Microsoft is a de facto monopoly in the market for operating systems for personal computers, in the market for office applicatons, and probably a few more. A de facto monopoly is usually defined as having near 100% of the market, not exactly 100%, since the last few % make little difference.
Precisely - there's a huge difference between identifying a known typist by their unique typing style, and determining the age and sex of an unknown typist. The former only involves matching two typing patterns, the latter assumes age and sex significantly affects typing style and can be filtered out from all other factors.
Yes, the system is broken, but we still can't allow people to access other people's broken systems.
It's not ok to walk into a strangers house just because the lock is broken.
The last barrier to abusive government is being dismantled.
To me, who live in a country where jury nullifcation has never existed, that statement sounds odd. Shouldn't the last barrier to abusive government be to depose it in public elections?
Perhaps you should consider that there is a reason for having 12 people on a jury, and why a single person can hang it. What seems to have appalled you, in practice, worked exactly like it should have. It takes a single person to keep things balanced.
But having that last person on the jury was pure luck. If there can be 11 idiots on the jury, there can almost as easily be 12.
I live in a country (Sweden) where criminal cases are decided by a board of experts, lead by the judge. There are plenty of cases where their personal bias have affected a case, or where the competence of the lower courts have come into question, but at least they have some competence in judging the evidence and following the law. I'd take that over a jury of my peers.
That move must not have turned out as well as all the loud "customers" on Slashdot claim it would.
I read the post by the Ubisoft employee, and he (or she) is really only saying the game was more pirated than previus Prince of Persia games, and that he's very disappointed that people don't want to pay for their games.
Isn't it possible that the game was downloaded a lot just because expectations were initiallly high?
I just have a hard time understanding how DRM can make much of a difference to pirates, since games are up on BitTorrent sites within days anyway. The only situation where I see DRM making a difference, is when a friend buys the game and you attempt to copy it directly from their original disk. But who does that these days? It's faster and easier to download it from a BitTorrent site.
Now, since the DMCA, I can't legally make copies of whatever is protected by DRM even when the copyright expires . Even if I'm technically able to break the encryption, the DMCA states it's illegal to circumvent any copy protection.
That's an interesting point, never thought of that. I'd mod you as "Insightful" if I had points.
"Public Domain" is a collection of books, movies and games of dubious origin that fails to teach respect for intelletectual property. The RIAA told me so!
Beyond that, smoking a CAPTCHA system with a bit of cleverness is not hacking or unauthorized access in any reasonable way.
True, but if one of the conditions the seller sets up for selling you a ticket is that you buy it manually, then using a bot to "pretend" you're buying it manually might be considered fraud.
I wouldn't go as far as saying "Google has earned our trust", because we don't know
1. What they will do in the future
2. What they have done in cooperation with the governments of, for example, USA or China, that we don't know about
The massive amounts of data Google collects about people present a huge temptation for misuse, and I'm convinced they will be misused some day. However, as far as anti-competitive tactics go, I don't know of any case where Google has done wrong.
This has been explained before, but I'll give it another try.
The complaints are not about the *size* of IE's market share. The complaints are about Microsoft using its dominance in the operating system market to gain dominance in the browser market, by bundling their browser with Windows. There are also related complaints about Microsoft breaking standards in such a way that third-party web pages stop working in the web browsers of smaller competitors.
See the difference? Being big is not illegal, but using your size to squash your competition *in other ways than making better products* may be illegal.
People break rules they pay lip-service to all the time. Like cheating in games, evading taxes, and so on. It doesn't take a sociopathic mind, it just takes some ability to rationalise.
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft is a de facto monopoly in the market for operating systems for personal computers, in the market for office applicatons, and probably a few more. A de facto monopoly is usually defined as having near 100% of the market, not exactly 100%, since the last few % make little difference.
War? Nah, just declare him to be a terrorist, and we don't need to go to the trouble of declaring war.
Precisely - there's a huge difference between identifying a known typist by their unique typing style, and determining the age and sex of an unknown typist. The former only involves matching two typing patterns, the latter assumes age and sex significantly affects typing style and can be filtered out from all other factors.
My grandmother's name is Hilda'); DROP TABLE accounts;--
Yes, the system is broken, but we still can't allow people to access other people's broken systems. It's not ok to walk into a strangers house just because the lock is broken.
I'll bet you'd see a lot fewer frivolous prosecutions and lawsuits that way.
Um, why not simply get rid of the ridiculous damage amounts (especially punitive damages)?
The last barrier to abusive government is being dismantled.
To me, who live in a country where jury nullifcation has never existed, that statement sounds odd. Shouldn't the last barrier to abusive government be to depose it in public elections?
P.S. Maybe I should add that our system works well with our laws and culture, but it doesn't necessarily mean it would work well for the USA.
Perhaps you should consider that there is a reason for having 12 people on a jury, and why a single person can hang it. What seems to have appalled you, in practice, worked exactly like it should have. It takes a single person to keep things balanced.
But having that last person on the jury was pure luck. If there can be 11 idiots on the jury, there can almost as easily be 12.
I live in a country (Sweden) where criminal cases are decided by a board of experts, lead by the judge. There are plenty of cases where their personal bias have affected a case, or where the competence of the lower courts have come into question, but at least they have some competence in judging the evidence and following the law. I'd take that over a jury of my peers.
"And if that's wrong, I don't want to be right!"
Um... the grandparent was using a reductio ad absurdum, i.e, he was trying to show how absurd an idea is by taking it to its logical conclusion.
That move must not have turned out as well as all the loud "customers" on Slashdot claim it would.
I read the post by the Ubisoft employee, and he (or she) is really only saying the game was more pirated than previus Prince of Persia games, and that he's very disappointed that people don't want to pay for their games.
Isn't it possible that the game was downloaded a lot just because expectations were initiallly high?
I just have a hard time understanding how DRM can make much of a difference to pirates, since games are up on BitTorrent sites within days anyway. The only situation where I see DRM making a difference, is when a friend buys the game and you attempt to copy it directly from their original disk. But who does that these days? It's faster and easier to download it from a BitTorrent site.
Ok, but how about this? "Don't pirate this game, or this puppy here gets it!"
Or maybe not...
Now, since the DMCA, I can't legally make copies of whatever is protected by DRM even when the copyright expires . Even if I'm technically able to break the encryption, the DMCA states it's illegal to circumvent any copy protection.
That's an interesting point, never thought of that. I'd mod you as "Insightful" if I had points.
"Public Domain" is a collection of books, movies and games of dubious origin that fails to teach respect for intelletectual property. The RIAA told me so!
Beyond that, smoking a CAPTCHA system with a bit of cleverness is not hacking or unauthorized access in any reasonable way.
True, but if one of the conditions the seller sets up for selling you a ticket is that you buy it manually, then using a bot to "pretend" you're buying it manually might be considered fraud.
Possibly, but with time people would learn not to buy from scalpers.
I wouldn't go as far as saying "Google has earned our trust", because we don't know
1. What they will do in the future
2. What they have done in cooperation with the governments of, for example, USA or China, that we don't know about
The massive amounts of data Google collects about people present a huge temptation for misuse, and I'm convinced they will be misused some day. However, as far as anti-competitive tactics go, I don't know of any case where Google has done wrong.
*sigh*
This has been explained before, but I'll give it another try.
The complaints are not about the *size* of IE's market share. The complaints are about Microsoft using its dominance in the operating system market to gain dominance in the browser market, by bundling their browser with Windows. There are also related complaints about Microsoft breaking standards in such a way that third-party web pages stop working in the web browsers of smaller competitors.
See the difference? Being big is not illegal, but using your size to squash your competition *in other ways than making better products* may be illegal.
The likeness of the characters is copyrighted, not just specific images of them.
Good grief, in what way does it hurt *society* if a 15-year-old takes nude pictures of him/herself?
I'm certainly no expert on Australian law, but if we look at the placement of the word "appear" in this section:
(a) material that depicts a person, or a representation of a person, who is, or appears to be, under 18 years of age
doesn't it seem to imply that the persons need to appear to be under 18, but need to actually be depictions of persons?
If the lawmakers were trying to say that porn drawings of imaginary children were illegal, wouldn't they write
(a) material that appears to depict a person, or a representation of a person, who is, or appears to be, under 18 years of age
Of course, it also depends on what the law means by a "representation of a person"...
Unless you mean they CAME UP WITH the rules on their own initiative, and then flouted them. That would be more than a little weird.
People break rules they pay lip-service to all the time. Like cheating in games, evading taxes, and so on. It doesn't take a sociopathic mind, it just takes some ability to rationalise.
No, he's not saying you should believe anything is alright. He's saying you should realise it's not your problem.