I understand your thought, so I decided to look at the flyer with the Mickey Mouse removed and see if I liked it better. I thought it looked more sedate, and I liked it better. I think it might be a regional thing (maybe New Yorkers see Mickey as sinister because Disney recently had such a big impact on their city), so just alter it however you want or even make your own flyer. Of course, I live in FL, and trying to portray Mickey as evil here might be akin to "treasonable utterances..."
Hmm, I think if the EFN ever does set up a fund to donate money to Jon's case, I'll have to donate money to that, too. I wonder if they'll have any trouble with currency conversions? Anyway, here's the link:
Of course, I'm not sure if they've set up the fund yet, but I plan to keep on checking back on their page to see how it is going, and I figured other people would be interested in the link too. (I think I can send an International Money Order, or something. I need to look into it.)
Oh, and thanks, Joh, for a thourough and informative answer to my questions.
Picture a DVD player that lets you do absolutely anything you want with the film including; cut and past to compare the holes on Neo's shirt when he is "dying" to the ones when he is "resurrected" ( Do they line up ? ). This can be done with an OSS software player and DVD watching geeks sending code in. It won't happen with what exists now commercially. This scares the devil out of the existing licensees.
Hmm, interesting, this is a new wrinkle to the OpenSource DVD thing that I hadn't thought of before. In fact, this was exactly the reason why Nintendo opposed the 'Game Genie' way back when it first came out. They basically said, "It's our content and you are going to use it the way we intend you to, like it or not." Of course, Nintendo lost on this one, and some interesting and creative things were developed as a result. (Including a device that let's people create their own Gameboy games, I hear.)
Of course, to the film studios, this could be a huge propaganda negative to get some of the more exacting directors on their side. (Kubrick, for one, would've hated this idea.) Fortunately, they can't point to an actual existing program that does it, yet.
Since I knew exactly nothing about @stake when they merged with L0pht, I was worried that they might not be good for the L0pht. This is a great thing for them to do, because the EFF needs money and lots of it, right now. (Why? Because DVD CCA and MPAA are looking to take the EFF apart in court on the deCSS case, and look at how much money those two organizations own.)
So, I say, way to go @stake, I'll now count you definitely in the "good guy" column.
I've already donated to EFF, and will donate more when I've cleared up some nasty debts. I hope anyone who can will do it too. Hey, combine it with the boycott, send the money you would've spent on movies to the EFF.
Corporations in the entertainment industry (see DVD CCA) have shown they don't really get encryption. They see it as a back door to destroying fair use, not as a method to prevent piracy. Basically, that's how they want encryption + the Digital Millenium Copyright Act to work. i.e.
1. You buy something, it's encrypted, planned obsolescence causes the players for it to stop being produced.
2. You decided to copy it into another format so that when your old player stops working, you'll still have the content you paid for.
3. Unfortunately, you are now circumventing anti-piracy measures, and that's against the law. Fortunately, you get off with a warning, but you can't make the copy.
4. The songs you like? They went out of style and never became popular again. They were your favorite music, but you can't rebuy them, the company that owns the rights isn't interested in republishing them for just you. You also can't build your own player to play them in the old format, because of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
Not that you should have to rebuy the same thing anyway, but you can bet some people will be in this situation. I mean, at least if you own an old copy of the game M.U.L.E. and you can create an emulator for it, you can play it, even though it is no longer produced and Electronic Arts is sitting on the rights to it. But with this new encryption stuff, the companies are likely to see breaking the encryption as too much of a threat even if they don't care about the content you want to listen to. So, if stufff isn't mainstream or popular, it'll just be allowed to disappear. It's sort of like if it were illegal to make record turntables for vinyl records now, no matter if some record you love never made it to CD.
It's not entirely true, though. There are people here, who, if it came out tommorrow would go out and buy The Phantom Menace on DVD. I'll admit, we are a small group compared to the general public, but we're a start. But as long as people will still by The Matrix or any other commercially produced video tape or movie at the same time the people making money from those tapes are using the money to destroy our right to fair use in the courts and through legislation, then I say it isn't a choir yet, more of a discord.
Of course, that said, I should go stand in front of a theater and hand out flyers, of course, but I'm not sure how effective it will be.
It's a really good idea, I'd love to see it happen. Hmm, Slashdot should do a presidential endorsement too (of course, I'm voting for Harry Browne, but I'd still be interested to see who they picked.)
I hate to say it but money is the Mother's milk of politics, Washington is so corrupt that only people with money have any influence on things anymore (most political battles are actually between opposing lobbies, each of which can afford to run TV commercials and give campaign contributions.)
Of course, I've been told that my political ideas are "cynicism masquerading as sophistication," but believe me, I'd love to see something that would shake my cynicism up.
The evidence in this case (I mean to the public, not the court evidence) is that the judge will do everything in his power to see to it that the DVD CCA and the MPAA carry the day. He is not a non-biased interpreter of the law, he's decided he likes the plaintiffs and he doesn't like Emmanuel Goldstein and the rest of 2600. So, we can all expect all kinds of mental gymnastics by this judge to make sure that every ruling he makes comes out in favor of DVD CCA and MPAA.
The truth is, if Divx had suceeded, we might have had similar court cases and rulings. Enthusiasts and consumers defeated Divx because they didn't like what it did to the concept of ownership. No one should ever believe, though, that if Divx had caught on the Sony, Disney, WB and the rest would've been anything less than ecstatic (though, obviously, there was a problem with the power it would've given Circuit City, but they wouldn't have had a problem with the concept itself.)
The truth is, the anti-Divx activists basically didn't look very hard at the problems with DVD, because DVD was a lot less intrusive and nasty than Divx. Now, however, that Divx is dead and DVD is growing, the people behind DVD are willing to show their claws and fangs to consumers. The attitude seems to be that the consumers will continue to buy DVDs no matter what nasty, corrupt, price gouging thing they do. I think that people have to show them that they are wrong, by boycotting pre-recorded media which is giving money to these companies. Hey, I don't have a DVD player, but I guess I'm not going to be getting FF VIII and a lot of other video games until Sony stops stomping all over the consumer, or going to any new movies or buying any new tapes.
Don't buy anything from these companies:
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.(Sony) Disney Enterprises, Inc. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. Paramount Pictures Corporation TriStar Pictures, Inc. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation United Artists Pictures, Inc. United Artists Corporation Universal City Studios, Inc. Warner Bros., a Division of Time Warner Entertainment Company, L.P.
Ok, at this point, I do not think that we can depend on the courts to rule in a pro-consumer way on these issues. It seems the courts, and the legislature are bought and paid for (with all the money we consumers have been pouring into Hollywood.) We need to boycott, we need to start boycotting ASAP, and we need to boycott successfully. In order to have a boycott, though, we need to establish victory conditions as to when the boycott will end. So, the big question is "What do we want?"
Well, I know what I want, but I can't speak for everyone. I'd like some respectable person who could organize something like this to set up a list of demands. I will, however, give my own suggestions:
1. An end to regional coding.
2. An affirmation of the right to fair use.
3. An end to product tying.
4. The repeal of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
5. The break up of the DVD CCA and future administration of the CSS to go to a non-profit entity which will administer it in the best interests of the consumer.
6. For all defendants in this case to have their legal bills paid by the MPAA, plus any damages that resulted from the MPAA's actions.
I'll admit, some may think we don't need all these demands to be met, and some may think other demands need to be added. I just think we have to have demands so that people involved in the boycott can see we are aiming for a definite goal.
I hope that we will beat this either through legal means, like the courts or legislature, or through economic pressure. If not, the future will be bleak indeed.
I urge everyone to boycott, remember, your rights are more important than whatever entertainment you would be buying. The MPAA and DVD CCA must be beaten on this one.
Actually, as a long time console fanatic (yes, I love computers too, but they don't have the same types of games) I want you to know I agree with you 100%, but actually it goes beyond DVD. Sony has worked long and hard to enforce regional coding in the PSX, in fact when enterprising gamers find a way to defeat regional coding Sony comes up with some new wrinkle to enforce it. so, for example, when I bought and paid for an American version of Dino Crisis new, I got a message from Sony (in Japanese) saying, I assume, "Naughty, you've modded your Playstation, no Dino Crisis for you!" Incidentally, pirate versions of Dino Crisis work fine in Playstations, because the pirates came up with a way to avoid this problem. All this just because I wanted to be able to by Japanese versions of Samurai Spiriits and Last Blade, which weren't brought to the US because it was assumed they wouldn't sell. Not to mention what Sony has been trying to do with Bleem!
So, even before the DVD thing came up I was going to boycott Playstation2 (and Dreamcast for similar abuses.)
So, basically, I say if you plan to boycott content controls, remember Sony may be the driving force behind the whole thing! Did you know it is illegal to sell used tapes or video games in Japan? Who do you think is behind that? Sony helped rob the Japanese people of ownership of their own property (the right to sell things you own is part of that), and now they are in cahoots with people who want to do something similar here!
Playstation predates DVD, Playstation paved the way for DVD CCA. Boycott Sony if you plan on boycotting the MPAA and DVD CCA.
Game systems will never replace PCs and they aren't meant to. A game system is supposed to be a relatively cheap, relatively portable and relatively stable platform for games. A lot of PC gamers don't understand that notpushing the technology is an advantage for consoles. You see, this means that for the lifespan of the console you will always be able to get the best games (and this is why accessories for game systems like CD-Roms drives and 32X for Sega and the double D drive for N64 weren't too sucessful. Console gamers just want to put the game in, turn the machine on and play.)
PC gamers, though, enjoy pushing the technology. Stuff like getting inside the machine and overclocking it or installing the latest graphics cards. PC Gamers also love being able to create modded levels to exercise their creativity. One thing that will probably change is online play, which console gamers may pick up.
I'm going to probably switch to being mainly a PC gamer now, after years of supporting consoles. I don't like what Sega did to consumers when they locked out the import light guns for Dreamcast (you cannot play House of the Dead without a light gun. Minor game, maybe, but I like it.), and I don't like Sony's way of treating consumers with region codes and the latest DVD fiasco. So, for me that leaves Nintendo's Dolphin, but I haven't made up my mind on that one yet.
PC's on the other hand, have started to look really good for gamers, even more so than they have for years. Of course, the habit does seem slightly more expensive to support on a PC... but I'd rather do that than give chum to the Sony shark.
Oh, and I'm sick of the whole, "...will replace the PC line of reasoning." This is just old fashioned "conventional wisdom" that the "average joe" neither needs nor wants a PC, but wants to be on the Internet. PCs are great, cool and fun (yes, even fun beyond just games... though I fear to utter near-heresy like that) and I think people have been buying them because they want to, not because they are forced to because there are no alternatives. PCs are going to be just fine... they aren't going anywhere, and neither are consoles.
I read on Lemuria.org that the Windows version was "proof of concept" software. That means it was created as a test. I often do this when I'm designing complex programs. I'll design a piece of code and then put it into a prototype program so that I can run tests on it to make sure it will work, then I usually either try to integrate it into the main program I'm designing or work on the other parts of the program until it was ready to be integrated.
Since this code was meant to be tinkered with by anyone in the OS community, the appropriate thing to do was release the source code to the Web, where anyone can make it into whatever they want.
So, the fact that DeCSS can be used in the ungainly and useless for piracy purposes task (currently) of copying huge VOB files to a hard drive does not make it illegal, per se.
Did the arresting officers say or do anything that blatantly hinted that they were doing this because of pressure from the MPAA or the United States government? What kinds of questions did they ask during the interrogation? Were they looking for other people to arrest?
Hmm, I love this. Hollywood loves to use this kind of tactic against those it wants to suppress. Of course, it used to be "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist party?" back when the blacklists were created. (Hint: If you were ever asked this question, it is a good sign you were going to end up on a blacklist, whatever your answer.)
Of course, plenty of non-Communist leftists (like union organizers) got blacklisted, mainly because Hollywood wanted to break things like the Screenwriters Guild, "Writers have power in the film industry? Outrageous!" which undermined the powers of studio bosses. The government helped them out with a handy paranoia about communism (yes, the Soviet Union was bad, but so was the paranoia about communist insurgents), which they could then use to tar anyone they didn't like. "You'll never work in this town again."
Of course, fear of communism is passé, but the government has shown itself to be extremely paranoid about "the hacker menace." Things like the Kevin Mitnick case were very useful to the government in playing up this threat, and of course the film industry did it's part too, with movies like Wargames. (Matthew Broderick's character was supposed to be sympathetic, but the movie still suggested computer hackers could start WWIII. Besides, it was an irritating movie anyway.)
So, now we have Jack Valenti, sounding-like circa 1950, talking about people "seduced by a strange ideology." Just replace the word communist with the work hacker, and you've brought it into the last year of the 20th century. "Oh Brave New World that has such people in it," time for me to go pray to Our Ford... and take my Soma, I guess.
Aaaaaaah!! No, no, no! Leiberman is worse than Valenti, do not try to give him anymore media attention or power. Because if Lieberman gets his way all content will be censored, and you won't care whether you can watch DVDs in Linux or not, anyway.
Besides, Valenti can counter with, "Mr. Lieberman, as you know the morals of Europe are not like us in the good old U.S. of A. Some of their movies are violent & sexy (even versions of American movies that have been made even more gory or sexual to compete in that market.) But part of the CSS is to prevent these horrible European movies from being viewable in the U.S. So you see, by defeating regional coding DeCSS will harm America's children." (Note, false quote based on an extrapolation of what Valenti has been saying. Please note I do not concur with the view that European movies are "bad for American children," but I know Leiberman does. I also know that European versions of American movies which are more violent or sexy than the American versions are that way because they haven't been subjected to America's corporate censorship, not because they have been changed for the European market. But neither Lieberman nor Valenti would ever let facts get in the way of their political self-interest.)
Lieberman would then draft legislation to make sure that regional coding was legally enforcable. Remember, Joseph Lieberman is really bad news.
Ah but it's easy to boycott pre-recorded video (which is what the boycott should actually be, no more tapes, no more movies, no more DVDs), because you can just do it. To boycott Nestlé(which everybody should do too, of course), you have to look at all the food you buy and make sure it isn't Nestlé. It takes real effort, because everybody has to eat. It means that you can't just go shopping, "Oh, let's get some Carnation Instant breakfast," you have to look at the box (in which case you'll see it is a Nestlé product).
You also have to think about boycotting companies that do crosspromotions with Nestlé like Disney. So, it isn't impossible to boycott Nestlé, but it does require some effort.
Not buying pre-recorded video in DVD or VHS format is easy though. I'm not even going to go so far as to say "never see the movie." You can always rent it once, if it is a "must see." (I'm not expecting everyone here not to see The Matrix II, for instance. I just think it would be very foolish to buy the DVD or video tape of it.) But let the pre-recorded video market take a hit (heck, you can even make exceptions for good companies, but the beauty of that is the only thought required is which companies not to boycott. It's actually much less effort just to buy no prerecorded materials, and let the "good" companies (if any) suffer with the bad.)
A DVD boycott, currently, is only an option for people with good incomes. I haven't even been able to afford a DVD-player myself yet. (I've had other priorities like college tuition.) Nestlé products though, are often consumed by poor people as well as those better off, so it's a much larger group of people that need to be involved.
...about the pre-eminence Indian society places on a technological education. Because of this fact, I think what OS the graduates of the countries are most comfortable with is going to be important:
This is not because Micros~1 is engaging in charity work, it is because it wants access to excellent human resources. I've read a few people saying something about "poor villagers not needing Internet access," but according to that Salon article one way for a person to improve life for him/herself and his/her family is to get into technology.
Anyway, I just wanted to point out that India is very important in computer technology. (A former computer of mine was from an Indian company, and wasn't Hotmail owned or run by an Indian before Microsoft gobbled it up?)
Anyway, I had an Indian professor who was a huge UNIX fan (he thought Linux was cool because it was more like UNIX than MS-Windows.) Come to think of it, most of my professors have been Indian, which says something about the country right there.
Most of this was assumption of course, however I don't believe the media is as nasty to politicians as it is to hackers. In order to be a politician you have to be able to manipulate the media.
Look, a lot of my beliefs about politics, my belief that the majority of politicians were decent people were killed off when Henry Hyde tried to pass an unconstitutional pro-censorship law. These were the same group that got into power by promising to "get government off of people's backs", but then started proposing big government solutions to problems when they didn't care about the people they were effecting.
You seem to think that saying "Politicians blow with the polls/Politicians stand up for what they care about" is a paradox. No, politicians blow with the polls on issues they don't care about, and stand up against them on issues they do. For examply, I believe Bill Clinton position on abortion and the Republican parties poition on gun control are sincere. This is why they'll allow no compromise on these issues unless they are dragged kicking and screaming. I think that the majority of people in congress don't really care about free speech in electronic media, and that they go with the polls on it.
Oh! One last thing, it is true that I seem to be painting all politicians with a broad brush. Someone once said, "Your local politician is a good guy, but all the rest are bums." Politicians are just people though, and I think that when people are forced to take positions on things they don't care deeply about, they take the easiest position. It's not cynicism, it's just life. It's like the difference between a logger's view of the Spotted Owl and an animal rights activists view. The logger might think the owl is cute, but if the owl means uneployment, he might decide he hates them. In the long run, what he cares about is how the owl is going to affect his life.
Sometimes I go to the horse's mouth for information:
Indeed, parents aren't even aware of how vicious some of these video games are. As Scott McInnis pointed out on the House floor recently, there is a game called "You're Gonna Die." The more people you kill, the higher your score. It even entices you with the pitch "Target specific body parts and actually see the damage done, including exit wounds."-- Dick Armey's Memo on values
With the number of shareware and underground games that exist, it is remotely possible that the game mentioned by Rep. Armey is real. However, a hotbot search turns up nothing, I haven't seen it in Babbages and its certainly not mainstream or popular in the way Half-Life, Quake, Final Fantasy VIII, or even System Shock II is. This is the leader of the supposed "get the government off of our back" party in the House of Representatives making outlandish statements and never getting called on them. (Read the whole thing for more information, http://www.freedom.gov/library/v alues/reflect1.asp)
So, yes, I am a little cynical. Armey is solidly against gun control which I suppose is admirable, but his views on video games sicken me. The view on guns was taken because I believe he believes in it, the view on games, since he hasn't bothered to research it at all, to appeal to his constituents who don't like video games.
Yes, you are supposed to keep the pedophile in prison.
Otherwise he could do it again, parole officer or no parole officer, drugs or no drugs. (Even castration isn't enough to be sure he won't do _anything_)
He could run. Really strong house arrest might stop it, but any amount of freedom is far too dangerous. Since really strong house arrest is just comfortable prison anyway, and could cost as much, just keep him behind bars. If he runs, how do you make sure he is taking his drugs?
The tiny number of pedophiles there are, along with the serial killers, do a number on our judicial system. Life without parole or death are the only safe options with such people. Both groups have a recidivism rate close to 100%
Oh, and discussion of violent crimes don't really apply to non-violent criminals like Kevin Mitnick, anyway. Kevin committed minor crimes which landed him a tough sentence because the government wanted to get tough on hackers. At this point he's no longer just a criminal, he's a former political prisoner, because the government didn't prosecute him based on what he did but to show all the other hackers what would happen to them if they got caught. Of course, I'm a big fan of Cool Hand Luke...
Douglas Adams is a pretty sophisticated and tech savvy guy, must have something to do with all his work with Infocom. His website, www.douglasadams.com is interesting, particularly if you want to see the text adventure version of Hitchhiker's Guide.
...The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester, about a futuristic society with psychic cops. (Babylon 5 fans should all read it, for obvious reasons.)
I've also found that short story collections on particular themes can be fun, I remember loving, Machines the Think edited by Isaac Asimov when I was a kid, "A Logic called Joe" was prophetic! I wish I could remember who wrote that story, it might've been Henry Kuttner.
Oh, and of course read lots of Heinlein, Asimov and DeCamp, they are both good for you as well as entertaining.
Remember, though, the politician isn't might not actually be interested in what you have to say, he he might just want you to go away, or if he considers you no threat, to ignore you. So, its easy for politicians who don't want to be bothered with Emails to say, "It's too easy. Besides, there is to much fraud." Instead of what he really think, which is "I'm not going to lose the election because of them." That's the only thing that politicians care about, really, the horror of going back to the private sector (or to it for the first time.) So, if Emails ever become a reliable method of polling the electorate, you can bet politicians will sit up and take notice of Emails. Right now, though, Emails still haven't proven themselves as useful political indicators, the pols don't "get" Email anyway, so they figure it can't safely be ignored. (Telephone, calls, however, have occaisionally been accurate predictors of public opinion.)
Best way to change this? Make sure that if you Email a rep. or Senator and he ignores it that he gets punished for it at the polls.
Oh, and one last point:
then a phone call will get across only what the person listening chooses to write down and understands
Well, that's true, but I wouldn't be surprised if exactly the same thing happens with Email. I'd love to be proven wrong on this, I wouldn't have to waste so much money on stamps!
Articles like this one, prevent me from being encouraged about politicians and Email:
The main thing about Congressman and Senators is that they will take positions on presumably safe issues that that they presume will win them votes but they don't really care about. Most of them are pretty ignorant about technology, and, for example, if you tell them, "The most popular video game currently available is called Blood & Gore and the plot of the game is to gun down innocent schoolchildren and nuns," they'll probably believe you (or figure that you are "close enough for government work.")
I have always assumed congressional Email works like this. The congressman or Senator has a bunch of interns who don't necessarily have a lot to do all the time, they set one of the interns to read the incoming Email. If it is something important to the politician ("Bill gates wants to donate to your campaign") or something the intern cares about, they'll tell the politician. If not, they'll just delete it and move on. It's sort of like that episode of the Simpsons where Burns builds the sun-blocker. To paraphrase Mayor Quimby, "I have composed a polite but strongly worded letter which I will pass to Mr. Burn's underlings. Hopefully, with some cajoling, they will pass it along to him, or at least give him the gist of it."
A big pile of paper mail, however, will have the politician come into his office and say, "Wow, look at all that mail!" The politician is bound to take notice if it is mostly against something he or she is doing, though it might not change his or her mind. (Stuff they don't really care about, which I believe includes a lot of tech related issues, is not something they are going to risk votes over.)
Politicians, of course, care most about constituents. However, there are other groups they care about:
1. Big contributors.
2. Members of their parties. The more powerful, the better. If you are the head of your local Republican or Democratic organization, you have more power than a rank and file member. So, being involved in local politics gives you more of a voice on the national level.
A recent article in Salon, pointed out that there is one congressman who gets more campaign contributions from the Florida Cuban community than he does from people in his own state. This guy is also what the Romans considered an honest politician, he stays bought and can be counted on to support the legislation of these campaign contributions. (And the current battle over Elian Gonzales.)
Of course, people (myself included) hate the fact that support for an issue really comes down to money as well as votes, but that's the way the government works. So, I suggest to any millionaires in the OpenSource, Internet or Game industries that they put some money into campaigns. Money makes politicians care about the issue, if it all comes from the pro-filter/pro-censorship/anti-OpenSource side, well, you can guess what kind of laws will be passed.
Personally I'd love to see major reform of the political system and that really means politicians from outside the two party system getting elected. (Such as Libertarians, for example.)
Reading the commentary on the page... you know, I remember a time that I thought Electronic Arts were the good guys. I wonder if I could pin-point the exact date that they became an evil, soul-crushing corporation. (Probably after Dani Bunten left...)
Slashdot Mirror
I understand your thought, so I decided to look at the flyer with the Mickey Mouse removed and see if I liked it better. I thought it looked more sedate, and I liked it better. I think it might be a regional thing (maybe New Yorkers see Mickey as sinister because Disney recently had such a big impact on their city), so just alter it however you want or even make your own flyer. Of course, I live in FL, and trying to portray Mickey as evil here might be akin to "treasonable utterances..."
Electronic Frontier Norway
Of course, I'm not sure if they've set up the fund yet, but I plan to keep on checking back on their page to see how it is going, and I figured other people would be interested in the link too. (I think I can send an International Money Order, or something. I need to look into it.)
Oh, and thanks, Joh, for a thourough and informative answer to my questions.
Of course, to the film studios, this could be a huge propaganda negative to get some of the more exacting directors on their side. (Kubrick, for one, would've hated this idea.) Fortunately, they can't point to an actual existing program that does it, yet.
So, I say, way to go @stake, I'll now count you definitely in the "good guy" column.
I've already donated to EFF, and will donate more when I've cleared up some nasty debts. I hope anyone who can will do it too. Hey, combine it with the boycott, send the money you would've spent on movies to the EFF.
(See the below link).
1. You buy something, it's encrypted, planned obsolescence causes the players for it to stop being produced.
2. You decided to copy it into another format so that when your old player stops working, you'll still have the content you paid for.
3. Unfortunately, you are now circumventing anti-piracy measures, and that's against the law. Fortunately, you get off with a warning, but you can't make the copy.
4. The songs you like? They went out of style and never became popular again. They were your favorite music, but you can't rebuy them, the company that owns the rights isn't interested in republishing them for just you. You also can't build your own player to play them in the old format, because of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
Not that you should have to rebuy the same thing anyway, but you can bet some people will be in this situation. I mean, at least if you own an old copy of the game M.U.L.E. and you can create an emulator for it, you can play it, even though it is no longer produced and Electronic Arts is sitting on the rights to it. But with this new encryption stuff, the companies are likely to see breaking the encryption as too much of a threat even if they don't care about the content you want to listen to. So, if stufff isn't mainstream or popular, it'll just be allowed to disappear. It's sort of like if it were illegal to make record turntables for vinyl records now, no matter if some record you love never made it to CD.
Of course, that said, I should go stand in front of a theater and hand out flyers, of course, but I'm not sure how effective it will be.
I hate to say it but money is the Mother's milk of politics, Washington is so corrupt that only people with money have any influence on things anymore (most political battles are actually between opposing lobbies, each of which can afford to run TV commercials and give campaign contributions.)
Of course, I've been told that my political ideas are "cynicism masquerading as sophistication," but believe me, I'd love to see something that would shake my cynicism up.
The truth is, if Divx had suceeded, we might have had similar court cases and rulings. Enthusiasts and consumers defeated Divx because they didn't like what it did to the concept of ownership. No one should ever believe, though, that if Divx had caught on the Sony, Disney, WB and the rest would've been anything less than ecstatic (though, obviously, there was a problem with the power it would've given Circuit City, but they wouldn't have had a problem with the concept itself.)
The truth is, the anti-Divx activists basically didn't look very hard at the problems with DVD, because DVD was a lot less intrusive and nasty than Divx. Now, however, that Divx is dead and DVD is growing, the people behind DVD are willing to show their claws and fangs to consumers. The attitude seems to be that the consumers will continue to buy DVDs no matter what nasty, corrupt, price gouging thing they do. I think that people have to show them that they are wrong, by boycotting pre-recorded media which is giving money to these companies. Hey, I don't have a DVD player, but I guess I'm not going to be getting FF VIII and a lot of other video games until Sony stops stomping all over the consumer, or going to any new movies or buying any new tapes.
Don't buy anything from these companies:
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.(Sony)
Disney Enterprises, Inc.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.
Paramount Pictures Corporation
TriStar Pictures, Inc.
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
United Artists Pictures, Inc.
United Artists Corporation
Universal City Studios, Inc.
Warner Bros., a Division of Time Warner Entertainment Company, L.P.
Well, I know what I want, but I can't speak for everyone. I'd like some respectable person who could organize something like this to set up a list of demands. I will, however, give my own suggestions:
1. An end to regional coding.
2. An affirmation of the right to fair use.
3. An end to product tying.
4. The repeal of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
5. The break up of the DVD CCA and future administration of the CSS to go to a non-profit entity which will administer it in the best interests of the consumer.
6. For all defendants in this case to have their legal bills paid by the MPAA, plus any damages that resulted from the MPAA's actions.
I'll admit, some may think we don't need all these demands to be met, and some may think other demands need to be added. I just think we have to have demands so that people involved in the boycott can see we are aiming for a definite goal.
I hope that we will beat this either through legal means, like the courts or legislature, or through economic pressure. If not, the future will be bleak indeed.
I urge everyone to boycott, remember, your rights are more important than whatever entertainment you would be buying. The MPAA and DVD CCA must be beaten on this one.
So, even before the DVD thing came up I was going to boycott Playstation2 (and Dreamcast for similar abuses.)
So, basically, I say if you plan to boycott content controls, remember Sony may be the driving force behind the whole thing! Did you know it is illegal to sell used tapes or video games in Japan? Who do you think is behind that? Sony helped rob the Japanese people of ownership of their own property (the right to sell things you own is part of that), and now they are in cahoots with people who want to do something similar here!
Playstation predates DVD, Playstation paved the way for DVD CCA. Boycott Sony if you plan on boycotting the MPAA and DVD CCA.
PC gamers, though, enjoy pushing the technology. Stuff like getting inside the machine and overclocking it or installing the latest graphics cards. PC Gamers also love being able to create modded levels to exercise their creativity. One thing that will probably change is online play, which console gamers may pick up.
I'm going to probably switch to being mainly a PC gamer now, after years of supporting consoles. I don't like what Sega did to consumers when they locked out the import light guns for Dreamcast (you cannot play House of the Dead without a light gun. Minor game, maybe, but I like it.), and I don't like Sony's way of treating consumers with region codes and the latest DVD fiasco. So, for me that leaves Nintendo's Dolphin, but I haven't made up my mind on that one yet.
PC's on the other hand, have started to look really good for gamers, even more so than they have for years. Of course, the habit does seem slightly more expensive to support on a PC... but I'd rather do that than give chum to the Sony shark.
Oh, and I'm sick of the whole, "...will replace the PC line of reasoning." This is just old fashioned "conventional wisdom" that the "average joe" neither needs nor wants a PC, but wants to be on the Internet. PCs are great, cool and fun (yes, even fun beyond just games... though I fear to utter near-heresy like that) and I think people have been buying them because they want to, not because they are forced to because there are no alternatives. PCs are going to be just fine... they aren't going anywhere, and neither are consoles.
Since this code was meant to be tinkered with by anyone in the OS community, the appropriate thing to do was release the source code to the Web, where anyone can make it into whatever they want.
Incidentally, it is not illegal to copy DVD disks, by that logic, CD duplicators would be illegal. (I know I've seen one advertised on TV from Philips, so if it is they are going to get caught soon.)
So, the fact that DeCSS can be used in the ungainly and useless for piracy purposes task (currently) of copying huge VOB files to a hard drive does not make it illegal, per se.
Did the arresting officers say or do anything that blatantly hinted that they were doing this because of pressure from the MPAA or the United States government? What kinds of questions did they ask during the interrogation? Were they looking for other people to arrest?
Of course, plenty of non-Communist leftists (like union organizers) got blacklisted, mainly because Hollywood wanted to break things like the Screenwriters Guild, "Writers have power in the film industry? Outrageous!" which undermined the powers of studio bosses. The government helped them out with a handy paranoia about communism (yes, the Soviet Union was bad, but so was the paranoia about communist insurgents), which they could then use to tar anyone they didn't like. "You'll never work in this town again."
Of course, fear of communism is passé, but the government has shown itself to be extremely paranoid about "the hacker menace." Things like the Kevin Mitnick case were very useful to the government in playing up this threat, and of course the film industry did it's part too, with movies like Wargames. (Matthew Broderick's character was supposed to be sympathetic, but the movie still suggested computer hackers could start WWIII. Besides, it was an irritating movie anyway.)
So, now we have Jack Valenti, sounding-like circa 1950, talking about people "seduced by a strange ideology." Just replace the word communist with the work hacker, and you've brought it into the last year of the 20th century. "Oh Brave New World that has such people in it," time for me to go pray to Our Ford... and take my Soma, I guess.
Besides, Valenti can counter with, "Mr. Lieberman, as you know the morals of Europe are not like us in the good old U.S. of A. Some of their movies are violent & sexy (even versions of American movies that have been made even more gory or sexual to compete in that market.) But part of the CSS is to prevent these horrible European movies from being viewable in the U.S. So you see, by defeating regional coding DeCSS will harm America's children." (Note, false quote based on an extrapolation of what Valenti has been saying. Please note I do not concur with the view that European movies are "bad for American children," but I know Leiberman does. I also know that European versions of American movies which are more violent or sexy than the American versions are that way because they haven't been subjected to America's corporate censorship, not because they have been changed for the European market. But neither Lieberman nor Valenti would ever let facts get in the way of their political self-interest.)
Lieberman would then draft legislation to make sure that regional coding was legally enforcable. Remember, Joseph Lieberman is really bad news.
You also have to think about boycotting companies that do crosspromotions with Nestlé like Disney. So, it isn't impossible to boycott Nestlé, but it does require some effort.
Not buying pre-recorded video in DVD or VHS format is easy though. I'm not even going to go so far as to say "never see the movie." You can always rent it once, if it is a "must see." (I'm not expecting everyone here not to see The Matrix II, for instance. I just think it would be very foolish to buy the DVD or video tape of it.) But let the pre-recorded video market take a hit (heck, you can even make exceptions for good companies, but the beauty of that is the only thought required is which companies not to boycott. It's actually much less effort just to buy no prerecorded materials, and let the "good" companies (if any) suffer with the bad.)
A DVD boycott, currently, is only an option for people with good incomes. I haven't even been able to afford a DVD-player myself yet. (I've had other priorities like college tuition.) Nestlé products though, are often consumed by poor people as well as those better off, so it's a much larger group of people that need to be involved.
Salon: Technical Sutra
I happen to know that Microsoft actively recruits in India:
MS: India Development Center
This is not because Micros~1 is engaging in charity work, it is because it wants access to excellent human resources. I've read a few people saying something about "poor villagers not needing Internet access," but according to that Salon article one way for a person to improve life for him/herself and his/her family is to get into technology.
Anyway, I just wanted to point out that India is very important in computer technology. (A former computer of mine was from an Indian company, and wasn't Hotmail owned or run by an Indian before Microsoft gobbled it up?)
Anyway, I had an Indian professor who was a huge UNIX fan (he thought Linux was cool because it was more like UNIX than MS-Windows.) Come to think of it, most of my professors have been Indian, which says something about the country right there.
Look, a lot of my beliefs about politics, my belief that the majority of politicians were decent people were killed off when Henry Hyde tried to pass an unconstitutional pro-censorship law. These were the same group that got into power by promising to "get government off of people's backs", but then started proposing big government solutions to problems when they didn't care about the people they were effecting.
You seem to think that saying "Politicians blow with the polls/Politicians stand up for what they care about" is a paradox. No, politicians blow with the polls on issues they don't care about, and stand up against them on issues they do. For examply, I believe Bill Clinton position on abortion and the Republican parties poition on gun control are sincere. This is why they'll allow no compromise on these issues unless they are dragged kicking and screaming. I think that the majority of people in congress don't really care about free speech in electronic media, and that they go with the polls on it.
Oh! One last thing, it is true that I seem to be painting all politicians with a broad brush. Someone once said, "Your local politician is a good guy, but all the rest are bums." Politicians are just people though, and I think that when people are forced to take positions on things they don't care deeply about, they take the easiest position. It's not cynicism, it's just life. It's like the difference between a logger's view of the Spotted Owl and an animal rights activists view. The logger might think the owl is cute, but if the owl means uneployment, he might decide he hates them. In the long run, what he cares about is how the owl is going to affect his life.
Sometimes I go to the horse's mouth for information:
With the number of shareware and underground games that exist, it is remotely possible that the game mentioned by Rep. Armey is real. However, a hotbot search turns up nothing, I haven't seen it in Babbages and its certainly not mainstream or popular in the way Half-Life, Quake, Final Fantasy VIII, or even System Shock II is. This is the leader of the supposed "get the government off of our back" party in the House of Representatives making outlandish statements and never getting called on them. (Read the whole thing for more information, http://www.freedom.gov/library/v alues/reflect1.asp)So, yes, I am a little cynical. Armey is solidly against gun control which I suppose is admirable, but his views on video games sicken me. The view on guns was taken because I believe he believes in it, the view on games, since he hasn't bothered to research it at all, to appeal to his constituents who don't like video games.
Otherwise he could do it again, parole officer or no parole officer, drugs or no drugs. (Even castration isn't enough to be sure he won't do _anything_)
He could run. Really strong house arrest might stop it, but any amount of freedom is far too dangerous. Since really strong house arrest is just comfortable prison anyway, and could cost as much, just keep him behind bars. If he runs, how do you make sure he is taking his drugs?
The tiny number of pedophiles there are, along with the serial killers, do a number on our judicial system. Life without parole or death are the only safe options with such people. Both groups have a recidivism rate close to 100%
Oh, and discussion of violent crimes don't really apply to non-violent criminals like Kevin Mitnick, anyway. Kevin committed minor crimes which landed him a tough sentence because the government wanted to get tough on hackers. At this point he's no longer just a criminal, he's a former political prisoner, because the government didn't prosecute him based on what he did but to show all the other hackers what would happen to them if they got caught. Of course, I'm a big fan of Cool Hand Luke...
Online Hitchiker's Guide at Douglas Adam's Website
Oh, and I'm convinced that the "terrible nerd" from his other game, Bureaucracy, is a result of his prophetic abilities and is actually Bill Gates.
After all, he was right about 42:
Article: Hitchiker's Guide Was Right! 42 It Is!
I've also found that short story collections on particular themes can be fun, I remember loving, Machines the Think edited by Isaac Asimov when I was a kid, "A Logic called Joe" was prophetic! I wish I could remember who wrote that story, it might've been Henry Kuttner.
Oh, and of course read lots of Heinlein, Asimov and DeCamp, they are both good for you as well as entertaining.
Best way to change this? Make sure that if you Email a rep. or Senator and he ignores it that he gets punished for it at the polls.
Oh, and one last point:
Well, that's true, but I wouldn't be surprised if exactly the same thing happens with Email. I'd love to be proven wrong on this, I wouldn't have to waste so much money on stamps!Articles like this one, prevent me from being encouraged about politicians and Email:
The Bus Stops Everywhere
I have always assumed congressional Email works like this. The congressman or Senator has a bunch of interns who don't necessarily have a lot to do all the time, they set one of the interns to read the incoming Email. If it is something important to the politician ("Bill gates wants to donate to your campaign") or something the intern cares about, they'll tell the politician. If not, they'll just delete it and move on. It's sort of like that episode of the Simpsons where Burns builds the sun-blocker. To paraphrase Mayor Quimby, "I have composed a polite but strongly worded letter which I will pass to Mr. Burn's underlings. Hopefully, with some cajoling, they will pass it along to him, or at least give him the gist of it."
A big pile of paper mail, however, will have the politician come into his office and say, "Wow, look at all that mail!" The politician is bound to take notice if it is mostly against something he or she is doing, though it might not change his or her mind. (Stuff they don't really care about, which I believe includes a lot of tech related issues, is not something they are going to risk votes over.)
Politicians, of course, care most about constituents. However, there are other groups they care about:
1. Big contributors.
2. Members of their parties. The more powerful, the better. If you are the head of your local Republican or Democratic organization, you have more power than a rank and file member. So, being involved in local politics gives you more of a voice on the national level.
A recent article in Salon, pointed out that there is one congressman who gets more campaign contributions from the Florida Cuban community than he does from people in his own state. This guy is also what the Romans considered an honest politician, he stays bought and can be counted on to support the legislation of these campaign contributions. (And the current battle over Elian Gonzales.)
Of course, people (myself included) hate the fact that support for an issue really comes down to money as well as votes, but that's the way the government works. So, I suggest to any millionaires in the OpenSource, Internet or Game industries that they put some money into campaigns. Money makes politicians care about the issue, if it all comes from the pro-filter/pro-censorship/anti-OpenSource side, well, you can guess what kind of laws will be passed.
Personally I'd love to see major reform of the political system and that really means politicians from outside the two party system getting elected. (Such as Libertarians, for example.)
Planeteer!
Reading the commentary on the page... you know, I remember a time that I thought Electronic Arts were the good guys. I wonder if I could pin-point the exact date that they became an evil, soul-crushing corporation. (Probably after Dani Bunten left...)
Couldn't resist, if you are like me just looking at this page will make you happy for a minute.