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I was trying to submit the following comment on Digital Television copyright protection Docket - 02-230
I am very much against the FCC mandating Digital TV copyright protection. This would remove the uses that US citizens currently enjoy and that the courts have stated are legal.
I do not believe that not having copy protection on broadcasted material will adversely affect the medium. Although there are many content companies that say they will not make their content available, I think that is just posturing to get this concession. And if they don't want to make their content available, fine, I have no doubt that there is money to be made and that others will make content available to fill the void.
I think a mandated copy restriction process will actually hurt the broadcast industry because I know many people who time-shift who would just not watch at all if they couldn't.
Well Visual Studio 6 crashes anytime I shut it down or try to close the workspace used to develop our application. I send the error report every time, but I'm pretty sure none of the other developers on the team do, and there are 8 other developers.
What I really would like to know is how is the text? Are 6pt fonts legible on plain paper?
Canon had some color inkjet printers that got good text reviews, but all of them seem to have been discontinued, and their newer models have pretty bad reviews when it comes to text printing.
What I want is a decent text printer that also does color. I'm not that concerned with printing great photos, I'd just like color web pages and maps and OK photos.
What I heard was that technically DVD-RAM is much better for backing up data than DVD-RW or DVD+RW.
It's true that if you want a more portable format, you need something that a normal DVD drive can read and that isn't DVD-RAM.
On the other hand I am thinking about getting the Panasonic HS2 (or their newer model the E80 I think) for recording & saving TV, and it writes to DVD-RAM so that would be another reason to have a DVD-RAM drive in my computer.
Just a terminology nit-pick, but you should talk about the benefit to the public not to the consumer.
I think we need to stop thinking of the general populace as only consumers. It isn't really a consumer who should benefit from the give and take of copyrights and patents, it is the public (aka society as a whole).
Actually I think that copyrights and patents should be (and were originally intended to be) set up to maximize the benefit to society, but I don't believe that they currently do.
It is to societies benefit to have the most creative material published that is possible. Supposedly copyrights and patents encourage more to be published. However, for the period of the copyright or patent, others may not expand on those ideas, reducing the amount of material that is published. This is the balancing act.
And why is it that you have a 15" LCD with 1600x1200 resolution on your laptop, and it isn't possible to find an 18" LCD with that resolution ANYWHERE??!
The best resolution I have found on a desktop LCD that is 19" or under is 1280x1024.
I knew if I waited long enough someone would say exactly what I was thinking.
When the domain contains millions of people using a numeric unique identifier just makes sense, since the majority of people aren't going to get the unique "name" that they want anyway, and will have to distinguish it from the other similar names in some way that is just as difficult to remember as the number.
In addition, I don't remember my icq #. So what, if I need it either I search for it if I'm away from my computer where it's installed, or I open icq and read it from there. I almost never need to know my number or the number of any of my buddies! They're on my list identified by the nickname they chose, or the one I chose, and that's all I care about.
As a last comment, it's tough enough getting a mnemonic name when your domain is only in the 10's of thousands, such as email addresses at a large company or username at a portal site.
I have 1 question though. From your explanation, as the quality setting is applied to jpegs, it sounds like recompressing a jpeg would not increase the loss if the same quantizer was used as was used on the original. Is that true?
So if I load a jpeg into an editor, make some minor changes and then save it, the areas I haven't changed will not experience more loss if I use the original quality setting.
Except that most of the online financial institutions don't give you access to records more than a year old (some only 6 months, some maybe 2 years). So for example if I want to know what I paid for a stock 3 years ago, I better have the record somewhere in my house because the brokerage house I purchased it through won't have (or won't make available to me) any records from that long ago.
It's the same w/ my bank. They only keep 1 years worth of my online payments, after that I better have saved my own records.
The way I look at it, I only have 1 computer using my Internet connection. It's none of my ISP's business what other devices are in my house connected to that computer, or what services that computer is providing for those other devices.
Interesting points. I don't entirely agree though. DRM does attempt to create information that isn't easily copied, but it does it in a way that takes away from some of the old properties of published information. In particular, the movement in time and space of your "copy".
In addition, I'd say that all DRM is relatively easily circumvented. If it weren't for the DMCA, there would be all sorts of applications and devices for removing Digital Restrictions Management from information, and I think that would be a good thing.
However I do agree that if information is released in a restricted format, then it shouldn't qualify for copyright protection.
I just was skipping along and stumbled upon your post. Right to reception is exactly the concept I was grasping for when I read the article. I'm glad there are some places where the laws make sense!
What I'd like to know is why we (in the form of our government) should even grant a copyright for material that is only released in a copy restricted format?
After all the point of a copyright is that the material belongs to the public and is "leased" back to the author for a period of time. But if the public can't access the material once the copyright term has expired...?
There really is a big difference between the MS Win XP Activation "stick" and StarDock's "carrot".
Ignore hacked versions of software (all copy protection schemes will be hacked at some point), and the special corporate version of XP that don't require activation, because we are talking about the software targeted at the general consumer by the manufacturer of that software.
Activation proceeds from the point of view that you have not paid for the software, and disables various features (or the entire OS in the case of XP) if it is not activated. If after activation something (like a hardware change) makes the software (XP) think it isn't activated, it may stop working. This actually happened to a friend of mine. XP decided it hadn't been activated, and he was no longer even able to boot! I don't remember if he had to re-install in order to boot and reactivate or not.
In both cases, using a copy that you haven't purchased isn't legal. StarDock however isn't willing (thankfully) to inconvenience and insult its actual customers, in order to penalize those people who stole their software, and likely wouldn't buy it in any case. Instead, in order to entice some of the people who will only play the game if they get it for free (ie steal it) to actually buy it, they are offering extras for those people who can verify that they bought the software.
I think StarDock's policy will definitely make people treat it as though it were shareware, even though it isn't. I.E. people will borrow it and play it without buying it. On the other hand, I really think this will boost their sales (assuming it is a good game) because people will want the extras, and secondly I think the people who loan out their copy will encourage their friend to buy it to support a good company.
I always forget that.int even exists when I'm trying to list the original gTLDs:-)
But I completely agree with you that people are going to start recognizing the use of owning an internet ID that doesn't change. I don't have the email forwarding feature of my.name domain, but I don't miss it that much. I have set up several addresses at my domain which I have hosted for $3/month. And registering the domain only cost me 12 euros at gandi.net.
Actually they do charge an additional fee for the 2nd level email address. The letter referenced said that they were reducing the fee they charge to registrars for the combination of the domain and the email forwarding service.
I've registered my.name (using gandi.net) and they don't offer the email forwarding feature, just the domain.
So where I host my domain I can create as many email addresses at my domain as I'd like, ie me@john.smith.name, maillist@john.smith.name, slashdot@john.smith.name, amazon@john.smith.name etc.
However email sent to john@smith.name goes into some black hole because I don't have the email forwarding feature.
Now that the email feature is cheaper, maybe they'll convince gandi.net to offer it, and if it doesn't cost me much more I may get it when I renew, or add it before that if they make it easy.
The one thing I think you're missing is that.name is targetted at being a personal address (email and web).
As such, sure some people will put it on their business cards, but I think people will eventually recognize the value of having multiple identities, a personal one (.name) and a work one (related to their company).
And actually it's worthwhile having a 3rd "personal public" email that you can replace when it starts getting overloaded with spam.
I only give my personal (.name) email to friends and family. I use the public email for USENET and subscriptions and online commerce, and I keep my work address for work relations.
I didn't buy the.name email forwarding, I just use my full domain me@john.smith.name and www.john.smith.name.
Now that the email forwarding is cheaper I may buy it if my registrar offers it. I use gandi.net, and they currently don't offer the email forwarding for.name.
I use gandi.net because they have very reasonable prices and the best contract of any registrar I've seen. (ie it's my domain and they're just my representative, instead of it's our domain and you can use it under our sufferage, and we may take it away at any time for any reason including our error and you will have no recourse!)
Wow, it amazes me that a government proposal can be so reasonable. Maybe they're finally learning.
If the government and the people would remember that copyright is a lease granted to the creator by the people (via the government), and that if it isn't fulfulling its goal of increasing invention and creativity then maybe it needs to be changed.
I'm not sure about all of the details but I believe that copyrights were granted to prevent publishers from taking advantage of the creators.
I don't believe that the intention was ever to prevent one person from "copying" and giving that copy to a couple of other people. Ie by hearing one person singing a song, and then they sing that song for other people.
I'd like to think that if you aren't propagating someone else's work for commercial gain, and if you attribute the source of the work to the best of your ability, then that should be enough for non-commercial sharing.
Once upon a time the very best musicians (and authors and artists) could barely scrape by economically on their art. Circumstances changed allowing them to easily capitalize on their art, and if circumstances change again so that they can't become mega-billionaires, well that's the way the world turns, my guess is that they will still do much better than their peers of a couple of hundred years ago.
So I'd actually like to see the copyright law changed to remove the copy control for non-commercial copies.
I have to say I've been thinking about building my own PVR for a while now.
However that $199 price is pretty attractive. What has stopped me from getting one, is I really don't want the subscription and I wasn't sure if they worked without it.
It sounds like without the subscription it would work just like a vcr. So my only question as far as that goes is, how many different shows could I program to be recorded?
I realize that I'd have to program as I do now, ie record 8-9pm every Tuesday, or record 8-10pm on 12/7/2002. But can I record more than the 8 shows a week that my VCR allows?
Slashdot Mirror
An Error has occured, Please Contact ECFS Help at ecfshelp@fcc.gov or (202) 418-0193. Or Click Here to send another comment
Error Type: Session Terminated
I was trying to submit the following comment on Digital Television copyright protection Docket - 02-230
Well Visual Studio 6 crashes anytime I shut it down or try to close the workspace used to develop our application. I send the error report every time, but I'm pretty sure none of the other developers on the team do, and there are 8 other developers.
What I really would like to know is how is the text? Are 6pt fonts legible on plain paper?
Canon had some color inkjet printers that got good text reviews, but all of them seem to have been discontinued, and their newer models have pretty bad reviews when it comes to text printing.
What I want is a decent text printer that also does color. I'm not that concerned with printing great photos, I'd just like color web pages and maps and OK photos.
Anyone else seeing this when they attempt to go to the link in the article?
Website Certified by an Unknown Authority
Issued To
Common Name sawho14.eop.gov
Issued By
Common Name <Not Part Of Certificate>
Organization VeriSign Trust Network
Organizational Unit VeriSign, Inc.
Validity
Issued On 3/7/2003
Expires On 3/7/2004
What I heard was that technically DVD-RAM is much better for backing up data than DVD-RW or DVD+RW.
It's true that if you want a more portable format, you need something that a normal DVD drive can read and that isn't DVD-RAM.
On the other hand I am thinking about getting the Panasonic HS2 (or their newer model the E80 I think) for recording & saving TV, and it writes to DVD-RAM so that would be another reason to have a DVD-RAM drive in my computer.
Mike
Just a terminology nit-pick, but you should talk about the benefit to the public not to the consumer.
I think we need to stop thinking of the general populace as only consumers. It isn't really a consumer who should benefit from the give and take of copyrights and patents, it is the public (aka society as a whole).
Actually I think that copyrights and patents should be (and were originally intended to be) set up to maximize the benefit to society, but I don't believe that they currently do.
It is to societies benefit to have the most creative material published that is possible. Supposedly copyrights and patents encourage more to be published. However, for the period of the copyright or patent, others may not expand on those ideas, reducing the amount of material that is published. This is the balancing act.
Mike
I so agree!
And why is it that you have a 15" LCD with 1600x1200 resolution on your laptop, and it isn't possible to find an 18" LCD with that resolution ANYWHERE??!
The best resolution I have found on a desktop LCD that is 19" or under is 1280x1024.
I knew if I waited long enough someone would say exactly what I was thinking.
When the domain contains millions of people using a numeric unique identifier just makes sense, since the majority of people aren't going to get the unique "name" that they want anyway, and will have to distinguish it from the other similar names in some way that is just as difficult to remember as the number.
In addition, I don't remember my icq #. So what, if I need it either I search for it if I'm away from my computer where it's installed, or I open icq and read it from there. I almost never need to know my number or the number of any of my buddies! They're on my list identified by the nickname they chose, or the one I chose, and that's all I care about.
As a last comment, it's tough enough getting a mnemonic name when your domain is only in the 10's of thousands, such as email addresses at a large company or username at a portal site.
Thanks for an excellent explanation.
I have 1 question though. From your explanation, as the quality setting is applied to jpegs, it sounds like recompressing a jpeg would not increase the loss if the same quantizer was used as was used on the original. Is that true?
So if I load a jpeg into an editor, make some minor changes and then save it, the areas I haven't changed will not experience more loss if I use the original quality setting.
Mike
Except that most of the online financial institutions don't give you access to records more than a year old (some only 6 months, some maybe 2 years). So for example if I want to know what I paid for a stock 3 years ago, I better have the record somewhere in my house because the brokerage house I purchased it through won't have (or won't make available to me) any records from that long ago.
It's the same w/ my bank. They only keep 1 years worth of my online payments, after that I better have saved my own records.
I don't quite get this. The mail's been delivered, why do they take it back?
I can somewhat understand not delivering new mail if your mailbox is full, but taking away already delivered mail?
It just seems wrong. Particularly if there is no note.
The way I look at it, I only have 1 computer using my Internet connection. It's none of my ISP's business what other devices are in my house connected to that computer, or what services that computer is providing for those other devices.
Interesting points.
I don't entirely agree though. DRM does attempt to create information that isn't easily copied, but it does it in a way that takes away from some of the old properties of published information. In particular, the movement in time and space of your "copy".
In addition, I'd say that all DRM is relatively easily circumvented. If it weren't for the DMCA, there would be all sorts of applications and devices for removing Digital Restrictions Management from information, and I think that would be a good thing.
However I do agree that if information is released in a restricted format, then it shouldn't qualify for copyright protection.
I just was skipping along and stumbled upon your post. Right to reception is exactly the concept I was grasping for when I read the article. I'm glad there are some places where the laws make sense!
What I'd like to know is why we (in the form of our government) should even grant a copyright for material that is only released in a copy restricted format?
After all the point of a copyright is that the material belongs to the public and is "leased" back to the author for a period of time. But if the public can't access the material once the copyright term has expired...?
There really is a big difference between the MS Win XP Activation "stick" and StarDock's "carrot".
Ignore hacked versions of software (all copy protection schemes will be hacked at some point), and the special corporate version of XP that don't require activation, because we are talking about the software targeted at the general consumer by the manufacturer of that software.
Activation proceeds from the point of view that you have not paid for the software, and disables various features (or the entire OS in the case of XP) if it is not activated. If after activation something (like a hardware change) makes the software (XP) think it isn't activated, it may stop working. This actually happened to a friend of mine. XP decided it hadn't been activated, and he was no longer even able to boot! I don't remember if he had to re-install in order to boot and reactivate or not.
In both cases, using a copy that you haven't purchased isn't legal. StarDock however isn't willing (thankfully) to inconvenience and insult its actual customers, in order to penalize those people who stole their software, and likely wouldn't buy it in any case. Instead, in order to entice some of the people who will only play the game if they get it for free (ie steal it) to actually buy it, they are offering extras for those people who can verify that they bought the software.
I think StarDock's policy will definitely make people treat it as though it were shareware, even though it isn't. I.E. people will borrow it and play it without buying it. On the other hand, I really think this will boost their sales (assuming it is a good game) because people will want the extras, and secondly I think the people who loan out their copy will encourage their friend to buy it to support a good company.
419 can boost their economy too!
I think they've gone way overboard here. I don't want a "special" area on the hard drive reserved for the EFI.
A BIOS (by any name) should be small, and not need much storage space.
I always forget that .int even exists when I'm trying to list the original gTLDs :-)
.name domain, but I don't miss it that much. I have set up several addresses at my domain which I have hosted for $3/month. And registering the domain only cost me 12 euros at gandi.net.
But I completely agree with you that people are going to start recognizing the use of owning an internet ID that doesn't change. I don't have the email forwarding feature of my
Actually they do charge an additional fee for the 2nd level email address. The letter referenced said that they were reducing the fee they charge to registrars for the combination of the domain and the email forwarding service.
.name (using gandi.net) and they don't offer the email forwarding feature, just the domain.
I've registered my
So where I host my domain I can create as many email addresses at my domain as I'd like, ie me@john.smith.name, maillist@john.smith.name, slashdot@john.smith.name, amazon@john.smith.name etc.
However email sent to john@smith.name goes into some black hole because I don't have the email forwarding feature.
Now that the email feature is cheaper, maybe they'll convince gandi.net to offer it, and if it doesn't cost me much more I may get it when I renew, or add it before that if they make it easy.
The one thing I think you're missing is that .name is targetted at being a personal address (email and web).
As such, sure some people will put it on their business cards, but I think people will eventually recognize the value of having multiple identities, a personal one (.name) and a work one (related to their company).
And actually it's worthwhile having a 3rd "personal public" email that you can replace when it starts getting overloaded with spam.
I only give my personal (.name) email to friends and family. I use the public email for USENET and subscriptions and online commerce, and I keep my work address for work relations.
I have to agree, one of the funniest posts I've encountered on /. Unlike the majority of posts that are modded up as funny!
I've got one.
I didn't buy the .name email forwarding, I just use my full domain me@john.smith.name and www.john.smith.name.
Now that the email forwarding is cheaper I may buy it if my registrar offers it. I use gandi.net, and they currently don't offer the email forwarding for .name.
I use gandi.net because they have very reasonable prices and the best contract of any registrar I've seen. (ie it's my domain and they're just my representative, instead of it's our domain and you can use it under our sufferage, and we may take it away at any time for any reason including our error and you will have no recourse!)
- Mike
Wow, it amazes me that a government proposal can be so reasonable. Maybe they're finally learning.
If the government and the people would remember that copyright is a lease granted to the creator by the people (via the government), and that if it isn't fulfulling its goal of increasing invention and creativity then maybe it needs to be changed.
I'm not sure about all of the details but I believe that copyrights were granted to prevent publishers from taking advantage of the creators.
I don't believe that the intention was ever to prevent one person from "copying" and giving that copy to a couple of other people. Ie by hearing one person singing a song, and then they sing that song for other people.
I'd like to think that if you aren't propagating someone else's work for commercial gain, and if you attribute the source of the work to the best of your ability, then that should be enough for non-commercial sharing.
Once upon a time the very best musicians (and authors and artists) could barely scrape by economically on their art. Circumstances changed allowing them to easily capitalize on their art, and if circumstances change again so that they can't become mega-billionaires, well that's the way the world turns, my guess is that they will still do much better than their peers of a couple of hundred years ago.
So I'd actually like to see the copyright law changed to remove the copy control for non-commercial copies.
I have to say I've been thinking about building my own PVR for a while now.
However that $199 price is pretty attractive. What has stopped me from getting one, is I really don't want the subscription and I wasn't sure if they worked without it.
It sounds like without the subscription it would work just like a vcr. So my only question as far as that goes is, how many different shows could I program to be recorded?
I realize that I'd have to program as I do now, ie record 8-9pm every Tuesday, or record 8-10pm on 12/7/2002. But can I record more than the 8 shows a week that my VCR allows?
Mike