You would have basic cable then a bunch of packages that you could get on top of that. For example, Sports (would have all the sports on it) or Movies or Music or whatever. If the content provider says that e.g. you cant have ESPN without ESPN classic, fair enough, just put the both channels in the sports package.
no more "why do I have to pay for ESPN just to get Discovery" (if you want Discovery, buy the Documentaries package)
Advertising could be sold based on package (for example you could advertize on the "Sports package" and get on all channels in that package).
Its a win-win situation. Customers win since they dont have to pay for channels they have no interest in (its a good bet that if someone likes ESPN they will also have some sort of interest in Fox Sports, for example). Advertisers win since they can pay based on who their target audience is. It doesnt hurt the cable companies since under the "packages" system either since it would probobly cost more in total to get every channel in the network. It would also result in more people paying extra on top of basic cable (which is better for the cableco).
Basicly, you have a whitelist with anyone you want on it plus anyone you email could be added automaticly. Also, places like web, message boards etc where the address goes also mention some unique "keyword" that they need to include in the email (one way to do it is to link to your PGP key and tell people to encrypt and/or sign stuff). Any email that comes in that has the "keyword" is automaticly let through & whitelisted (you choose the keyword or whatever such that its not something thats likely to appear in spam) All mails not containing the keyword or on the whitelist are bounced with a "if you want to contact me, include xxx in the email body somewhere to get past my spam filters"
here is a good way to price broadband (DSL in particular): you are charged a monthly access fee which would include, say, 5 gigs per month download (enough for most people I would think) then, if you use more than your 5 gigs per month, you get charged for it at the end of the month (perhaps by directly charging your credit card or something). Basicly, they could charge a certain fee per gigabite or part thereof. That way, if someone wants to download huge amounts of MP3 files, movies, games, software or anything else for that matter, they will have to pay for the privilage of doing so (if they dont like it, they can stop downloading so much)
One answer is for everyone to move to using PGP and digital signatures, any mail thats not encoded with your key is blocked or whatever.
Another answer is this: 1.you have a whitelist that contains anyone you send an email to (would be added automaticly by some kind of filter or proxy) as well as anyone you add specificly (for example you could add *@mycompany.com to whitelist your company mailserver) 2.anyone that emails you who is on the whitelist automaticly gets through 3.when you post your email to newsgroups, message boards, web sites or otherwise give it out, you include some kind of small "key" (perhaps in a signature or something), basicly its a small text string or number. 4.if the person emailing you has included the "key" in their message somewhere or whatever, its let through and that person is added to the whitelist. 5.any other mails are bounced with a "if you want to get in touch with me, include xxx in your message body somewhere to get past my spam filters (where xxx is the "key"). If its a genuine email, the person who sent it in the first place will, if its important enough, respond to the bounceback and include the key, thus getting past the filters and getting on the whitelist.
AOL is the last company that should be involved in anything like this. AOL = AOL/TW AOL/TW owns several members of the MPAA & RIAA (who are the enemy with laws like SSSCA and DMCA) I cant think of too many cases where AOL has been friendly to open source. Mozilla didnt come from AOL, it came from netscape.
Basicly, anyone involved in open source could be involved with this Open Source Association Of America. For example: Red Hat, IBM, SuSe, FSF, OSDN (including sourceforge), mozilla.org, Apache people and others. Such a society could provide assistance, lobbying and stuff with regards to cases where a Big Company is doing stuff thats anti-open source (such as M$ suing someone for figuring out the windows media file formats or blizzard (aka Vivendi Universal) suing someone for figuring out the Battle.Net protocols.) We need to lobby for laws that protect open source. And also for laws that make reverse engineering 100% legal. Reverse engineering is important to enable Open Source projects to interact with Closed file formats and protocols. Too many companies are using closed file formats, protocols etc to keep open source alternatives out. This practice has been going on since the days of Richard M Stallman and the famous "Laser Printer" incident and it needs to be stopped now.
1.NASA retrieves rock from moon. US government now owns moon rock 2.US government encases rock in lucite ball and gives ball to Honduran government. Honduran government now presumably owns moon rock (unless there was some condition attatched to rock that specifies that US government retains title in which case things are different). Honduran dictatorship then appears and rewrites the law giving them rights to all property of the old government, including the rock. Honduran dictatorship now owns rock (presumably). Now somehow the rock gets into the possession of the colnel. If the transfer to the colnel was illegal under honduran law (i.e. the colnel stole the rock) then the colnel should be charged with theft and the person who bought the rock from him should, at best, be charged with possession of stolen property (but if you buy stolen propery then you cant be found guilty of possession unless it can be proved that you knew it was stolen when you bought it). If the transfer happened legally under honduran law(because the dictatorship gave it to him) then presumable the colnel now owns the rock and therefore he can legally transfer that which he owns to someone else in exchange for money.
Sorenson wont ever be open because apple doesnt want it open. If it became open, quicktime would loose the biggest advantage it has over other formats (from what I hear sorenson is a great codec as far as quality/compression is concerned)
What we need to do is to convince apple to let someone do a loki-like port of quicktime (either quicktime for windows or quicktime for mac) to linux and make sort of a libquicktime.so that would be freely available (much like quicktime for windows and for mac is) and that programs (such as a quicktime plugin for a browser for example) could call to access quicktime movies, including sorenson coded movies in the same way that programs call quicktime for windows or quicktime for mac to play quicktime movies. That way, sorenson stays closed and quicktime keeps that advantage but linux users can play quicktime sorenson coded movies in any player which is coded to call libquicktime.so.
here are the facts as they stand now:
1.hollywood (which is who wants this law) already uses copy controlls on their products
2.its already illegal under DMCA to crack those copy protections (witness the ebook case and the DeCSS case)
3.unless you have an approved player thats licenced by the copy controll people you cant use the copy protected stuff
4.even with manditory copy controll on all machines, someone will be able to crack it somehow.
What benifit do the movie and music industries get from having manditory copy controll on all machines.
1.The MPAA and movie industry. They wanted to get all of the good things of DVD (such as interactivity) but needed a way to stop piracy. So they made CSS to stop it. They knew that someone would probobly crack CSS eventually so they lobbied congress to make it illegal to do so.
2.The RIAA and recording industry. They are loosing (or so they claim) millions of dollars to pirates. So they want to create schemes that will prevent digital duplication of their CDs. They realized that, since their methods allow CDs to be played on CD players but not read out via CD-ROM drives using data (which is how CD rippers work) that someone would probobly write a program that "emulates" the error correction. They lobbied for the DMCA so that they could have legal back-up behind them to stop such programs.
3.The TV industry. They were already loosing advertising/subscription money because of people hooking their TVs to their TV in cards in their PCs, ripping the signal to video files and distributing it. They were also loosing money because of illegal cable descramblers that allow you to watch cable for free. So they wanted a law that allows them to protect their new digital transmissions and make them harder to digitally duplicate and then sue anyone who finds a way around it. They also wanted the DMCA so that they can sue anyone that breaks the encryption/protection on the cable signals.
and 4.The software industry. The Software industry is loosing lots of money from software piracy, even when they introduce copy protection it gets cracked. So they need a law that allows them to sue the distributers ofthe anti-copy protection devices which they hate so much (including software cracks, unprotectors for cd based copyprotection such as cdilla safedisk, mod chips that allow burnt disks to be played on games consoles and cartridge copiers for cartridge based consoles). Enter the DMCA.
I totally aggree with those that say that the anti-circumvention provisions in the DMCA are bad but when the enemy has the 4 largest entertainment industries on their side it makes the fight a lit harder to win. Thank god I live in australia where the DMCA cant touch me.
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that it now builds with MingW GCC on Win32 (well ok, some of the patches havent gone into the tree yet but still).
If you want to see the details, check bug 134113
You would have basic cable then a bunch of packages that you could get on top of that.
For example, Sports (would have all the sports on it) or Movies or Music or whatever.
If the content provider says that e.g. you cant have ESPN without ESPN classic, fair enough, just put the both channels in the sports package.
no more "why do I have to pay for ESPN just to get Discovery" (if you want Discovery, buy the Documentaries package)
Advertising could be sold based on package (for example you could advertize on the "Sports package" and get on all channels in that package).
Its a win-win situation. Customers win since they dont have to pay for channels they have no interest in (its a good bet that if someone likes ESPN they will also have some sort of interest in Fox Sports, for example). Advertisers win since they can pay based on who their target audience is.
It doesnt hurt the cable companies since under the "packages" system either since it would probobly cost more in total to get every channel in the network. It would also result in more people paying extra on top of basic cable (which is better for the cableco).
Basicly, you have a whitelist with anyone you want on it plus anyone you email could be added automaticly.
Also, places like web, message boards etc where the address goes also mention some unique "keyword" that they need to include in the email (one way to do it is to link to your PGP key and tell people to encrypt and/or sign stuff).
Any email that comes in that has the "keyword" is automaticly let through & whitelisted (you choose the keyword or whatever such that its not something thats likely to appear in spam)
All mails not containing the keyword or on the whitelist are bounced with a "if you want to contact me, include xxx in the email body somewhere to get past my spam filters"
here is a good way to price broadband (DSL in particular):
you are charged a monthly access fee which would include, say, 5 gigs per month download (enough for most people I would think)
then, if you use more than your 5 gigs per month, you get charged for it at the end of the month (perhaps by directly charging your credit card or something). Basicly, they could charge a certain fee per gigabite or part thereof.
That way, if someone wants to download huge amounts of MP3 files, movies, games, software or anything else for that matter, they will have to pay for the privilage of doing so (if they dont like it, they can stop downloading so much)
One answer is for everyone to move to using PGP and digital signatures, any mail thats not encoded with your key is blocked or whatever.
Another answer is this:
1.you have a whitelist that contains anyone you send an email to (would be added automaticly by some kind of filter or proxy) as well as anyone you add specificly (for example you could add *@mycompany.com to whitelist your company mailserver)
2.anyone that emails you who is on the whitelist automaticly gets through
3.when you post your email to newsgroups, message boards, web sites or otherwise give it out, you include some kind of small "key" (perhaps in a signature or something), basicly its a small text string or number.
4.if the person emailing you has included the "key" in their message somewhere or whatever, its let through and that person is added to the whitelist.
5.any other mails are bounced with a "if you want to get in touch with me, include xxx in your message body somewhere to get past my spam filters (where xxx is the "key"). If its a genuine email, the person who sent it in the first place will, if its important enough, respond to the bounceback and include the key, thus getting past the filters and getting on the whitelist.
AOL is the last company that should be involved in anything like this.
AOL = AOL/TW
AOL/TW owns several members of the MPAA & RIAA (who are the enemy with laws like SSSCA and DMCA)
I cant think of too many cases where AOL has been friendly to open source. Mozilla didnt come from AOL, it came from netscape.
Basicly, anyone involved in open source could be involved with this Open Source Association Of America. For example: Red Hat, IBM, SuSe, FSF, OSDN (including sourceforge), mozilla.org, Apache people and others. Such a society could provide assistance, lobbying and stuff with regards to cases where a Big Company is doing stuff thats anti-open source (such as M$ suing someone for figuring out the windows media file formats or blizzard (aka Vivendi Universal) suing someone for figuring out the Battle.Net protocols.)
We need to lobby for laws that protect open source. And also for laws that make reverse engineering 100% legal. Reverse engineering is important to enable Open Source projects to interact with Closed file formats and protocols. Too many companies are using closed file formats, protocols etc to keep open source alternatives out. This practice has been going on since the days of Richard M Stallman and the famous "Laser Printer" incident and it needs to be stopped now.
1.NASA retrieves rock from moon. US government now owns moon rock
2.US government encases rock in lucite ball and gives ball to Honduran government. Honduran government now presumably owns moon rock (unless there was some condition attatched to rock that specifies that US government retains title in which case things are different).
Honduran dictatorship then appears and rewrites the law giving them rights to all property of the old government, including the rock. Honduran dictatorship now owns rock (presumably).
Now somehow the rock gets into the possession of the colnel. If the transfer to the colnel was illegal under honduran law (i.e. the colnel stole the rock) then the colnel should be charged with theft and the person who bought the rock from him should, at best, be charged with possession of stolen property (but if you buy stolen propery then you cant be found guilty of possession unless it can be proved that you knew it was stolen when you bought it). If the transfer happened legally under honduran law(because the dictatorship gave it to him) then presumable the colnel now owns the rock and therefore he can legally transfer that which he owns to someone else in exchange for money.
Sorenson wont ever be open because apple doesnt want it open. If it became open, quicktime would loose the biggest advantage it has over other formats (from what I hear sorenson is a great codec as far as quality/compression is concerned)
What we need to do is to convince apple to let someone do a loki-like port of quicktime (either quicktime for windows or quicktime for mac) to linux and make sort of a libquicktime.so that would be freely available (much like quicktime for windows and for mac is) and that programs (such as a quicktime plugin for a browser for example) could call to access quicktime movies, including sorenson coded movies in the same way that programs call quicktime for windows or quicktime for mac to play quicktime movies. That way, sorenson stays closed and quicktime keeps that advantage but linux users can play quicktime sorenson coded movies in any player which is coded to call libquicktime.so.
here are the facts as they stand now:
1.hollywood (which is who wants this law) already uses copy controlls on their products
2.its already illegal under DMCA to crack those copy protections (witness the ebook case and the DeCSS case)
3.unless you have an approved player thats licenced by the copy controll people you cant use the copy protected stuff
4.even with manditory copy controll on all machines, someone will be able to crack it somehow.
What benifit do the movie and music industries get from having manditory copy controll on all machines.
1.The MPAA and movie industry. They wanted to get all of the good things of DVD (such as interactivity) but needed a way to stop piracy. So they made CSS to stop it. They knew that someone would probobly crack CSS eventually so they lobbied congress to make it illegal to do so. 2.The RIAA and recording industry. They are loosing (or so they claim) millions of dollars to pirates. So they want to create schemes that will prevent digital duplication of their CDs. They realized that, since their methods allow CDs to be played on CD players but not read out via CD-ROM drives using data (which is how CD rippers work) that someone would probobly write a program that "emulates" the error correction. They lobbied for the DMCA so that they could have legal back-up behind them to stop such programs. 3.The TV industry. They were already loosing advertising/subscription money because of people hooking their TVs to their TV in cards in their PCs, ripping the signal to video files and distributing it. They were also loosing money because of illegal cable descramblers that allow you to watch cable for free. So they wanted a law that allows them to protect their new digital transmissions and make them harder to digitally duplicate and then sue anyone who finds a way around it. They also wanted the DMCA so that they can sue anyone that breaks the encryption/protection on the cable signals. and 4.The software industry. The Software industry is loosing lots of money from software piracy, even when they introduce copy protection it gets cracked. So they need a law that allows them to sue the distributers ofthe anti-copy protection devices which they hate so much (including software cracks, unprotectors for cd based copyprotection such as cdilla safedisk, mod chips that allow burnt disks to be played on games consoles and cartridge copiers for cartridge based consoles). Enter the DMCA. I totally aggree with those that say that the anti-circumvention provisions in the DMCA are bad but when the enemy has the 4 largest entertainment industries on their side it makes the fight a lit harder to win. Thank god I live in australia where the DMCA cant touch me.