I'm not saying downloading Rome is right, just that HBO might more effectively spend their money finding a way to make the show available at a price and via a medium that the current pirates would buy.
But you make a good point. I do ultimately see many content providers using alternate avenues of getting to content (see "Everybody Hates Chris" on Google video, for example). There's a lot of pitfalls, however--in addition to the overhead of setting up the machines to serve files, payment systems, and websites, you also have to make sure that people don't share the downloaded file that they've purchased, etc.
HBO feels wronged, but is not going through the courts.
Indeed, they are going through the courts (or at least using a system on the periphery of the courts)--elsewhere on this board, you'll see a copy of a Cease and Desist or somesuch legalese letter a user has received through their ISP (Speakeasy).
In addition, their technical hack allows them to pursue this legally, since otherwise they wouldn't be able to track the individual IPs of downloaders. Now they could provide the full file in question, but by offering zero-content versions of the file, they get the (perhaps spurious) message out that downloaders are wasting their time attempting to get their content. This both deters future downloaders and encourages people who are genuinely interested in the content to subscribe to their service.
In this case, it seems like a mean thing to do, both because they are interrupting other's activities and because they could have provided what the people wanted if they (HBO) wanted to.
A question for you: Why should HBO, "a large corporation," turn a blind eye to "other people's activites" and provide "what the people [want]" if both the people's activites and what they want negatively affect their bottom line? Indeed, HBO does provide what people want--on their channels and through On-Demand services.
To play devil's advocate, HBO is a pay-subscription service--you pay a monthly fee, you get access to their content. They're even quite nice about it--if you miss Rome on Sunday, you're welcome to watch it on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or Saturday because they show repeats incessantly.
Forget to catch a repeat? They push it onto the On-Demand service for subscribers who pay for said service
So after that multitude of opportunities to see a given episode of Rome, who are the majority of people attempting to download the episode? Of course, you'll have some people who forgot to set their VCRs or only have one out of the seven HBO channels available, or who's recording got cut off if they didn't pad it correctly.
But the obvious answer: The majority of downloaders will be people who want the content without paying for it. Hence, people who do not have on-demand access to the content and therefore have no fair use rights to it.
Not to mention the author's short-list contains "Small Soldiers" and "Galaxy Quest".
Granted, the reviewer neglects to mention that the two chapters on the aforementioned movies are labelled "Comedy 1" and "Comedy 2." His omission seems a bit disingenuous, as if his primary goal is to condemn the book and any information that does not support his thesis can be ignored.
Indeed, complaining that a book with the subtitle "Reading Science Fiction Film" does not include anything about the Lord of the Rings trilogy is not unlike bitching that your fruit salad has no bacon.
From what I gather from the description I've read, the book is less an examination of the philosophical underpinnings of individual science fiction stories, and more about the affect that science fiction films have had on both filmmaking and science fiction storytelling.
In the Enter the Matrix game, when you summon all the ships for the meeting that takes place at the beginning of Reloaded, you leave a message on a answering machine with Laurence Fishburne saying "You have reached the Daniel Institute of Dream Interpretation."
I remember Big Numbers and still have issues 1 and 2.
I seem to recall that Moore and Sienkiewicz didn't finish it because Moore's scripts were so convoluted and nitpickingly precise that Sienkiewicz damn near had a nervous breakdown trying to illustrate them.
I got mad at the PC For screwing up the Jumble caper. I hope I don't see its name in the paper. In the obituarieeees, 'cause that would mean that it's dead The PC Is Not Dead I'm so glad the PC is not Dead.
The Slammer worm in 2001 managed to bring down the network at Ohio's David-Besse nuclear plant and concerns kept growing at the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Umm, why the hell would a self-contained/self-sustaining system need to be connected to an external network in the first place?
Sorry, you work at a Nuclear Power Plant? Check your frelling AOL/Yahoo/Hotmail e-mail on your own damn computer, on your own damn time.
A note about Superman 423 and Action Comics 583: the two-part story they contained, "Whatever Happened to The Man of Tomorrow?" was written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons, who would go on to make the quintessential modern comic, Watchmen.
I loves me some All-in-One Gestures. There's a big list of configurable actions you can take with gestures, not the least of which is "Open selection in new window" for when people don't link URLs in web forums.
Lately, I've come to think that website updates would be better served when presented as RSS/Atom feeds. Granted some sensitive information would still require e-mail.
As detailed in the first reply to the parent, it was the Linux General Store. Right around the corner from my old jerb, it shared a street with two adult entertainment venues, two bars, and used to have a large Tux mural on the side of the building which was a bit unseemly and menacing at night.
You do realize that within a typical household, there are 5 appliances: TV, VCR, DVD, Cable, Amp. There could even be a CD player/charger, but let's limit ourselves to 5.
I would challenge the assertion that the typical household has an Amp. And most of the cable boxes that I've dealt with generally power the TV, and most of the technically uninclined hook their DVD player through the coaxial input of the TV to watch on Channel 3 or 4.
In my experience, running a source through an Amp is such an incredible hassle for people, most of them hire/draft people to do it for them, and then balk at actually using the system or get a technical friend to write instructions down on a piece of paper for the endtable.
You do realize that there are 32 combinations for these appliances to be on or off. Granted not all of them make sense, let's say just 5. Now you are saying that your solution is to program the transition from every combination to every other combination. That is 25 pre-programmed buttons to just start up or shut down everything.
I'm saying to program specific transitions (i.e. switch the Amp to DVD source and go back to the DVD functions). And keep the simple ones simple enough--DVD on/DVD off is easy enough with the power button.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not saying downloading Rome is right, just that HBO might more effectively spend their money finding a way to make the show available at a price and via a medium that the current pirates would buy.
HBO shows available at a price and medium that many current pirates would buy.
But you make a good point. I do ultimately see many content providers using alternate avenues of getting to content (see "Everybody Hates Chris" on Google video, for example). There's a lot of pitfalls, however--in addition to the overhead of setting up the machines to serve files, payment systems, and websites, you also have to make sure that people don't share the downloaded file that they've purchased, etc.
HBO feels wronged, but is not going through the courts.
Indeed, they are going through the courts (or at least using a system on the periphery of the courts)--elsewhere on this board, you'll see a copy of a Cease and Desist or somesuch legalese letter a user has received through their ISP (Speakeasy).
In addition, their technical hack allows them to pursue this legally, since otherwise they wouldn't be able to track the individual IPs of downloaders. Now they could provide the full file in question, but by offering zero-content versions of the file, they get the (perhaps spurious) message out that downloaders are wasting their time attempting to get their content. This both deters future downloaders and encourages people who are genuinely interested in the content to subscribe to their service.
In this case, it seems like a mean thing to do, both because they are interrupting other's activities and because they could have provided what the people wanted if they (HBO) wanted to.
A question for you: Why should HBO, "a large corporation," turn a blind eye to "other people's activites" and provide "what the people [want]" if both the people's activites and what they want negatively affect their bottom line? Indeed, HBO does provide what people want--on their channels and through On-Demand services.
To play devil's advocate, HBO is a pay-subscription service--you pay a monthly fee, you get access to their content. They're even quite nice about it--if you miss Rome on Sunday, you're welcome to watch it on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or Saturday because they show repeats incessantly.
Forget to catch a repeat? They push it onto the On-Demand service for subscribers who pay for said service
So after that multitude of opportunities to see a given episode of Rome, who are the majority of people attempting to download the episode? Of course, you'll have some people who forgot to set their VCRs or only have one out of the seven HBO channels available, or who's recording got cut off if they didn't pad it correctly.
But the obvious answer: The majority of downloaders will be people who want the content without paying for it. Hence, people who do not have on-demand access to the content and therefore have no fair use rights to it.
It's more popular than you know.
There's no affiliate shit on that link, btw. I don't give a shit if you don't buy the book.
Not to mention the author's short-list contains "Small Soldiers" and "Galaxy Quest".
Granted, the reviewer neglects to mention that the two chapters on the aforementioned movies are labelled "Comedy 1" and "Comedy 2." His omission seems a bit disingenuous, as if his primary goal is to condemn the book and any information that does not support his thesis can be ignored.
Indeed, complaining that a book with the subtitle "Reading Science Fiction Film" does not include anything about the Lord of the Rings trilogy is not unlike bitching that your fruit salad has no bacon.
From what I gather from the description I've read, the book is less an examination of the philosophical underpinnings of individual science fiction stories, and more about the affect that science fiction films have had on both filmmaking and science fiction storytelling.
In the Enter the Matrix game, when you summon all the ships for the meeting that takes place at the beginning of Reloaded, you leave a message on a answering machine with Laurence Fishburne saying "You have reached the Daniel Institute of Dream Interpretation."
Which was kind of neat.
Kind of.
I remember Big Numbers and still have issues 1 and 2.
I seem to recall that Moore and Sienkiewicz didn't finish it because Moore's scripts were so convoluted and nitpickingly precise that Sienkiewicz damn near had a nervous breakdown trying to illustrate them.
I got mad at the PC
For screwing up the Jumble caper.
I hope I don't see its name in the paper.
In the obituarieeees,
'cause that would mean that it's dead
The PC Is Not Dead
I'm so glad the PC is not Dead.
Sorry, dude, you must be confusing me with some other Chinese guy--I've never given you an anal probe while dressed in a snazzy uniform.
I don't even know you...
I'm more evil than Saucer people??
Who would've guessed?
The Slammer worm in 2001 managed to bring down the network at Ohio's David-Besse nuclear plant and concerns kept growing at the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Umm, why the hell would a self-contained/self-sustaining system need to be connected to an external network in the first place?
Sorry, you work at a Nuclear Power Plant? Check your frelling AOL/Yahoo/Hotmail e-mail on your own damn computer, on your own damn time.
Joe Liebermann & Video games.
Aside from allowing an unaccompanied client access to the Big Red Button, perhaps?
So, what you're saying is that you've stopped looking at porn?
I want DLP micromirror devices combined with RGB silicon lasers now! One chip lightweight laser DLP projector!
That's exactly what I was thinking--although, we could skip the micromirror and use LCOS...
Umm, if you had a clone, why not just take his jaw?
A note about Superman 423 and Action Comics 583: the two-part story they contained, "Whatever Happened to The Man of Tomorrow?" was written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons, who would go on to make the quintessential modern comic, Watchmen.
Nah. That was all just a misguided hallucination.
He also played Nigel, Lex Luthor's butler (a.k.a. "Dark Alfred") on The Adventures of Lois and Clark.
I loves me some All-in-One Gestures. There's a big list of configurable actions you can take with gestures, not the least of which is "Open selection in new window" for when people don't link URLs in web forums.
Lately, I've come to think that website updates would be better served when presented as RSS/Atom feeds. Granted some sensitive information would still require e-mail.
Nope--my old jaerb.
As detailed in the first reply to the parent, it was the Linux General Store. Right around the corner from my old jerb, it shared a street with two adult entertainment venues, two bars, and used to have a large Tux mural on the side of the building which was a bit unseemly and menacing at night.
The DVD was going to have a video of someone hurling insults at the viewer. ...'Cause BDSM is pretty difficult to do, virtually.
You do realize that within a typical household, there are 5 appliances: TV, VCR, DVD, Cable, Amp. There could even be a CD player/charger, but let's limit ourselves to 5.
I would challenge the assertion that the typical household has an Amp. And most of the cable boxes that I've dealt with generally power the TV, and most of the technically uninclined hook their DVD player through the coaxial input of the TV to watch on Channel 3 or 4.
In my experience, running a source through an Amp is such an incredible hassle for people, most of them hire/draft people to do it for them, and then balk at actually using the system or get a technical friend to write instructions down on a piece of paper for the endtable.
You do realize that there are 32 combinations for these appliances to be on or off. Granted not all of them make sense, let's say just 5. Now you are saying that your solution is to program the transition from every combination to every other combination. That is 25 pre-programmed buttons to just start up or shut down everything.
I'm saying to program specific transitions (i.e. switch the Amp to DVD source and go back to the DVD functions). And keep the simple ones simple enough--DVD on/DVD off is easy enough with the power button.