And ever heard the figure "one hundred million"? That's how many game boys have been sold in the last 12 years. Do you know any other console that's sold that well? --
Yes, the screenshots look crappy. Gimme a break, the thing includes a display with it, but costs much less than consoles that don't have displays. The display is powered batteries, yet needs to run 10-15 hours per charge. Thus, the display is going to be very contrained. You can't really compare it to tethered consoles.
Don't buy a handheld for its cool looks, but it because its games are fun to play. --
It would be sweet if Sony would make a free image available so people could boot Linux.
Sony loses money or breaks even on the hardware sold, and makes money on the games. It's in their best interest to lock you in to playing games on the hardware, so official support of this is very very unlikely.
While also unlikely, it'd be a better bet that Microsoft would officially support XBox emulation on normal PC's (that have the hardware requirements) because they'd still be making the profit on the games. --
A well-known tractor manufacturer sells a three types of tractor each with a different horsepower rating. However, the engines are the same, it's just the electronic controller that makes a difference of a couple hundred thousand dollars.
Closed consumer devices sometimes have these settings as well... the same software binary is used on all devices to ease maintainance problems, but specific bits are flipped in memory to enable or disable certain functionality.
--
Does DMCA say anything about legal ramifications for a copyright holder who alleges infringement, later it's found that there is none, but the user lost their account for that time anyway?
Can copyright holders wildly allege infringement without recourse?
I fear the answers are "no" and "yes", but that doesn't seem right. --
I sometimes wish Slashdotters would come out of the closet and say what they mean.
If you secretly wish that copyrights didn't exist, then say so, don't skirt around the issue. If we express our ideas directly and discuss how we can influence society to move towards those goals, I think we would be more productive, rather than railing against somewhat perhipheral issues.
(The word "Slashdoters" can be optionally replaced with "CmdrTaco & friends") --
In a Wired article that feels like it was ghost written:
Thanks to new software applications hitting the market, content providers are now able to track users that share music, movie and other media files across file-trading networks like Napster. Even Freenet -- the fiercely protective network -- appears to be vulnerable to the new programs.
One service, Copyright Agent, allows content owners to provide ISPs with lists of files to remove and, in many cases, to have Internet access to certain users cut off completely.
"Our software all developed around the DMCA. We've Web-enabled the DMCA."
So... they're claiming that they can find the IP of the Freenet computers that are hosting the MP3's, and ask that the files be removed?
And in one of their officially attributed press releases:
Copyright.net goes live today with CopyrightAgent, its groundbreaking software tool that legitimizes Napster and other peer-to-peer networks while at the same time protecting the rights of copyright owners.
Poof, this lone company suddenly solves the whole P2P problem.
Further, it's hardly in applicants' interest to snooker the PTO into issuing defective patents for commonplace business practices, he says. "Patent applicants are both interested in getting valid patents and obligated by law to tell the office about the prior art that is closest to their invention," he says. "As a result, in most cases, even in rapidly developing areas, the [PTO] has the most relevant art before it when it issues a patent."
No, it's in a business's best interest to use whatever means to gain an advantage over its competitors. If the PTO will give it free weapons, with the chance the the weapon might be taken away in court, the business will happily take that chance. There are few negative ramifications for applying for a patent that later gets overturned.
Also, if there are no negative ramifications for failing to disclose all prior art, or those laws aren't enforced, then the law is meaningless, other than for political BS like this.
"Essentially," says Atlanta attorney Jeffrey R. Kuester, "we should simply let the patent system adjust to this new economy without trying to fix it." Kuester, chair of the IPL section's Special Committee on Patents and the Internet, adds, "The whole world has had to adjust to this new communication medium, so why would we expect the patent system to handle it overnight without a few bumps in the road?"
eg. even if specific problems have been pointed out, and specific solutions have been suggested, we shouldn't do anything, because there will always be problems. Yeah. --
The purpose of patents is to encourage innovation, and encourage disclosure in order to fuel innovation.
For the patents in question, disclosure isn't an issue. The critical moment in such innovation is the original idea that led to the innovation. Any random programmer can implement one-click purchasing once they see it... but it didn't appear for a long time just because nobody thought of doing it that way. Once it's implemented in a public product, the idea is automatically disclosed.
So for these patents, the only purpose is to encourage innovation. But if there's already enough incentive in the marketplace-- namely, getting your idea implemented first and gaining marketshare before others are able to copy it --then there's no need for patents for this reason either.
Therefore, patents provide no additional benefit for such innovations, and only serve to hamper the field. --
Last year, the Poynter Institute did an eyetracking study of how people read news on the web. They found that graphics were largely ignored. It probably doesn't matter what size they are, they'll still be ignored. --
A healthy balance must be found... business needs can't be entirely ignored.
For instance, consider the case of the government enacting a bill that makes ISP's liable for any pornography that a minor can access through the ISP. In cases such as this, that industry must be able to argue its case to the congress, informing them of the technical and practical limitations of what can and can't be done.
Other than that clarification, I wholly agree. There's a big difference between corporations having a voice, and corporations drowning all the individuals' voices out. --
Well, the DMCA was written to encourage the use of copyright access controls:
In response to this threat, the consumer electronics and computer industries have developed technologies that protect from infringement copyrighted works in digital format by denying individuals access to such materials absent some special key or descrambling code, and by disabling users with access from making copies of a work without authorization.... Joining an international effort to make the Internet a more secure business forum, Congress enacted the DMCA to uphold the integrity of copyright protection in cyberspace
Due to technical limitations, it isn't feasible to implement these copyright protection mechanisms for every device, platform, application, or protocol. As such, the copyright holders get to choose all of these for you. --
Indeed. I'd buy a crippled product (this applies more to one-time-use-MP3s), if:
The price is fair (only 40% as useful? then 40% the price)
An uncrippled version is available for purchase at the original price
But I'm pretty sure that as soon as crippled songs/dishwashers/kitchen-sink become available, the costs for the crippled versions will be unreasonable if you stop and think about it for a second (but few people will), and the uncrippled version won't be available except through
questionable vendors.
My point is... the use of technology to produce "lesser" products isn't evil... but the use of technology by large companies to gain more control over consumers and squeeze more money out of them is. Just don't knee-jerk about a particular technology. --
Could you figure out from the title or summary that IP stood for Internet Protocol?
Yes, and not just by luck:
we should be able to use our DSL lines to host as many PCs as we want
and
The major part of the story is a dispute over sharing IPs on DSL lines
That's an "s" on the end of "IPs". The plural of "Intellectual Property" is usually just "IP". Then again, it's a Slashdot headline, so I suppose the "s" could have been interpretted as a mess up, but the other cue is there too, so it didn't seem too ambiguous to me. --
Also, CmdrTaco, I've often been confused by words such as "present", "produce", and "object", each of which mean one thing as a noun and another as a verb. And it really bothers me.
I realize that every other english speaking person uses these confusing words without completely disambiguating them. But because you're the leader of this great site, I strongly believe that you should griped at until you change your ways, and possibly the ways of all the good english speaking people.
In short, I'd rather spend my time complaining at you instead of taking an extra second to determine a word's meaning by context. --
Legally, it seems to be a non-precedent, but for some reason the NY Attorney General thinks differently.
"This case establishes a common sense standard for the Internet," Spitzer said.
I think the "knowing" part is important, and the "storage" part is not. Akamai stores illegal content temporarily, just as ISP's do with usenet binaries. But ISP's get to choose which data streams to pass along, and it chose one which is well-known to contain a large amount illegal content.
So, from a legal standpoint, how much illegal content can exist, before the chooser can no longer legally pass the group on? Certainly groups that have only one illegal post per year should be let through, it's bound to happen on the internet. But is 10 okay? 40? 200? 500? --
Any point on the Internet must block a site, once they're notified that a particular site is illegal (eg. a national blacklist, implemented in border routers).
Entire websites or newsgroups can be blocked, if a sufficient percentage of its content is illegal.
I can't imagine how such a precedent could remain for very long. --
What's the difference between what the Attorney General was asking, and... if the state maintained a list of websites that NY ISP's are required to block. Or even... for the federal government to ask the border routers to block particular foreign sites.
There's a difference between asking a content provider to take down a specific post, and asking an intermediary access provider to block a section of the internet forever, because it typically has illegal content on it. --
You know of some software than can accurately (say... 99.9%) judge whether a picture is porn of a young-looking 18 year old, or porn of a 17 year old? Last I knew, software couldn't do this... or even accurately distinguish between 10 year old porn and 25 year old porn.
Yes, it'd be nice to put a lid on things, but pretending a problem is easier than it is won't do anything, other than unnecessarily give a lot of ISP's headaches (and worse) that they don't deserve. --
Download ratios? Upload while downloading, or you'll be booted? Yours is just a slightly more complicated way of doing it.
I think that already exists with FTP, Hotline, et. al...
Last I knew, those were attacked enough by the RIAA that only dedicated people with a fair amount of computer knowledge uses such things.
Which is probably fine by the RIAA. They realize they can't ever completely stamp out piracy, they just don't want everyone and their grandmother to be casually pirating. --
You're arguing that it would be bad if 100% of software development were done open source. There are several arguments why the opposite situation would be equally bad.
But neither set of arguments matter. The current situation-- where some software is developed open sourced and some closed --works to produce diversity, as well as providing economic incentive to programmers. --
The CTEA is but the latest in a series of congressional
extensions of the copyright term, each of which has been
made applicable both prospectively and retrospectively. In
1790 the First Congress provided, both for works "already
printed" and for those that would be "[t]hereafter made and
composed," initial and renewal terms of 14 years, for a
combined term of 28 years....
eg. It's been done many times before, and it was fine all those times, there's no reason this one is any different. --
Slashdot Mirror
Seen a top 10 videogames list lately?
And ever heard the figure "one hundred million"? That's how many game boys have been sold in the last 12 years. Do you know any other console that's sold that well?
--
Yes, the screenshots look crappy. Gimme a break, the thing includes a display with it, but costs much less than consoles that don't have displays. The display is powered batteries, yet needs to run 10-15 hours per charge. Thus, the display is going to be very contrained. You can't really compare it to tethered consoles.
Don't buy a handheld for its cool looks, but it because its games are fun to play.
--
Some differences are... GBA has a 32 bit processor, and it's turned sideways so you hold it much like a PS/DC/N64 controller.
A few refinements. Plus backwards compatibility with an ever-growing library of games makes it a winner for me.
--
Sony loses money or breaks even on the hardware sold, and makes money on the games. It's in their best interest to lock you in to playing games on the hardware, so official support of this is very very unlikely.
While also unlikely, it'd be a better bet that Microsoft would officially support XBox emulation on normal PC's (that have the hardware requirements) because they'd still be making the profit on the games.
--
A well-known tractor manufacturer sells a three types of tractor each with a different horsepower rating. However, the engines are the same, it's just the electronic controller that makes a difference of a couple hundred thousand dollars.
Closed consumer devices sometimes have these settings as well... the same software binary is used on all devices to ease maintainance problems, but specific bits are flipped in memory to enable or disable certain functionality.
--
four students killed, one paralyzed, eight wounded
--
Can copyright holders wildly allege infringement without recourse?
I fear the answers are "no" and "yes", but that doesn't seem right.
--
If you secretly wish that copyrights didn't exist, then say so, don't skirt around the issue. If we express our ideas directly and discuss how we can influence society to move towards those goals, I think we would be more productive, rather than railing against somewhat perhipheral issues.
(The word "Slashdoters" can be optionally replaced with "CmdrTaco & friends")
--
- Thanks to new software applications hitting the market, content providers are now able to track users that share music, movie and other media files across file-trading networks like Napster. Even Freenet -- the fiercely protective network -- appears to be vulnerable to the new programs.
So... they're claiming that they can find the IP of the Freenet computers that are hosting the MP3's, and ask that the files be removed?One service, Copyright Agent, allows content owners to provide ISPs with lists of files to remove and, in many cases, to have Internet access to certain users cut off completely.
"Our software all developed around the DMCA. We've Web-enabled the DMCA."
And in one of their officially attributed press releases:
Poof, this lone company suddenly solves the whole P2P problem.
Yeah, that's it.
--
- Further, it's hardly in applicants' interest to snooker the PTO into issuing defective patents for commonplace business practices, he says. "Patent applicants are both interested in getting valid patents and obligated by law to tell the office about the prior art that is closest to their invention," he says. "As a result, in most cases, even in rapidly developing areas, the [PTO] has the most relevant art before it when it issues a patent."
No, it's in a business's best interest to use whatever means to gain an advantage over its competitors. If the PTO will give it free weapons, with the chance the the weapon might be taken away in court, the business will happily take that chance. There are few negative ramifications for applying for a patent that later gets overturned.Also, if there are no negative ramifications for failing to disclose all prior art, or those laws aren't enforced, then the law is meaningless, other than for political BS like this.
eg. even if specific problems have been pointed out, and specific solutions have been suggested, we shouldn't do anything, because there will always be problems. Yeah.
--
For the patents in question, disclosure isn't an issue. The critical moment in such innovation is the original idea that led to the innovation. Any random programmer can implement one-click purchasing once they see it... but it didn't appear for a long time just because nobody thought of doing it that way. Once it's implemented in a public product, the idea is automatically disclosed.
So for these patents, the only purpose is to encourage innovation. But if there's already enough incentive in the marketplace-- namely, getting your idea implemented first and gaining marketshare before others are able to copy it --then there's no need for patents for this reason either.
Therefore, patents provide no additional benefit for such innovations, and only serve to hamper the field.
--
Last year, the Poynter Institute did an eyetracking study of how people read news on the web. They found that graphics were largely ignored. It probably doesn't matter what size they are, they'll still be ignored.
--
For instance, consider the case of the government enacting a bill that makes ISP's liable for any pornography that a minor can access through the ISP. In cases such as this, that industry must be able to argue its case to the congress, informing them of the technical and practical limitations of what can and can't be done.
Other than that clarification, I wholly agree. There's a big difference between corporations having a voice, and corporations drowning all the individuals' voices out.
--
- In response to this threat, the consumer electronics and computer industries have developed technologies that protect from infringement copyrighted works in digital format by denying individuals access to such materials absent some special key or descrambling code, and by disabling users with access from making copies of a work without authorization.
... Joining an international effort to make the Internet a more secure business forum, Congress enacted the DMCA to uphold the integrity of copyright protection in cyberspace
Due to technical limitations, it isn't feasible to implement these copyright protection mechanisms for every device, platform, application, or protocol. As such, the copyright holders get to choose all of these for you.--
- The price is fair (only 40% as useful? then 40% the price)
- An uncrippled version is available for purchase at the original price
But I'm pretty sure that as soon as crippled songs/dishwashers/kitchen-sink become available, the costs for the crippled versions will be unreasonable if you stop and think about it for a second (but few people will), and the uncrippled version won't be available except through questionable vendors.My point is... the use of technology to produce "lesser" products isn't evil... but the use of technology by large companies to gain more control over consumers and squeeze more money out of them is. Just don't knee-jerk about a particular technology.
--
Yes, and not just by luck:
and
That's an "s" on the end of "IPs". The plural of "Intellectual Property" is usually just "IP". Then again, it's a Slashdot headline, so I suppose the "s" could have been interpretted as a mess up, but the other cue is there too, so it didn't seem too ambiguous to me.
--
I realize that every other english speaking person uses these confusing words without completely disambiguating them. But because you're the leader of this great site, I strongly believe that you should griped at until you change your ways, and possibly the ways of all the good english speaking people.
In short, I'd rather spend my time complaining at you instead of taking an extra second to determine a word's meaning by context.
--
I think the "knowing" part is important, and the "storage" part is not. Akamai stores illegal content temporarily, just as ISP's do with usenet binaries. But ISP's get to choose which data streams to pass along, and it chose one which is well-known to contain a large amount illegal content.
So, from a legal standpoint, how much illegal content can exist, before the chooser can no longer legally pass the group on? Certainly groups that have only one illegal post per year should be let through, it's bound to happen on the internet. But is 10 okay? 40? 200? 500?
--
If this becomes a real precedent, then:
- Any point on the Internet must block a site, once they're notified that a particular site is illegal (eg. a national blacklist, implemented in border routers).
- Entire websites or newsgroups can be blocked, if a sufficient percentage of its content is illegal.
I can't imagine how such a precedent could remain for very long.--
There's a difference between asking a content provider to take down a specific post, and asking an intermediary access provider to block a section of the internet forever, because it typically has illegal content on it.
--
It's not a new law. It's just a new precedent that deals with the enforcement of current laws.
--
You know of some software than can accurately (say... 99.9%) judge whether a picture is porn of a young-looking 18 year old, or porn of a 17 year old? Last I knew, software couldn't do this... or even accurately distinguish between 10 year old porn and 25 year old porn.
Yes, it'd be nice to put a lid on things, but pretending a problem is easier than it is won't do anything, other than unnecessarily give a lot of ISP's headaches (and worse) that they don't deserve.
--
I think that already exists with FTP, Hotline, et. al...
Last I knew, those were attacked enough by the RIAA that only dedicated people with a fair amount of computer knowledge uses such things.
Which is probably fine by the RIAA. They realize they can't ever completely stamp out piracy, they just don't want everyone and their grandmother to be casually pirating.
--
But neither set of arguments matter. The current situation-- where some software is developed open sourced and some closed --works to produce diversity, as well as providing economic incentive to programmers.
--
- The CTEA is but the latest in a series of congressional
extensions of the copyright term, each of which has been
made applicable both prospectively and retrospectively. In
1790 the First Congress provided, both for works "already
printed" and for those that would be "[t]hereafter made and
composed," initial and renewal terms of 14 years, for a
combined term of 28 years.
...
eg. It's been done many times before, and it was fine all those times, there's no reason this one is any different.--