)
4 would make it legal for 3rd parties to clone things like printer cartridges or car parts even where copy protection is used to prevent this (e.g. in the lexmark printer cartridge chips case)
5 would make it legal to defeat copy protection to enable disabled people to access content they wouldnt otherwise be able to access
Just what constitutes a "communications service". For example, does the "communications service" end at your cable/DSL/dialup modem? Or does it end at your web-browser? Or what?
If we cant get these new bills overturned completly, we should push for clear definitions of just what a "communications service" is to be enshrined into the bills. That way, they can only be applied in the ways that the law-makers intend.
My take on why these bills are being pushed for: 1.to enable companies providing "communications services" (e.g. cable providers, telcos etc) to go after people who are stealing service (e.g. cable pirates, phone phreakers etc) 2.to enable those same providers to have greater controlls over the networks (for example, cable companies can make it illegal to plug digital recorders into their networks and record stuff)
True. But: A.sometimes the program will work without the spyware B.this will work for software that isnt tied to a program (for example, gator, dialers, other stuff that is run manually and also things that run via security holes and so on such as viruses, trojan horses and worms) and C.this will enable administrators to block the installation of software that does these things (for example, admins can block the installation of file-sharing software that runs at startup and adds stuff to windows/system. Or they can block people who are trying to replace windows sockets components (e.g. to get around filtering software like net nanny that replaces them)
Basicly, any time a program wants to do something like put something in startup or modify winsock settings or stick files in windows system folder or modify the hosts file or dns settings or things like that, windows should come up with a nicely worded warning about why clicking "yes" is a bad idea. Also, it should log all these actions so that for example, you can see which programs installed what settings (so you know what to remove) And it should have something that allows sysadmins to turn off these things completly (just like how its possible to turn off control panel and other system things)
That way, when some idiot wants to install kazza, the system detects that kazza wants to install "privacyviolatingspyware.exe" to c:\windows\system\importantmsfile.exe" and add it to startup and denies the request.
What should be done when the request is deined (either because its completly switched off or because the user clicked "no") is that it should return for file i/o calls "cant open file" and for registry calls whatever the appropriate error is.
Or better yet, pretend to write to the registry or the file but dont actually do it.
I dont know how to deal with Real Video files or files streamed with that propriatory streaming crap but if you have a real audio file on a local disk, there are ripper programs that can convert to MP3.
I would like to see "Compulsory licensing" for copyrighted works.
i.e. if I want a particular copyrighted work (e.g. a song), the copyright holder must make it available in a usable form. (obviously a fee can be charged for this)
For example, songs must be on casette tapes or CDs or something. Movies on VHS or DVD. TV shows on VHS or DVD or something. Books would be made available either as hard-copy books or as electronic books.
Software would be tricky (for example, what happens if someone makes a request for an old arcade game that has copy protection involved. (e.g. if someone wanted a copy of Turbo Outrun which is encrypted).
There are several basic reasons why they want such long copyright terms: 1.without long copyright terms, a lot more "current" stuff comes out of copyright sooner (and therefore there is less incentive to go see the latest blockbuster or buy the latest hit game or whatever because they can get the older stuff for free AND do it legally)
2.if it falls out of copyright sooner, the right to make "derived works" (for example, yet another sequal for or even just joe random movie that happens to use the same characters)
and 3.if it falls out of copyright sooner, people could edit it (i.e. creating a derived work or mabie just a new work that used copyrighted ideas from the old one) in ways that make the studio, the origonal creator, the characters etc look bad. For example, if the origonal Mickey Mouse cartoons came out of copyright, someone could make "mickey the porn star" and get away with it (since disney no longer has the copyright)
On the other hand, I have lost count of the times where my system has had a "hard shutdown" (either because of power failure or because I knocked the plug out of the wall) and where my USB mouse wont work again untill I unplug it and plug it back in. Wierd but thats the way things seem to go.
Just fix it Basicly, the 5 things that will fix the DMCA are: 1.removal of the "people can get info on who is using ISP accounts without going through the courts by alleging copyright infringment" clause
2.a change in the anti-circumvention provisions to make it clearer. (so it cant be used for crap, as we have seen in the past, particularly it should better cover things like DeCSS that have substantial non-infringing use and clearly spell out how it should be applied in these cases)
3.clearer wording of the "exemption for interoperability" part of the law to enable people to know just how far they can go (for example, does it cover the XBOX linux team who are trying to make linux interoperate with the XBOX? Does it cover the bnetd team who are trying to make bnetd interoperate with blizzard games? Does it cover the mplayer team who are trying to make their media player interoperate with thier legally purchased DVDs?
4.add an exemption like this: The provisions of this law do not apply to someone who is creating a 3rd party clone of a physical object where that object is a consumable and gets used up in the course of its use and therefore needs replacement. (with a sutable defintion of what consitutes a "consumable")
and 5.generally re-write the law so there its a lot less open to interpretation
1.the linux stuff is server-only. if there really was a linux client, it would be using OpenGL and there are no references anywhere to OpenGL in the code.
2.I cant see anything in there that indicates Valve is violating open-source licences. There are some LGPL libaries that they are able to use under the terms of the LGPL (I dont have the time to actually check if there are any "inhouse" mods for those) and one file thats GPL which looks like its only for internal tools and not for anything thats going to be public so they arent violating the GPL there.
3.I dont think anyone will actually use this source code (or bits thereof): A.valve would pursue them if they did (for copyright violation) and B.its going to be very out-of-date (missing a chunk of "crunch time" bugfixes) by the time the game itself actually comes out.
4.Its likely that (as happened with Half-Life 1) the bits of code pertaining to things like gameplay stuff will be released
and 5.I think there will be 5 different groups that will gain from this source code:
1.cheaters will see how to write better cheats (e.g. layout of internal game structures/classes etc)
2.modders will see how to make better mods (see how game engine works, see details of propriatory file formats, able to use interal utillities to generate maps, do BSP and stuff etc)
3.competitors (in fact anyone doing 3D coding) will be able to see how Valve does
4.users of other OS's will see details that will enable it to be made to run better on other OS's (for example Linux via WINE or ReactOS when it gets Direct3D going)
and 5.graphics card lovers/technical sites/etc will be able to see if HL2 really does favor one card over another
oh and BTW, I seriously doubt that this is any kind of "officially unofficial" leak (i.e. deliberatly leak code then deny it ever happened) since how would that benifit valve?
Well basicly, the public WineX source tree is made up of: 1.code written or modified by TransGaming and released under X11 2.unmodified code from the pre-fork WINE or from ReWind and released under X11 3.code written or modified by TransGaming (origonal code being X11 licenced) that is now licenced under APL (this mainly covers the DirectX stuff) and 4.code released under the LGPL and being used (modified or unmodified) by TransGaming in complience with that licence.
basicly, a VOIP phone (e.g. vonage) looks just like any other phone and you can use it just like any other pone. Therefore, in the eyes of the states, its a telephone and should be taxed as such.
Here is how my idea would work: Basicly, when you pay a regular telco, you get a line plus you get phone service over that line. If you go for VOIP, you are still paying both for the line and the phone service, only you are paying different companies.
Currently, the company providing the phone service pays the "telco taxes" to the states. If that was changed so that the company providing the line pays the same "telco taxes" instead, this would solve the problems. VOIP wouldnt be taxed. The states wouldnt loose the tax revenue. And comsumers wouldnt pay more tax. Problem solved.
Change the tax system. Change it so that the companies providing the physical links are the ones that pay the tax. This will solve all the issues with VOIP
I dont know much about the European system but I expect that anything that has taken this long to draw up will pass in some form.
I think that the right thing to do is to demonstrate that the new rules hurt the EU because the only benifit big multinationals that can shift workers to whichever far corner of the globe is cheapest and they hurt small EU software companies.
I think also that we need to convince the EU to have tight rules on what can be patented. Personally, my big wish is to prevent patents of things like file formats (e.g. LZW patent, MPEG patent) and communications protocols and APIs. Also patents like the patent that prevents e.g. the GIMP from supporting print output options (CMYK or whatever it is)
Presumably, all the safety tests were done when it was registred and made street legal in Italy, Germany or wherever else its legal, wny cant that same test data be used instead of just repeating the same tests in a US lab just to satisfy some beaurocrat in Washington?
Basicly, if you want to import or sell a model in America (or any other country where this happens e.g. Australia) you can do so without new crash tests, emissions tests, model changes and so on as long as: 1.you are importing less than X (where X is some sutable small number) cars 2.all work (such as converting from left to right hand drive or vice versa) necessary to bring things completly up to scratch is carried out before the cars are allowed to be sold, registered and driven. and 3.the cars are street legal in other countries (e.g. europe or japan)
I know, I live there. We do have crappy polititians (you may have heard about someone called John Howard, he is the Prime Minister of Australia right now and he is a bastard who does crap like push up the cost of a university education and sending Australians to places like IRAQ when the Australian people dont want Australia to go there) who do stupid things and wont get my vote next time I get the chance to have my say.
However, thanks to our 2-house political system and the way that things are setup and how things tend to go in elections, the Government doesnt automaticly have the power to pass any bill it likes, it has to convince the opposition or the minor parties in the senate to pass the law which can and does result in amendments. For example, there was a recent bill giving ASIO (which is a spy agency and is also connected with anti-terrorisim moves like raids and stuff) greater powers to arrest and detain people they think are connected with terrorisim. However, the minor parties in the senate forced the government to change the bill (for example, giving people who are detained access to a lawyer I think was one of the changes)
Some of the other crappy things our government have been doing (or not doing) lately: 1.Not doing enough to make broadband accessable (the phone system here is mainly owned by Telstra which was government owned until they sold off 49% of it) The government should be pushing telstra to reduce the cost of broadband especially in rural areas. (since all DSL goes through Telstra and most cable goes through Foxtel which is... you guessed it... owned by Telstra there isnt much anyone can do to make broadband cheaper unless telstra drops the costs it charges to consumers and to other broadband providers)
2.Trying to sell of the remaining 51% of telstra. (thankfully its been blocked in the upper house) Naturally, the government wants the price of Telstra to be as high as possible at the point it actually sells the rest off therefore it has been doing thngs lately that are aimed at boosting the share price (like canceling several enquiries into Telstra and Telecommunications generally)
3.Trying to jack up fees for us poor uni students. Most australians tend to be at uni under the Higher Education Contributions Scheme. Basicly, this means that the government pays the money for universities but when you start earning above a certain amount, you have to start paying the government back your HECS debt. The government wants to jack up the amount that you will have to pay for each unit you study and also make it so that you get less time to complete your degree and stuff before you dont get HECS anymore.
4.Generally doing whatever George tells him to (like sending troops into IRAQ and not pusing the US, EU, Japan etc hard enough to remove unfair tarrifs, subsidies and so on)
...modifies the Web Browser configs (perfectly legal under the GPL or whatever other Open Source licence the browser(s) in question are under), removes the ads from the screensaver (by replacing it with something else entierly if need be), removes the ads from the installer (what licence is the installer under?), makes a new ISO and starts spreading it?
Me, personally, I dont mind the ads in the installer (I can always get up and go do something else while it installs, I probobly would anyway). I want to turn the screensavers off anyhow and set things up to use my monitor power saving. And as for the web-browser, I wont install the MDK mozilla package, instead prefering to install the package from mozlla.org (which is more than likely newer than whatever version mandrake sees fit to include)
introduce 1 simple easy to follow, easy to enforce rule: No one company may own more than x% of the media outlets that serve a particular area. (where x is some value that would be decided by some experts or something)
It would solve all the issues, be dead easy to judge and enforce and the only loosers are the big corps that keep putting out garbage (99% of whats on radio and at least 70-80% of whats on TV these days is garbage)
Slashdot Mirror
The reason why you cant get broadcast TV over the sattelite is basicly the simple rule that each network can have one and only one affiliate that broadcasts to a given area.
If you had broadcast TV on sattelite, people from bostom may watch e.g. NBC new york instead of NBC boston (perhaps becase it has a better local news or something) and then NBC boston looses out (ads etc)
there wouldnt be anywhere near as many virii and worms and crap about.
The design of windows means that it is insecure.
A really great way to make windows more secure:
Make it so that by default, windows is installed with an administrator (who you cant actually login to from the login prompt without extra effort) and 1 or more "regular users".
a "regular user" basicly has access to all normal stuff (i.e. anything thats not a risk to the system) but if they want to do something thats "risky" (e.g. if they or something they are running wants to add something to "load this at startup") they need to enter the Administrator password first. If they dont, the action is denied (for example, windows returns a "cant open file for writing error" or a "cant write registry key error" or whatever as appropriate.
Some things that should be "restricted":
1.putting any file in c:\windows\system or its sub-folders (such as c:\windows\system\drivers). Also modifying, deleting, changing etc those same files.
2.adding a program to the "this program starts at startup" list (this would also cover drivers, services etc)
3.modifying key Windows Sockets settings (for example, like how some Spyware inserts itself into those places to hook winsock)
4.perhaps there are other key settings that could be blocked (for example, access to certain control panels or changing the display settings or whatever)
and 5.there should be a way for someone (with the administrator password) to specificly add extra things to the "block list" (e.g. someone could show settings as to how to stop spyware crap from changing the homepage of M$IE)
Some benifits:
1.Viruses, Worms, Trojan Horses and other crap wouldnt be able to just "silently" install themselves (since it would say "c:\documents\your settings\temp\abc123.tmp.pif wants to write to c:\windows\system\dontdeletethisorwindowswontwork. exe. If you want to allow this, type in the administrator password"
2.Spyware (e.g. Gator, New.Net etc) wouldnt be able to install without specific authorization (for example it would say "c:\downloaded files\newnetinstaller.exe wants to modify winsock settings and install its own custom crap. If you want to allow this, type in the administrator password"
3.On shared computers (e.g. family PCs or kids PCs), the parents could be the only ones that know the administrator password (and therefore prevent the kids from changing the settings)
4.On computers e.g. work machines or machines in labs at schools, the sysadmin would be the only one that knows the administrator password and therefore e.g. you dont get people installing kazza or whatever.
Thats not to say that my system would prevent installing new software, it would only prevent it if:
1.the new software wants to modify important windows settings.
2.you dont have the administrator password.
and 3.when the install program gets the error back from windows "cant open file" or whatever, the install will fail in a way that makes the program unusable.
Basicly, this would be a benifit since:
1.if some program wants to do something behind your back (e.g. virus or spyware), you can be notified and more importantly block it.
and 2.you can be sure that the users of your machine arent installing anything that messes with the settings or messing with them themselves.
Some might say it would cause problems but I dont believe so.
For example, if a kid brings home a new game from school (that he has "borrowed" off a mate or more likely these days gotten that mate to burn him a copy of) and wants to install it, the kid puts the disk in and runs the installer. Then, if it needs to install system things (for example, new DirectX), the box asking for the password will come up and the kid will have to wait for the parents to give the OK before it can be run.
Another benifit is that if the user has to enter the password, its likely that (unless they are so cluless that they think that the "any" key is the
Targeted ads.
Not targeted to web-site conent but to users.
Basicly, you go to the ad company web-site and pick from a range of different "types" of ads (e.g. ads for computer stuff or whatever). Then, anytime you visit a site with the particular providers ads on it, you only get ads from your particular category.
The problem with this I guess is that the categories that are likely to be the most popular arent the ones that bring in the most $$$.
For example, Online Casinos bring in $$$. As do Credit Card companies trying to get you to sign up for their card. And games companies offering promoting the latest "same game as last year with a new name" crap. (although that usually only happens on games related sites). Plus, technology companies (usually those selling tech like dell or whoever) And probobly some others (thanks to Mozilla I dont see many ads)
We know that purely electronic forms of voting are no good (even if they e.g. added a recipt printer to a diebold machine, how would that help?)
We also know that other forms (punch cards, lever operated and others) can cause mis-interpretation or confusion.
And we know that the old ways (i.e. paper balots, like in australia) are too expensive (mainly to transport, store, audit, track and count all those votes, remembering that the US has a lot more people than australia and a lot more poling booths plus the system is different)
The ideal solution is to use those paper cards like they have for multiple choice tests and things.
They have the advantage of a purely paper system in that you can see exactly who you voted for and know that who you voted for is who gets recorded but they are much easier to manage/count than a piece of paper with some boxes that you mark with an X on it.
I had a bunch of games on my Casio CFX-9850G graphics calculator including tic-tac-toe and I think a slot machine.
Plus Tetris.
Other changes I would make:
Modify the "right of copyright holders to get information from ISPs" so that they need to provide proof that violation of their copyright actually took place (i.e. they must show proof that the file being served was in fact copyrighted to them and that the file was in fact being served by this machine).
Also, modify point 5 in my first list so that it states "the usable form of the work must be available to anyone holding any legal copy of the work" (e.g. they cant charge huge sums for special versions of movies with subtitles for deaf people or make them but not make them available)
Of course normal copyright would still apply.
1.exemption that makes it not a DMCA violation to defeat copy protection and copy music, movies, TV shows and other audio-visual content from media for which players are no-longer manufactured commercially onto current formats.
2.exemption that makes it not a DMCA violation to copy public domain content or content for which you have secured the permission of the copyright holder to make copies.
3.exemption that makes it legal to figure out how a copy protection method works to enable your piece of hardware or software to sucessfully play copy-protected works on the condition that the software only allow the playing of original works and not copies.
This would allow e.g. WINE to crack copy protection so that origonal copy-protected games would run (but only if games that arent origonals are prevented from running)
4.an exemption that makes it legal to violate the DMCA if the "protected" content is part of either:
1.a consumable device featuring hardware
or 2.a device taking consumable devices that feature hardware
and is used to prevent 3rd party companies from cloning the consumable device.
The definition of "consumable device featuring hardware" as it applies above is any device that:
A.gets used up/worn out as part of the normal operation of the device and requires regular replacement
and B.consists of something other than "media" (that way, the exemption wouldnt apply to e.g. disposable DVDs)
Media is defined as anything where the sole purpose is to store information, i.e. Floppy Disks, Hard Disks, Optical Media, Casette Tapes, Rom Chips, Flash Memory and so on.
and 5.a blanket exemption that makes it legal to defeat copy protection where that protection prevents a disabled person (e.g. deaf, blind) from using that copy protected work (would apply to software, movies, music, books etc).
This only applies if a usable copy of the work is not commercially available.
The rationale behind each of these is:
1 would make it legal to defeat copy protection for audio-visual media for which players no-longer exist
2 would make it legal to defeat copy protection for content (software, books, music, movies or whatever) which is in the public domain or for which you have permission from the copyright holder to make copies.
This also means that if you have used a program to create a work that contains copy protection (e.g. the new M$ Office 2003 with DRM features), you can legally crack copy protection on this work since you own the copyright on the work.
3 would make it legal to make a piece of software or hardware that is capable of playing copy protected works as long as it can only play origonal works and doesnt provide a means to defeat the protection. (for example, XBOX emulator that can only play origonal XBOX disks wouldnt be illegal or e.g. WINE implementing support for origonal valid copy-protected games wouldnt be illegal as long as an origonal CD is required to play and it doesnt defeat the protection)
4 would make it legal for 3rd parties to clone things like printer cartridges or car parts even where copy protection is used to prevent this (e.g. in the lexmark printer cartridge chips case)
5 would make it legal to defeat copy protection to enable disabled people to access content they wouldnt otherwise be able to access
Just what constitutes a "communications service".
For example, does the "communications service" end at your cable/DSL/dialup modem?
Or does it end at your web-browser?
Or what?
If we cant get these new bills overturned completly, we should push for clear definitions of just what a "communications service" is to be enshrined into the bills. That way, they can only be applied in the ways that the law-makers intend.
My take on why these bills are being pushed for:
1.to enable companies providing "communications services" (e.g. cable providers, telcos etc) to go after people who are stealing service (e.g. cable pirates, phone phreakers etc)
2.to enable those same providers to have greater controlls over the networks (for example, cable companies can make it illegal to plug digital recorders into their networks and record stuff)
True.
But:
A.sometimes the program will work without the spyware
B.this will work for software that isnt tied to a program (for example, gator, dialers, other stuff that is run manually and also things that run via security holes and so on such as viruses, trojan horses and worms)
and C.this will enable administrators to block the installation of software that does these things (for example, admins can block the installation of file-sharing software that runs at startup and adds stuff to windows/system. Or they can block people who are trying to replace windows sockets components (e.g. to get around filtering software like net nanny that replaces them)
Basicly, any time a program wants to do something like put something in startup or modify winsock settings or stick files in windows system folder or modify the hosts file or dns settings or things like that, windows should come up with a nicely worded warning about why clicking "yes" is a bad idea.
Also, it should log all these actions so that for example, you can see which programs installed what settings (so you know what to remove)
And it should have something that allows sysadmins to turn off these things completly (just like how its possible to turn off control panel and other system things)
That way, when some idiot wants to install kazza, the system detects that kazza wants to install "privacyviolatingspyware.exe" to c:\windows\system\importantmsfile.exe" and add it to startup and denies the request.
What should be done when the request is deined (either because its completly switched off or because the user clicked "no") is that it should return for file i/o calls "cant open file" and for registry calls whatever the appropriate error is.
Or better yet, pretend to write to the registry or the file but dont actually do it.
I dont know how to deal with Real Video files or files streamed with that propriatory streaming crap but if you have a real audio file on a local disk, there are ripper programs that can convert to MP3.
I would like to see "Compulsory licensing" for copyrighted works.
i.e. if I want a particular copyrighted work (e.g. a song), the copyright holder must make it available in a usable form. (obviously a fee can be charged for this)
For example, songs must be on casette tapes or CDs or something.
Movies on VHS or DVD.
TV shows on VHS or DVD or something.
Books would be made available either as hard-copy books or as electronic books.
Software would be tricky (for example, what happens if someone makes a request for an old arcade game that has copy protection involved. (e.g. if someone wanted a copy of Turbo Outrun which is encrypted).
There are several basic reasons why they want such long copyright terms:
1.without long copyright terms, a lot more "current" stuff comes out of copyright sooner (and therefore there is less incentive to go see the latest blockbuster or buy the latest hit game or whatever because they can get the older stuff for free AND do it legally)
2.if it falls out of copyright sooner, the right to make "derived works" (for example, yet another sequal for or even just joe random movie that happens to use the same characters)
and 3.if it falls out of copyright sooner, people could edit it (i.e. creating a derived work or mabie just a new work that used copyrighted ideas from the old one) in ways that make the studio, the origonal creator, the characters etc look bad.
For example, if the origonal Mickey Mouse cartoons came out of copyright, someone could make "mickey the porn star" and get away with it (since disney no longer has the copyright)
On the other hand, I have lost count of the times where my system has had a "hard shutdown" (either because of power failure or because I knocked the plug out of the wall) and where my USB mouse wont work again untill I unplug it and plug it back in. Wierd but thats the way things seem to go.
Just fix it
Basicly, the 5 things that will fix the DMCA are:
1.removal of the "people can get info on who is using ISP accounts without going through the courts by alleging copyright infringment" clause
2.a change in the anti-circumvention provisions to make it clearer. (so it cant be used for crap, as we have seen in the past, particularly it should better cover things like DeCSS that have substantial non-infringing use and clearly spell out how it should be applied in these cases)
3.clearer wording of the "exemption for interoperability" part of the law to enable people to know just how far they can go (for example, does it cover the XBOX linux team who are trying to make linux interoperate with the XBOX? Does it cover the bnetd team who are trying to make bnetd interoperate with blizzard games? Does it cover the mplayer team who are trying to make their media player interoperate with thier legally purchased DVDs?
4.add an exemption like this:
The provisions of this law do not apply to someone who is creating a 3rd party clone of a physical object where that object is a consumable and gets used up in the course of its use and therefore needs replacement. (with a sutable defintion of what consitutes a "consumable")
and 5.generally re-write the law so there its a lot less open to interpretation
1.the linux stuff is server-only.
if there really was a linux client, it would be using OpenGL and there are no references anywhere to OpenGL in the code.
2.I cant see anything in there that indicates Valve is violating open-source licences.
There are some LGPL libaries that they are able to use under the terms of the LGPL (I dont have the time to actually check if there are any "inhouse" mods for those) and one file thats GPL which looks like its only for internal tools and not for anything thats going to be public so they arent violating the GPL there.
3.I dont think anyone will actually use this source code (or bits thereof):
A.valve would pursue them if they did (for copyright violation)
and B.its going to be very out-of-date (missing a chunk of "crunch time" bugfixes) by the time the game itself actually comes out.
4.Its likely that (as happened with Half-Life 1) the bits of code pertaining to things like gameplay stuff will be released
and 5.I think there will be 5 different groups that will gain from this source code:
1.cheaters will see how to write better cheats (e.g. layout of internal game structures/classes etc)
2.modders will see how to make better mods (see how game engine works, see details of propriatory file formats, able to use interal utillities to generate maps, do BSP and stuff etc)
3.competitors (in fact anyone doing 3D coding) will be able to see how Valve does
4.users of other OS's will see details that will enable it to be made to run better on other OS's (for example Linux via WINE or ReactOS when it gets Direct3D going)
and 5.graphics card lovers/technical sites/etc will be able to see if HL2 really does favor one card over another
oh and BTW, I seriously doubt that this is any kind of "officially unofficial" leak (i.e. deliberatly leak code then deny it ever happened) since how would that benifit valve?
Well basicly, the public WineX source tree is made up of:
1.code written or modified by TransGaming and released under X11
2.unmodified code from the pre-fork WINE or from ReWind and released under X11
3.code written or modified by TransGaming (origonal code being X11 licenced) that is now licenced under APL (this mainly covers the DirectX stuff)
and 4.code released under the LGPL and being used (modified or unmodified) by TransGaming in complience with that licence.
basicly, a VOIP phone (e.g. vonage) looks just like any other phone and you can use it just like any other pone. Therefore, in the eyes of the states, its a telephone and should be taxed as such.
Here is how my idea would work:
Basicly, when you pay a regular telco, you get a line plus you get phone service over that line.
If you go for VOIP, you are still paying both for the line and the phone service, only you are paying different companies.
Currently, the company providing the phone service pays the "telco taxes" to the states.
If that was changed so that the company providing the line pays the same "telco taxes" instead, this would solve the problems.
VOIP wouldnt be taxed.
The states wouldnt loose the tax revenue.
And comsumers wouldnt pay more tax.
Problem solved.
Change the tax system.
Change it so that the companies providing the physical links are the ones that pay the tax.
This will solve all the issues with VOIP
I dont know much about the European system but I expect that anything that has taken this long to draw up will pass in some form.
I think that the right thing to do is to demonstrate that the new rules hurt the EU because the only benifit big multinationals that can shift workers to whichever far corner of the globe is cheapest and they hurt small EU software companies.
I think also that we need to convince the EU to have tight rules on what can be patented. Personally, my big wish is to prevent patents of things like file formats (e.g. LZW patent, MPEG patent) and communications protocols and APIs.
Also patents like the patent that prevents e.g. the GIMP from supporting print output options (CMYK or whatever it is)
Presumably, all the safety tests were done when it was registred and made street legal in Italy, Germany or wherever else its legal, wny cant that same test data be used instead of just repeating the same tests in a US lab just to satisfy some beaurocrat in Washington?
Basicly, if you want to import or sell a model in America (or any other country where this happens e.g. Australia) you can do so without new crash tests, emissions tests, model changes and so on as long as:
1.you are importing less than X (where X is some sutable small number) cars
2.all work (such as converting from left to right hand drive or vice versa) necessary to bring things completly up to scratch is carried out before the cars are allowed to be sold, registered and driven.
and 3.the cars are street legal in other countries (e.g. europe or japan)
I know, I live there.
We do have crappy polititians (you may have heard about someone called John Howard, he is the Prime Minister of Australia right now and he is a bastard who does crap like push up the cost of a university education and sending Australians to places like IRAQ when the Australian people dont want Australia to go there) who do stupid things and wont get my vote next time I get the chance to have my say.
However, thanks to our 2-house political system and the way that things are setup and how things tend to go in elections, the Government doesnt automaticly have the power to pass any bill it likes, it has to convince the opposition or the minor parties in the senate to pass the law which can and does result in amendments. For example, there was a recent bill giving ASIO (which is a spy agency and is also connected with anti-terrorisim moves like raids and stuff) greater powers to arrest and detain people they think are connected with terrorisim. However, the minor parties in the senate forced the government to change the bill (for example, giving people who are detained access to a lawyer I think was one of the changes)
Some of the other crappy things our government have been doing (or not doing) lately:
1.Not doing enough to make broadband accessable (the phone system here is mainly owned by Telstra which was government owned until they sold off 49% of it) The government should be pushing telstra to reduce the cost of broadband especially in rural areas. (since all DSL goes through Telstra and most cable goes through Foxtel which is... you guessed it... owned by Telstra there isnt much anyone can do to make broadband cheaper unless telstra drops the costs it charges to consumers and to other broadband providers)
2.Trying to sell of the remaining 51% of telstra. (thankfully its been blocked in the upper house)
Naturally, the government wants the price of Telstra to be as high as possible at the point it actually sells the rest off therefore it has been doing thngs lately that are aimed at boosting the share price (like canceling several enquiries into Telstra and Telecommunications generally)
3.Trying to jack up fees for us poor uni students.
Most australians tend to be at uni under the Higher Education Contributions Scheme. Basicly, this means that the government pays the money for universities but when you start earning above a certain amount, you have to start paying the government back your HECS debt.
The government wants to jack up the amount that you will have to pay for each unit you study and also make it so that you get less time to complete your degree and stuff before you dont get HECS anymore.
4.Generally doing whatever George tells him to (like sending troops into IRAQ and not pusing the US, EU, Japan etc hard enough to remove unfair tarrifs, subsidies and so on)
and 5.Generally doing various crappy things.
...modifies the Web Browser configs (perfectly legal under the GPL or whatever other Open Source licence the browser(s) in question are under), removes the ads from the screensaver (by replacing it with something else entierly if need be), removes the ads from the installer (what licence is the installer under?), makes a new ISO and starts spreading it?
Me, personally, I dont mind the ads in the installer (I can always get up and go do something else while it installs, I probobly would anyway).
I want to turn the screensavers off anyhow and set things up to use my monitor power saving.
And as for the web-browser, I wont install the MDK mozilla package, instead prefering to install the package from mozlla.org (which is more than likely newer than whatever version mandrake sees fit to include)
introduce 1 simple easy to follow, easy to enforce rule:
No one company may own more than x% of the media outlets that serve a particular area. (where x is some value that would be decided by some experts or something)
It would solve all the issues, be dead easy to judge and enforce and the only loosers are the big corps that keep putting out garbage (99% of whats on radio and at least 70-80% of whats on TV these days is garbage)