Interesting offtopic flamebait at best, but I digress...
While we're doing the ball-less class-action suit, STOP F'ING BUYING CDs AND MUSIC and take away their bottomless pit of money. Right now they're raking in the dough so they can afford to pay plenty of lawyers to argue about how much piracy (Yarrrr!) is hurting the industry. Fuck them at both ends, and maybe get some results (or at least an NC-17 rating!)
- Gran Turismo 4 - being able to drive a car and smash into things with zero damage... what could be less stressful?
- Doom - the original. it makes me happy that I can play Doom on practically any device. I don't necessarily play it, but if its available for my new gadget (phone, laptop, whatever), i'll download it and run it to make myself feel good.
- Mario Kart 64 - I can crush anyone in this game. Major ego booster.
- Freecell - because its pretty much always around
- i can't even think of a 5th game (and to be honest, Freecell was a stretch)
That's actually just about all the games I play. I've never played any of the *crack MMORPGS, mainly because I know what would happen to my life if I did; I spend enough time sitting in front of my computers as it is.
The really sad part is that they have a perfect already working example in allofmp3.com, but their answer was to threaten to reject the *country* of Russia from the WTO if they didn't do something about the thorn in the collective ass of a few big corporations. I don't know if allofmp3.com's prices (which are based on the file size as a proxy for bandwidth costs, not based on some marketing-driven, pseudo-qualitative price-fixing scheme) are fair market value, but I like them as a counter-offer to Apple's opening bid of $1/song.
Pardon my French, but the RIAA is a bunch of pussies. They are afraid of competition. If $1.69 for an album pays the bills in Russia, then maybe the folks selling through the iTunes store are living a little too large.
Yes. Ignorance is the underlying problem. "Creationism vs Evolution" was a specific example I chose to illustrate the point.
In particular I was responding to the last paragraph in your previous post. I do not find religion offensive; I believe it is a personal choice, and that I should not impose my religious views on others. Rather I prefer religious freedom, where you are free to practice whatever you choose, so long as you don't impose your religion on me. So as religion is private, but not offensive it does not follow that swearing, while perhaps offensive to an ignorant minority, need not be private.
On the other hand, whereas swearing is pretty harmless (except perhaps if it exceeds 85db for over a minute, which could potentially cause permanent damage to ones hearing), the teaching of creationism (or "intelligent design" if you prefer that term) in schools goes beyond ignorance, and is teaching things that are untrue as a replacement for scientific fact.
I do not automatically accept the word of a supposed "Authority Figure" (ie, these "scientific experts" you mention in whom some people place their trust) as fact. For example, I believe in gravity because if I let go of something it falls, not because some guy named "Newton" observed the same thing a few centuries earlier.
I'm assuming your 7th grade text book was older than mine was. Scientific knowledge expands over time, largely due to technological progress. Before microscopes no one could see cells, or molecules, or atoms, or electrons, or quarks, so there wasn't a whole lot written about them back then. Science also builds on itself by applying new information as it is observed. Maybe your "dumbed down" text book was wrong (it happens), or maybe it is correct based on the knowledge a 7th grader should have.
The current computer science curriculum at the college I attended is entirely different from what was taught to me 15 years ago. For example, they use Java, while Java didn't exist when I was in school. That doesn't mean that what I learned was wrong, its just different. I learned what was current in the early 90's, and today's students are learning with more powerful languages than those I used. With the strong foundation I received through my education, I can apply concepts I learned back then to the languages of today.
On the other hand, the Bible hasn't changed much to reflect the differences over the last 5000 or so years, nevermind the last century. Then again, neither has Moby Dick. Or most other works of fiction. They're good stories as they are. But I wouldn't use them as a scientific reference, or teach them as factual.
You're too quick to dismiss downloading as illegal. I don't believe that has been determined yet, but I'm not a lawyer.
Downloading music is a great way to try before you buy, so you don't get suckered into blowing your allowance on some one-hit-wonder crap band's whole album. Its a great way to explore different music and discover new bands, other than the "top 40" you might hear on the radio. If you had to buy every new CD that came out in order to hear new music, no one could afford it (maybe if you were really rich and bought them from allofmp3.com... maybe).
The "legal" download sites (iTunes, etc) rip off the consumer by selling an inferior, DRM-crippled product at close to the same price as the packaged CD. The music is typically tied to the computer, or to a specific brand of player, whereas ripped CDs can be played on practically any device.
It hasn't been conclusively shown that music downloads displace sales. On the other hand it has been shown that people who download music tend to buy more music than people who do not download. (Personally I don't download music and I RARELY buy music, since napster's demise (the real one, not that sorry-ass service exploiting the name). As far as I'm concerened the whole recording industry can go fuck itself until they pull their heads out of their asses and stop impeding technological and cultural progress).
And the media, which is mostly owned by the same companies that own the recording industry, is strongly biased in favor of the recording industry, as evidenced by their use of the terms "legal" and "illegal" to describe the various download sites. So its understandably difficult for people to see the other side of the issue; that maybe copyright laws were enacted not only to make a small group of record executives into billionaires, but also to foster creativity, encourage the spread knowledge, and support the public domain.
From what I see, there are 2 kinds of music stores: the ones who have been sued by the RIAA, and the ones who have yet to be sued. Meanwhile they're laughing at us in Sweden.
the last thing they want is to hear their toddler repeating "fuck, fuck, fuckety-fuck..." because they heard it on the radio
Its much funnier when its the parent, not the radio, who "teaches" their child to say "fuck, fuckety fuck-fuck!"
Its especially funny when they try to get the child (who has no idea what they're saying, or that its at all offensive) not to say "that word" anymore. To the child its just another word, and saying it gets a really strong response from mom & dad, so they'll keep saying it. Its probably not until several years later that they learn its a "bad word", making it even that much more enticing.
Its all so fucking stupid. Jesus Titty-Fucking Christ on a popsicle stick! Seriously, what's the harm?
On the other hand, brainwashing kids to think that Creationism has any validity and is as credible a theory as Evolution does cause actual long-term harm to their intelligence, and to our country as a whole. It may be a neat story, but if our future textbooks discount real science and promote fairy tales as the truth, the rest of the world is going to leave us far, far behind.
PS - TV stars don't have to be naked to be bad role models. To the best of my knowledge Pat Robertson has never exposed his naughty bits on TV, but he's still doing a great job of ruining this country by exploiting people's ignorance. I'll take a bare-chested floozy over that asshole any day of the week (except Thursdays at 9... CSI fucking rules!).
But yes, swearing loudly in a small public space should be regulated
You're fucking nuts, dude! I can fucking say whatever the fuck i want, wherever the fuck I want, and the fucking Constitution totally fucking backs my ass up on that, motherfucker!
Are your eyes bleeding? No? Fuckin' A!
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but fucking works won't do jack shit!
The only reason "precious cusswords" have any...shit.. what the fuck would you call it? "power?" For lack of a better term, let's fucking use it... Where the hell was I... Oh yeah!
The only reason "precious cusswords" have any power is from simple-minded asswipes like yourself taking such offense at hearing certain phonetic patterns. Get over it already.
The DRM currently being Beta Tested on consumers already restricts the "spread of knowledge". In fact the whole purpose of current DRM efforts is precisely to restrict if and how a user may access the content. And if you can't get at the content, you can't gain the knowledge. None of the DRM efforts are attempting to stop the massive bootleg CD and DVD industry, which doesn't even bother with the protected digital files to begin with... they simply dupe discs. Its all geared towards consumer inconvenience, which makes the opposite of sense.
The DMCA is a wonderful example of a law stifling the spread of knowledge. Not long after the DMCA was passed there was a professor somewhere who had found a security flaw in PDFs or maybe it was to allow PDFs to be viewable on ebook readers. I don't remember. Anyway, he intended to present his research at a conference, but did not due to legal threats based on the DMCA that he would be arrested for divulging information about flaws in the PDF DRM. That's what you and I might call censorship, and certainly is a first amendment violation.
I'm more or less OK with the ideas of trademarks and copyright. They serve a valid purpose. I'm not arguing that.
I just feel that the changes to those laws, starting back with the Sony Bono copyright term-extension (75 or 90 years after death, so your kids can keep exclusive rights to exploit your body of work) have unfairly shifted the balance away from the spread of knowledge, in order to line the pockets of a greedy few. Music, books and movies we enjoy today will not be accessible in the public domain until long after we are all dead. If they don't maintain their popularity, they will go out of print, and even fanatics won't be able to find a legal copy. And even if they do last long enough, the DRM on the digital files may still restrict access. We're heading in the wrong direction.
Although no form of DRM has successfully locked down anything yet, there are still many entities with big bankrolls working hard to try to make that happen, and they are abusing law to accomplish what they fail to do technologically, all in the name of "intellectual property protection". The future of IPP law is precisely about limiting the free exchange of knowledge.
Yeah, but we already have all that. Its just not right here, where our laws matter.
Those shoes you're wearing (ok... maybe not yours, but surely these Nike's...) were probably sewn together with the soft touch only a child can give. Granted those children are being exploited elsewhere in the world, outside of our laws, but companies within our borders are still using that labor to keep their costs low.
I admit that some of what I say is exaggerated, perhaps even unfounded;), but playing to the center doesn't seem to work for anyone lately.
Let's see. Please tell me a better business plan than outlawing automobiles so that horse and buggy drivers won't be out of a job. Progress happens, and outdated business models cannot always compete in the future.
There are existing laws that provide the kind of protection you describe. I don't have issue with those. In fact, I think its great that the Chinese government is going after the mass bootleggers who are in fact ripping off the media industry by doing exactly what you say.
What I disagree with are all of the new laws that Old-Fat-Lazy-Businesses are trying to force on the world in order to slow or even stop technological and cultural progress. Its a bunch of rich bastards manipulating the system at the expense of the rest of the world. Perhaps that's a good business model while it lasts, but I certainly don't want to put up with it as a consumer.
I agree that $3 CDRs sold on the street are rip-offs of the $15 CDs sold in the "real stores" (and I applaud the Chinese Gov't for going after them), but I also believe that $15 CDs are a ripoff for the consumer, when more efficient and cheaper methods of distribution are available. The industry is crippling the Internet as a distribution method with DRM in order to save the huge margins they still make on the outdated medium. Oh yeah.. and they keep trying to cripple CDs, too, to try to move us towards acceptance (kind of how 10 years of unfixed bugs led us to accept "Blue Screen of Death" as a fact of life).
Business models aren't meant to last forever. Corporations can die. Its ok.
Right, but the other guy's point is that if these zones don't exist, the rich, powerful and EVIL will still do the bad stuff.
And living in a society of law is great until the rich and powerful (and current Presidential Administrations, for example) do not follow the laws that they force and enforce on the poor and less powerful. For example we citizens of the US follow the laws in the Constitution, while our President disregards more than half of them, and has me scared out of my gourd that I might get picked up and secretly held without charges (under the "PATRIOT" Act, no less) simply for speaking my mind on my disappointment in how our Country, and our federal government in particular, has been behaving the last 6 years.
I honestly believe that a "Total Lawless Zone" is better than what we currently have (though 6 years ago, I probably would have agreed with you).
The freedom is exactly why you need to treat it with skepticism. The lies on the Internet don't have to filter through the editors at the paper or the censors on TV. They go up right beside the truth, and have often tricked the "real" news agencies.
But that's a good thing. If you get practice with reality checks reading the harmless absurdities posted in/. threads, you're much better prepared to catch the lies told by our newspapers, TV personalities, and current Presidents.
I agree about keeping the FCC off the Tubes. Their silly regulations make public broadcast of "bad words" a luxury for the super-rich. And did you know that FCC fines are tax deductable? So fucking bogus.
Dude, security holes and software bugs aren't limited to just shell, network and IE.
Remember the flaw in the way windows processed JPEGs, such that one could compose an image that caused a buffer overflow to execute malicious code? Just by viewing a image (media function!) your system could be compromised.
Remember the similar bugs in Windows Media? More bad media functions!
They could patch this bug quickly because they had a lot of money and a new product launch dependant on it (ie. the Zune, and content deals so the new player doesn't launch with no media to play on it... because it won't play the "PlaysForSure" content purchased elsewhere...brilliant!).
Could this "rushed" patch introduce new security flaws? Of course it can; its software! Is MS concerned about that? Probably not; they can fix any new holes that get discovered on the next "Patch Tuesday", and everyone is used to their "fix one bug, introduce 5 more" track record already.
And honestly, who knows how far reaching the windows DRM goes? "Genuine Advantage" is a DRM system on the OS, and it can potentially lock you out from running server, network or shell apps as Microsfot sees fit.
That's all fine and dandy for books. And probably records, tapes and CDs, too.
You've touched on what the fine folks in the media biz refer to as the "analog hole". Information carrying devices such as paper books cannot easily be encrypted to enforce copyright, because printing a book of cyphertext would render it useless to the purchaser. The only hope for "protecting" analog content from...uh... "pirates", libraries, and consumers (oh my!), is the Broadcast Flag that has so far failed to pass Congress (but that doesn't stop ignorant Senators from continuing to bring it back up).
But imagine if you checked out a book and it contained seemingly random letters, and you had to decode it in order to read it. That's the Content Biz's view of the future. While they can't do that to the old stuff, they want to lock down any new digital content at all costs. And none of that protection has the end-of-copyright coded into it, so 100 years from now, when all that content should enter the public domain, it will still be locked out by the DRM, in violation of copyright law. So while it won't stop YOU from going to the library (because more than likely we'll all be dead of old age long before today's music/movies/news/info will be in the public domain), but when your great grandchildren go to the library the DRM of today would restric them.
Beyond that DRM on copyrighted material already causes problems for legitimate purchasers. I can't listen to my (very few) iTunes purchases on all of my computers simply because I have more Macs than Apple expected me to purchase. Maybe they're trying to tell me not to buy as much of their hardware, or maybe they're trying to "protect" me from accdidentally becoming a Scourge of the Seven Seas! Instead I've simply decided not to purchase any DRM-crippled content from iTunes or any other online service.
Instead I use Netflix and occassionally purchase a CD if I know i'll like it (ie. i've heard enough of it to know its worth the $10-$15 I'm going to pay). I know I bought a couple of CDs this year, and I have accumulated close to 500 DVDs over the years, though my DVD purchases have pretty much stopped ever since the movie studios stopped making movies worth watching... sometime around 2004 or 2005.
Now my only source for cinematic disappointment is via Netflix, but I can listen to crappy music on the radio, Sirius, or my own collection, (ripped from my CDs, which now live in binders in the closet, because the jewel cases were taking up too much space, and I have no need for the physical medium except as a backup).
I sure hope so. I love cheap chinese products. My garage is stocked with all sorts of tools that would have bankrupted me if I had to spring for even the Craftsman versions at sears. Especially the specialty automotive tools that I've only needed to use once or twice. I never would have bought them, except they were like $10-$15 at Harbor Freight.
I think American IP laws are ridiculously imbalanced. If American companies can't come up with a better business plan than "rip off the consumers", they deserve to be beaten down. I really hope China "plays along" just long enough to get accepted into WIPO.
On the other hand, its nice to see authorities going after the real criminals (the ones making massive quantities of bootlegs that are actually stealing sales and without a doubt actually violating copyright laws). Its a refreshing change from the ridiculous tactic of suing customers the RIAA has been using here. At least one country is finally getting it right!
Its all about money. The DRM is key to their relationship with media partners. If DRM is broken then all Windows users will suddenly, uncontrollably start pirating their media; we can't help it, apparently, and without the DRM firmly in place, we mind end up like Sweden.
I'm sure they're more "worried" about DRM breaking than the everyday security holes that merely allow someone to glom your computer onto their botnet, since there's money and contracts that depend on the DRM. The EULA is probably the only agreement that might be impacted by a security flaw, but we all know those are meaningless.
I was thinking the same thing (sans snakes). I've never seen connexion on a plane. Its odd pulling the plug on something that would certainly be popular if it were to actually exist. That is unless the pricing were to be prohibitivly expensive. But when have the airlines ever tried to overcharge anyone for anything?;)
Or maybe Boeing is "dropping" it so the gov't doesn't have to make a law banning it and lose even more popularity during an important election year.
Successful OSS projects attract a certain type of geek. They're very driven, often have egos (not making a judgement here... i'd put my ego up against the best of them;), and don't necessarily take advice/suggestions/requests/criticism in the most constructive ways. While many men enjoy the verbal abrasiveness of support responses like, "RTFM, you f'ing twit! stop wasting my time", women are often turned away by such attitudes, particularly as beginners. Men, particularly geek men, don't always have the best social skills, especially the ones who spend most of their time alone coding in front of a computer and don't often have to talk to people in meatspace.
While I think programs like "Fedora Chicks" (see.. i'm already being insensitive) aren't good because they fragment the groups arbitrarily based on something totally unrelated to programming, anything that might help get more women involved is a good thing. There's certainly nothing inherently male about software, and if the biggest barrier is our poor social skills then stuff like this might help. Ultimately it will be better to have everyone working on the same projects working together, but maybe "FOSS Women" can jump start the interested women on projects in a way that they can actually enjoy them. Once they're going and build their l33t sk1llz, they'll be better able to deal with the "Alpha Geeks".
Maybe even the male geeks will have to change our attitudes to get involved in a Femme-ware Project (see... I can't help it).
Without pictures, most slashdot readers don't know what a "women" is. While there was occasionally a female in my CS classes (a while back, so maybe times have changed, but if that 1.5% number is right not much has changed), we never had the need for the plural of the word.
And, uh, comments like yours are exactly why men think women are uptight [REDACTED] with no sense of humor. But whatever... just means more good jobs for us. Besides, making sexist jokes about men is gay. (OH NO I DI-INT!!! See, that's funny.;)
Just to pick a nit, none of this is putting technology profits over innovation, etc. Technology is being stifled by the **AA and their desperate attempts to hold onto their aging business models.
Technology and the tech companies are on our side. They just won't release any cool products because of the legal questions and the **AA's apparent stranglehold over the lawmakers.
Since none of these lawsuits has yet made it to trial, it has not been determined whether or not any laws have been broken or even if those laws themselves are valid. Copyright laws have been around for a long time. Perhaps what was written all those years ago is no longer appropriate. The recent changes in copyright law (the Sonny Bono law that extends copyrights to...what is it now, 99 years after the death of the owner?, the DMCA, which stifles research and technology, etc) have shifted the balance unfairly in favor of the content holders.
Copyright law was broken way before any of this. It just wasn't until Napster that we were really able to see how broken they really are.
*None* of the RIAA or MPAA lawsuits have been shown to be valid. All I see is a corrupt association of major corporations, with a long history of shady practices, acting like a bully. They're exploiting the laws they pushed through Congress to sue children and grandmothers and anyone else who doesn't want to continue supporting their old business models in the face of new technology. They're a bunch of frikkin Luddites.
I really hope this guy makes it to court. If the studios have to go back to earning their money instead of extorting it, we might end up with some quality entertainment instead of the box office garbage they've been pumping out.
Oh yeah. And "getting stuff for free" isn't illegal, unless you steal it.
True to a point, but after a while listening to the dissenting case just to hear the dissenting case again serves no purpose.
I've heard the holocaust revisionist stories. I've heard that Global Warming is a lie. I've heard about the Easter Bunny. I've heard that security is Microsoft's #1 priority.
No matter how many times I hear them, they're still wrong. Taking further time to listen to lies is a waste. We're much better off working on a solution (either how to reverse global warming, or how to adapt to it) than listening to "the other side".
Its not that they aren't allowed to speak their views, its just that no one wants to hear it anymore.
It is certainly not as important as civil rights. It is certainly not worth bankrupting families with ridiculous lawsuits. And its certainly not worth making the whole world bend over backwards to the whims of a few fatcats with an aging business model in a relatively small industry; compare the content industry to the technology industries that build devices for viewing/listening content, and they're a drop in the bucket. Its like a Flea barking orders at the dog.
With all the real problems in the world, it pisses me TF off watching a bunch of greedy millionaires complaining that they aren't able to screw over their customers like in the old days, suing kids and old ladies, and somehow trying to argue that piracy is robbing them of "potential revenue" that is orders of magnitude more than the total revenue of the entire industry.
Allofmp3.com is the best online music store. If they want to shut it down, all they need to do is bring up a "licensed" site with at least as big a selection, no DRM, and a fair price.
Fuck the WTO. Fuck them right in the ear. The W stands for "World", not "America" (and it definitely does not stand for that misguided retard in Washington...).
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I suspect early-onset arthritis is becoming more and more common, with all the video games we play nowadays.
Interesting offtopic flamebait at best, but I digress...
While we're doing the ball-less class-action suit, STOP F'ING BUYING CDs AND MUSIC and take away their bottomless pit of money. Right now they're raking in the dough so they can afford to pay plenty of lawyers to argue about how much piracy (Yarrrr!) is hurting the industry. Fuck them at both ends, and maybe get some results (or at least an NC-17 rating!)
My comfort games:
- Gran Turismo 4 - being able to drive a car and smash into things with zero damage... what could be less stressful?
- Doom - the original. it makes me happy that I can play Doom on practically any device. I don't necessarily play it, but if its available for my new gadget (phone, laptop, whatever), i'll download it and run it to make myself feel good.
- Mario Kart 64 - I can crush anyone in this game. Major ego booster.
- Freecell - because its pretty much always around
- i can't even think of a 5th game (and to be honest, Freecell was a stretch)
That's actually just about all the games I play. I've never played any of the *crack MMORPGS, mainly because I know what would happen to my life if I did; I spend enough time sitting in front of my computers as it is.
The really sad part is that they have a perfect already working example in allofmp3.com, but their answer was to threaten to reject the *country* of Russia from the WTO if they didn't do something about the thorn in the collective ass of a few big corporations. I don't know if allofmp3.com's prices (which are based on the file size as a proxy for bandwidth costs, not based on some marketing-driven, pseudo-qualitative price-fixing scheme) are fair market value, but I like them as a counter-offer to Apple's opening bid of $1/song.
Pardon my French, but the RIAA is a bunch of pussies. They are afraid of competition. If $1.69 for an album pays the bills in Russia, then maybe the folks selling through the iTunes store are living a little too large.
Yes. Ignorance is the underlying problem. "Creationism vs Evolution" was a specific example I chose to illustrate the point.
In particular I was responding to the last paragraph in your previous post. I do not find religion offensive; I believe it is a personal choice, and that I should not impose my religious views on others. Rather I prefer religious freedom, where you are free to practice whatever you choose, so long as you don't impose your religion on me. So as religion is private, but not offensive it does not follow that swearing, while perhaps offensive to an ignorant minority, need not be private.
On the other hand, whereas swearing is pretty harmless (except perhaps if it exceeds 85db for over a minute, which could potentially cause permanent damage to ones hearing), the teaching of creationism (or "intelligent design" if you prefer that term) in schools goes beyond ignorance, and is teaching things that are untrue as a replacement for scientific fact.
I do not automatically accept the word of a supposed "Authority Figure" (ie, these "scientific experts" you mention in whom some people place their trust) as fact. For example, I believe in gravity because if I let go of something it falls, not because some guy named "Newton" observed the same thing a few centuries earlier.
I'm assuming your 7th grade text book was older than mine was. Scientific knowledge expands over time, largely due to technological progress. Before microscopes no one could see cells, or molecules, or atoms, or electrons, or quarks, so there wasn't a whole lot written about them back then. Science also builds on itself by applying new information as it is observed. Maybe your "dumbed down" text book was wrong (it happens), or maybe it is correct based on the knowledge a 7th grader should have.
The current computer science curriculum at the college I attended is entirely different from what was taught to me 15 years ago. For example, they use Java, while Java didn't exist when I was in school. That doesn't mean that what I learned was wrong, its just different. I learned what was current in the early 90's, and today's students are learning with more powerful languages than those I used. With the strong foundation I received through my education, I can apply concepts I learned back then to the languages of today.
On the other hand, the Bible hasn't changed much to reflect the differences over the last 5000 or so years, nevermind the last century. Then again, neither has Moby Dick. Or most other works of fiction. They're good stories as they are. But I wouldn't use them as a scientific reference, or teach them as factual.
You're too quick to dismiss downloading as illegal. I don't believe that has been determined yet, but I'm not a lawyer.
Downloading music is a great way to try before you buy, so you don't get suckered into blowing your allowance on some one-hit-wonder crap band's whole album. Its a great way to explore different music and discover new bands, other than the "top 40" you might hear on the radio. If you had to buy every new CD that came out in order to hear new music, no one could afford it (maybe if you were really rich and bought them from allofmp3.com... maybe).
The "legal" download sites (iTunes, etc) rip off the consumer by selling an inferior, DRM-crippled product at close to the same price as the packaged CD. The music is typically tied to the computer, or to a specific brand of player, whereas ripped CDs can be played on practically any device.
It hasn't been conclusively shown that music downloads displace sales. On the other hand it has been shown that people who download music tend to buy more music than people who do not download. (Personally I don't download music and I RARELY buy music, since napster's demise (the real one, not that sorry-ass service exploiting the name). As far as I'm concerened the whole recording industry can go fuck itself until they pull their heads out of their asses and stop impeding technological and cultural progress).
And the media, which is mostly owned by the same companies that own the recording industry, is strongly biased in favor of the recording industry, as evidenced by their use of the terms "legal" and "illegal" to describe the various download sites. So its understandably difficult for people to see the other side of the issue; that maybe copyright laws were enacted not only to make a small group of record executives into billionaires, but also to foster creativity, encourage the spread knowledge, and support the public domain.
From what I see, there are 2 kinds of music stores: the ones who have been sued by the RIAA, and the ones who have yet to be sued. Meanwhile they're laughing at us in Sweden.
the last thing they want is to hear their toddler repeating "fuck, fuck, fuckety-fuck..." because they heard it on the radio
Its much funnier when its the parent, not the radio, who "teaches" their child to say "fuck, fuckety fuck-fuck!"
Its especially funny when they try to get the child (who has no idea what they're saying, or that its at all offensive) not to say "that word" anymore. To the child its just another word, and saying it gets a really strong response from mom & dad, so they'll keep saying it. Its probably not until several years later that they learn its a "bad word", making it even that much more enticing.
Its all so fucking stupid. Jesus Titty-Fucking Christ on a popsicle stick! Seriously, what's the harm?
On the other hand, brainwashing kids to think that Creationism has any validity and is as credible a theory as Evolution does cause actual long-term harm to their intelligence, and to our country as a whole. It may be a neat story, but if our future textbooks discount real science and promote fairy tales as the truth, the rest of the world is going to leave us far, far behind.
PS - TV stars don't have to be naked to be bad role models. To the best of my knowledge Pat Robertson has never exposed his naughty bits on TV, but he's still doing a great job of ruining this country by exploiting people's ignorance. I'll take a bare-chested floozy over that asshole any day of the week (except Thursdays at 9... CSI fucking rules!).
But yes, swearing loudly in a small public space should be regulated
You're fucking nuts, dude! I can fucking say whatever the fuck i want, wherever the fuck I want, and the fucking Constitution totally fucking backs my ass up on that, motherfucker!
Are your eyes bleeding? No? Fuckin' A!
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but fucking works won't do jack shit!
The only reason "precious cusswords" have any...shit.. what the fuck would you call it? "power?" For lack of a better term, let's fucking use it... Where the hell was I... Oh yeah!
The only reason "precious cusswords" have any power is from simple-minded asswipes like yourself taking such offense at hearing certain phonetic patterns. Get over it already.
Fuck...
The DRM currently being Beta Tested on consumers already restricts the "spread of knowledge". In fact the whole purpose of current DRM efforts is precisely to restrict if and how a user may access the content. And if you can't get at the content, you can't gain the knowledge. None of the DRM efforts are attempting to stop the massive bootleg CD and DVD industry, which doesn't even bother with the protected digital files to begin with... they simply dupe discs. Its all geared towards consumer inconvenience, which makes the opposite of sense.
The DMCA is a wonderful example of a law stifling the spread of knowledge. Not long after the DMCA was passed there was a professor somewhere who had found a security flaw in PDFs or maybe it was to allow PDFs to be viewable on ebook readers. I don't remember. Anyway, he intended to present his research at a conference, but did not due to legal threats based on the DMCA that he would be arrested for divulging information about flaws in the PDF DRM. That's what you and I might call censorship, and certainly is a first amendment violation.
I'm more or less OK with the ideas of trademarks and copyright. They serve a valid purpose. I'm not arguing that.
I just feel that the changes to those laws, starting back with the Sony Bono copyright term-extension (75 or 90 years after death, so your kids can keep exclusive rights to exploit your body of work) have unfairly shifted the balance away from the spread of knowledge, in order to line the pockets of a greedy few. Music, books and movies we enjoy today will not be accessible in the public domain until long after we are all dead. If they don't maintain their popularity, they will go out of print, and even fanatics won't be able to find a legal copy. And even if they do last long enough, the DRM on the digital files may still restrict access. We're heading in the wrong direction.
Although no form of DRM has successfully locked down anything yet, there are still many entities with big bankrolls working hard to try to make that happen, and they are abusing law to accomplish what they fail to do technologically, all in the name of "intellectual property protection". The future of IPP law is precisely about limiting the free exchange of knowledge.
Yeah, but we already have all that. Its just not right here, where our laws matter.
;), but playing to the center doesn't seem to work for anyone lately.
Those shoes you're wearing (ok... maybe not yours, but surely these Nike's...) were probably sewn together with the soft touch only a child can give. Granted those children are being exploited elsewhere in the world, outside of our laws, but companies within our borders are still using that labor to keep their costs low.
I admit that some of what I say is exaggerated, perhaps even unfounded
Let's see. Please tell me a better business plan than outlawing automobiles so that horse and buggy drivers won't be out of a job. Progress happens, and outdated business models cannot always compete in the future.
There are existing laws that provide the kind of protection you describe. I don't have issue with those. In fact, I think its great that the Chinese government is going after the mass bootleggers who are in fact ripping off the media industry by doing exactly what you say.
What I disagree with are all of the new laws that Old-Fat-Lazy-Businesses are trying to force on the world in order to slow or even stop technological and cultural progress. Its a bunch of rich bastards manipulating the system at the expense of the rest of the world. Perhaps that's a good business model while it lasts, but I certainly don't want to put up with it as a consumer.
I agree that $3 CDRs sold on the street are rip-offs of the $15 CDs sold in the "real stores" (and I applaud the Chinese Gov't for going after them), but I also believe that $15 CDs are a ripoff for the consumer, when more efficient and cheaper methods of distribution are available. The industry is crippling the Internet as a distribution method with DRM in order to save the huge margins they still make on the outdated medium. Oh yeah.. and they keep trying to cripple CDs, too, to try to move us towards acceptance (kind of how 10 years of unfixed bugs led us to accept "Blue Screen of Death" as a fact of life).
Business models aren't meant to last forever. Corporations can die. Its ok.
Right, but the other guy's point is that if these zones don't exist, the rich, powerful and EVIL will still do the bad stuff.
And living in a society of law is great until the rich and powerful (and current Presidential Administrations, for example) do not follow the laws that they force and enforce on the poor and less powerful. For example we citizens of the US follow the laws in the Constitution, while our President disregards more than half of them, and has me scared out of my gourd that I might get picked up and secretly held without charges (under the "PATRIOT" Act, no less) simply for speaking my mind on my disappointment in how our Country, and our federal government in particular, has been behaving the last 6 years.
I honestly believe that a "Total Lawless Zone" is better than what we currently have (though 6 years ago, I probably would have agreed with you).
The freedom is exactly why you need to treat it with skepticism. The lies on the Internet don't have to filter through the editors at the paper or the censors on TV. They go up right beside the truth, and have often tricked the "real" news agencies.
/. threads, you're much better prepared to catch the lies told by our newspapers, TV personalities, and current Presidents.
But that's a good thing. If you get practice with reality checks reading the harmless absurdities posted in
I agree about keeping the FCC off the Tubes. Their silly regulations make public broadcast of "bad words" a luxury for the super-rich. And did you know that FCC fines are tax deductable? So fucking bogus.
Dude, security holes and software bugs aren't limited to just shell, network and IE.
Remember the flaw in the way windows processed JPEGs, such that one could compose an image that caused a buffer overflow to execute malicious code? Just by viewing a image (media function!) your system could be compromised.
Remember the similar bugs in Windows Media? More bad media functions!
They could patch this bug quickly because they had a lot of money and a new product launch dependant on it (ie. the Zune, and content deals so the new player doesn't launch with no media to play on it... because it won't play the "PlaysForSure" content purchased elsewhere...brilliant!).
Could this "rushed" patch introduce new security flaws? Of course it can; its software! Is MS concerned about that? Probably not; they can fix any new holes that get discovered on the next "Patch Tuesday", and everyone is used to their "fix one bug, introduce 5 more" track record already.
And honestly, who knows how far reaching the windows DRM goes? "Genuine Advantage" is a DRM system on the OS, and it can potentially lock you out from running server, network or shell apps as Microsfot sees fit.
Don't be so quick to dismiss an obvious answer.
That's all fine and dandy for books. And probably records, tapes and CDs, too.
...uh... "pirates", libraries, and consumers (oh my!), is the Broadcast Flag that has so far failed to pass Congress (but that doesn't stop ignorant Senators from continuing to bring it back up).
You've touched on what the fine folks in the media biz refer to as the "analog hole". Information carrying devices such as paper books cannot easily be encrypted to enforce copyright, because printing a book of cyphertext would render it useless to the purchaser. The only hope for "protecting" analog content from
But imagine if you checked out a book and it contained seemingly random letters, and you had to decode it in order to read it. That's the Content Biz's view of the future. While they can't do that to the old stuff, they want to lock down any new digital content at all costs. And none of that protection has the end-of-copyright coded into it, so 100 years from now, when all that content should enter the public domain, it will still be locked out by the DRM, in violation of copyright law. So while it won't stop YOU from going to the library (because more than likely we'll all be dead of old age long before today's music/movies/news/info will be in the public domain), but when your great grandchildren go to the library the DRM of today would restric them.
Beyond that DRM on copyrighted material already causes problems for legitimate purchasers. I can't listen to my (very few) iTunes purchases on all of my computers simply because I have more Macs than Apple expected me to purchase. Maybe they're trying to tell me not to buy as much of their hardware, or maybe they're trying to "protect" me from accdidentally becoming a Scourge of the Seven Seas! Instead I've simply decided not to purchase any DRM-crippled content from iTunes or any other online service.
Instead I use Netflix and occassionally purchase a CD if I know i'll like it (ie. i've heard enough of it to know its worth the $10-$15 I'm going to pay). I know I bought a couple of CDs this year, and I have accumulated close to 500 DVDs over the years, though my DVD purchases have pretty much stopped ever since the movie studios stopped making movies worth watching... sometime around 2004 or 2005.
Now my only source for cinematic disappointment is via Netflix, but I can listen to crappy music on the radio, Sirius, or my own collection, (ripped from my CDs, which now live in binders in the closet, because the jewel cases were taking up too much space, and I have no need for the physical medium except as a backup).
I sure hope so. I love cheap chinese products. My garage is stocked with all sorts of tools that would have bankrupted me if I had to spring for even the Craftsman versions at sears. Especially the specialty automotive tools that I've only needed to use once or twice. I never would have bought them, except they were like $10-$15 at Harbor Freight.
I think American IP laws are ridiculously imbalanced. If American companies can't come up with a better business plan than "rip off the consumers", they deserve to be beaten down. I really hope China "plays along" just long enough to get accepted into WIPO.
On the other hand, its nice to see authorities going after the real criminals (the ones making massive quantities of bootlegs that are actually stealing sales and without a doubt actually violating copyright laws). Its a refreshing change from the ridiculous tactic of suing customers the RIAA has been using here. At least one country is finally getting it right!
Maybe so, but Andy Sirkis has aged, so the younger CGI Gollum will move more like a senior citizen.
Its all about money. The DRM is key to their relationship with media partners. If DRM is broken then all Windows users will suddenly, uncontrollably start pirating their media; we can't help it, apparently, and without the DRM firmly in place, we mind end up like Sweden.
I'm sure they're more "worried" about DRM breaking than the everyday security holes that merely allow someone to glom your computer onto their botnet, since there's money and contracts that depend on the DRM. The EULA is probably the only agreement that might be impacted by a security flaw, but we all know those are meaningless.
I was thinking the same thing (sans snakes). I've never seen connexion on a plane. Its odd pulling the plug on something that would certainly be popular if it were to actually exist. That is unless the pricing were to be prohibitivly expensive. But when have the airlines ever tried to overcharge anyone for anything? ;)
Or maybe Boeing is "dropping" it so the gov't doesn't have to make a law banning it and lose even more popularity during an important election year.
Successful OSS projects attract a certain type of geek. They're very driven, often have egos (not making a judgement here... i'd put my ego up against the best of them ;), and don't necessarily take advice/suggestions/requests/criticism in the most constructive ways. While many men enjoy the verbal abrasiveness of support responses like, "RTFM, you f'ing twit! stop wasting my time", women are often turned away by such attitudes, particularly as beginners. Men, particularly geek men, don't always have the best social skills, especially the ones who spend most of their time alone coding in front of a computer and don't often have to talk to people in meatspace.
While I think programs like "Fedora Chicks" (see.. i'm already being insensitive) aren't good because they fragment the groups arbitrarily based on something totally unrelated to programming, anything that might help get more women involved is a good thing. There's certainly nothing inherently male about software, and if the biggest barrier is our poor social skills then stuff like this might help. Ultimately it will be better to have everyone working on the same projects working together, but maybe "FOSS Women" can jump start the interested women on projects in a way that they can actually enjoy them. Once they're going and build their l33t sk1llz, they'll be better able to deal with the "Alpha Geeks".
Maybe even the male geeks will have to change our attitudes to get involved in a Femme-ware Project (see... I can't help it).
I think you misunderstood.
;)
Without pictures, most slashdot readers don't know what a "women" is. While there was occasionally a female in my CS classes (a while back, so maybe times have changed, but if that 1.5% number is right not much has changed), we never had the need for the plural of the word.
And, uh, comments like yours are exactly why men think women are uptight [REDACTED] with no sense of humor. But whatever... just means more good jobs for us. Besides, making sexist jokes about men is gay. (OH NO I DI-INT!!! See, that's funny.
Just to pick a nit, none of this is putting technology profits over innovation, etc. Technology is being stifled by the **AA and their desperate attempts to hold onto their aging business models.
Technology and the tech companies are on our side. They just won't release any cool products because of the legal questions and the **AA's apparent stranglehold over the lawmakers.
I really don't get it...
No, see, you're missing the whole freakin' point.
Since none of these lawsuits has yet made it to trial, it has not been determined whether or not any laws have been broken or even if those laws themselves are valid. Copyright laws have been around for a long time. Perhaps what was written all those years ago is no longer appropriate. The recent changes in copyright law (the Sonny Bono law that extends copyrights to...what is it now, 99 years after the death of the owner?, the DMCA, which stifles research and technology, etc) have shifted the balance unfairly in favor of the content holders.
Copyright law was broken way before any of this. It just wasn't until Napster that we were really able to see how broken they really are.
*None* of the RIAA or MPAA lawsuits have been shown to be valid. All I see is a corrupt association of major corporations, with a long history of shady practices, acting like a bully. They're exploiting the laws they pushed through Congress to sue children and grandmothers and anyone else who doesn't want to continue supporting their old business models in the face of new technology. They're a bunch of frikkin Luddites.
I really hope this guy makes it to court. If the studios have to go back to earning their money instead of extorting it, we might end up with some quality entertainment instead of the box office garbage they've been pumping out.
Oh yeah. And "getting stuff for free" isn't illegal, unless you steal it.
True to a point, but after a while listening to the dissenting case just to hear the dissenting case again serves no purpose.
I've heard the holocaust revisionist stories. I've heard that Global Warming is a lie. I've heard about the Easter Bunny. I've heard that security is Microsoft's #1 priority.
No matter how many times I hear them, they're still wrong. Taking further time to listen to lies is a waste. We're much better off working on a solution (either how to reverse global warming, or how to adapt to it) than listening to "the other side".
Its not that they aren't allowed to speak their views, its just that no one wants to hear it anymore.
Reading you loud and clear!
It is certainly not as important as civil rights. It is certainly not worth bankrupting families with ridiculous lawsuits. And its certainly not worth making the whole world bend over backwards to the whims of a few fatcats with an aging business model in a relatively small industry; compare the content industry to the technology industries that build devices for viewing/listening content, and they're a drop in the bucket. Its like a Flea barking orders at the dog.
With all the real problems in the world, it pisses me TF off watching a bunch of greedy millionaires complaining that they aren't able to screw over their customers like in the old days, suing kids and old ladies, and somehow trying to argue that piracy is robbing them of "potential revenue" that is orders of magnitude more than the total revenue of the entire industry.
Allofmp3.com is the best online music store. If they want to shut it down, all they need to do is bring up a "licensed" site with at least as big a selection, no DRM, and a fair price.
Fuck the WTO. Fuck them right in the ear. The W stands for "World", not "America" (and it definitely does not stand for that misguided retard in Washington...).