Its true that copying CDs wasn't difficult on an individual scale. But how many of us had the time and patience to make a hundred copies of a CD in real time? Same goes for photocopies; painfully slow, and generally only something you did in bulk if you really needed to*. DRM simply wasn't considered necessary (if it was even technically feasible) because it was such a pain in the arse, and the copies were less than perfect anyway so there was still an incentive to buy.
I think the parent's point was that DRM exists now because the media companies didn't have the foresight to create a reasonably priced electronic distribution system before it was done without them. That's not excusing the DMCA, its just lamenting what happens when you screw with a slow witted industry group with enormous political clout.
*Yes, I really needed that copy of the Player's Handbook;)
I'm not disputing for an instant that there's negligable real difference between the two industry groups, if only because the member companies they represent are mostly the same. In my view its one of many arguments in favour of laws lmiting cross-media ownership, but I don't expect to see any politician with the principles to take a stand on this issue any more than copyright reform.
The problem is that oftentimes there is no real way to quantify whether someone is bragging or simply stating what they believe to be facts without any attempt to glorify themselves.
The problem with that approach is that all braggarts believe what they say on some level, otherwise they wouldn't say these things or defend the lies so staunchly. The only way to know is to objectively examine their claims. So let's do that, shall we?
From TFA: When somebody comes to us [after discovering a vulnerability] we've got [a fix] before there is any exploit. So it's totally according to plan, and that's why we have the whole Windows Update thing. We made it way harder for guys to do exploits.The number [of violations] will be way less because we've done some dramatic things [to improve security] in the code base. Apple hasn't done any of those things.
So according to him there have been no zero day exploits for Vista (http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2073611,00.a sp), Apple has no equivalent to Windows Update (its been called "Software Update" since OS 8.5, see, not equivalent at all), and Apple have done nothing to improve the security of a platform that has no exploits in the first place...well that last one is true, I suppose, but that's like saying a housebrick is better than a car because it won't roll down hill if you leave the brake off.
I could go through the entire article and pick apart everything he says, but I'm tired so do it yourself; you seem to need the practice. And remember, this isn't an interview with a 14 year old fanboy, this is the head of the company who has been in the software business for over thirty years. He isn't a complete idiot with no historical or technical knowledge, he knows exactly what he's saying.
For instance, if I say that I won three gold medals in the last Olympics, I could be bragging or I could just be stating facts.
Whether its a fact depends on whether its actually true or not. Since it certainly isn't true, I'd have no problem entitling an article "udderly brags about fabricated athletic successes". Come and sue me if you want a judge to explain the concept of "absolute truth" to you. Whether you believe it to be true is utterly irrelevant if you can't verify your claims with hard evidence.
What would be your opinion if Fox News ran a value-judgment headline in reference to President Clinton that referred to him as "the Playboy President?"
You do realise there is a difference between calling someone a name and describing what they're saying, don't you? The headline here isn't "Bragging Billy Gates Boosts Vista", it is "Bill Gates Brags About Vista"; it is not saying he brags all the time, it says in this particular article he is bragging. And I agree.
Slashdot *does* claim to be a news source and being an editor has a higher responsibility than some anonymous individual posting on a thread
Yes, the editors of a publication have a responsibility to treat facts as facts, and point out when someone is either lying or mistaken (for whatever reason). The reason politicans and business can get away with so much is because they've convinced people like yourself that all of reality is variable according to perspective. it isn't: the only thing that changes with perspective is opinion, the facts remain the same. That's what "fact" means.
I use iTunes all the time, and so far I haven't found any limits on what I can do with imported media.
Music from iTMS is a different story, but most people seem to be aware that iTMS and iTunes aren't the same thing, and you don't need one to use the other...
And then I see the SAME people post how they love their iPod and fill it with DRM Apple songs that are not only lock them into Apple, but lock them into iTunes and lock them into an iPod for the rest of their life since they can't put the music they have bought on any other device.
I don't own an iPod, but I at least am perfectly aware that for music from any source other than iTMS can be transferred to an iPod without DRM being added; how does that lock anyone into Apple? And as for music from iTMS, the DRM can be easily circumvented if necessary using the instructions provided on Apple's own web site.
Can the WMA files from the Zune be quickly and easily burned to an audio CD?
If people here truly hate DRM for the right reasons, then they should protest Apple and demand that users do not buy iPods or OSX, the two most DRMed products currently in existence.
But not the Zune? A device that boasts deliberately crippled wireless doesn't rate a mention? I'm hardly neutral, but that is a degree of bias beyond belief.
Apart from the necessity of buying Apple hardware to use OS X (which isn't an illogical step for a company that makes most of its money from hardware and nearly went out of business the last time it tried licensing the OS), what DRM would that be? Does OS X disable itself if you modify the hardware? Does it phone home for activation? Does it prevent you using the same installer disk on multiple machines (bearing in mind it doesn't need an activation code)? See, having made the deliberate choice of buying Apple hardware I'm just dying to know what exactly this alleged DRM in OS X is preventing me from doing, and why its so much worse than Microsoft's...
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Whenever this happens to my Dell, I put it in my microwave and run it for a few minutes.
Excellent suggestion. I just microwaved my Dell on "high" for three minutes, and now its performing at peak efficiency!
Last time I was at my accountants, I got zapped by his new Dell Laptop.
No, Quicken now comes with a taser dongle.
Its true that copying CDs wasn't difficult on an individual scale. But how many of us had the time and patience to make a hundred copies of a CD in real time? Same goes for photocopies; painfully slow, and generally only something you did in bulk if you really needed to*. DRM simply wasn't considered necessary (if it was even technically feasible) because it was such a pain in the arse, and the copies were less than perfect anyway so there was still an incentive to buy.
;)
I think the parent's point was that DRM exists now because the media companies didn't have the foresight to create a reasonably priced electronic distribution system before it was done without them. That's not excusing the DMCA, its just lamenting what happens when you screw with a slow witted industry group with enormous political clout.
*Yes, I really needed that copy of the Player's Handbook
A valiant effort, none the less.
I'm not disputing for an instant that there's negligable real difference between the two industry groups, if only because the member companies they represent are mostly the same. In my view its one of many arguments in favour of laws lmiting cross-media ownership, but I don't expect to see any politician with the principles to take a stand on this issue any more than copyright reform.
Make movies so horrible no one would bother recording it.
But people record them anyway, regardless of how bad they are.
Its like Blackbeard plundering Pogs...
Just nitpicking, but these unaccountable, self-serving stats were releases by the notoriously lying, litigious, abusive MPAA.
And yes, it is pointless to karma whore as an AC.
If an AC karma whores in a forest of posts and noone mods him up, does he really karma whore at all?
The problem is that oftentimes there is no real way to quantify whether someone is bragging or simply stating what they believe to be facts without any attempt to glorify themselves.
a sp), Apple has no equivalent to Windows Update (its been called "Software Update" since OS 8.5, see, not equivalent at all), and Apple have done nothing to improve the security of a platform that has no exploits in the first place...well that last one is true, I suppose, but that's like saying a housebrick is better than a car because it won't roll down hill if you leave the brake off.
The problem with that approach is that all braggarts believe what they say on some level, otherwise they wouldn't say these things or defend the lies so staunchly. The only way to know is to objectively examine their claims. So let's do that, shall we?
From TFA:
When somebody comes to us [after discovering a vulnerability] we've got [a fix] before there is any exploit. So it's totally according to plan, and that's why we have the whole Windows Update thing. We made it way harder for guys to do exploits.The number [of violations] will be way less because we've done some dramatic things [to improve security] in the code base. Apple hasn't done any of those things.
So according to him there have been no zero day exploits for Vista (http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2073611,00.
I could go through the entire article and pick apart everything he says, but I'm tired so do it yourself; you seem to need the practice. And remember, this isn't an interview with a 14 year old fanboy, this is the head of the company who has been in the software business for over thirty years. He isn't a complete idiot with no historical or technical knowledge, he knows exactly what he's saying.
For instance, if I say that I won three gold medals in the last Olympics, I could be bragging or I could just be stating facts.
Whether its a fact depends on whether its actually true or not. Since it certainly isn't true, I'd have no problem entitling an article "udderly brags about fabricated athletic successes". Come and sue me if you want a judge to explain the concept of "absolute truth" to you. Whether you believe it to be true is utterly irrelevant if you can't verify your claims with hard evidence.
What would be your opinion if Fox News ran a value-judgment headline in reference to President Clinton that referred to him as "the Playboy President?"
You do realise there is a difference between calling someone a name and describing what they're saying, don't you? The headline here isn't "Bragging Billy Gates Boosts Vista", it is "Bill Gates Brags About Vista"; it is not saying he brags all the time, it says in this particular article he is bragging. And I agree.
Slashdot *does* claim to be a news source and being an editor has a higher responsibility than some anonymous individual posting on a thread
Yes, the editors of a publication have a responsibility to treat facts as facts, and point out when someone is either lying or mistaken (for whatever reason). The reason politicans and business can get away with so much is because they've convinced people like yourself that all of reality is variable according to perspective. it isn't: the only thing that changes with perspective is opinion, the facts remain the same. That's what "fact" means.
Look, I think Microsoft's products emanate directly from Satan's butthole
They do not! You're seriously over-rating Satan's gastric emissions.
radical to the max.
No way, its grody to the close.
everything Bill says in that interview is a load of crap, but does that really excuse that bias-laden headline?
brag: to engage in boastful talk (ref: Oxford English Dictionary).
Seems the appropriate word to me; do you prefer the editors glossed over his outright lies? And he did indeed react to Apple's ads. So the bias is...?
You couldn't be more right. Computing is the only field where the user is expected to fit the tools, rather than the other way around.
I really don't want to know what's on those tapes.
If we're talking typical nerd sexual activity, it'll be hours and hours of Melinda saying "no".
Slashdot's anti-Microsoft prejudice is pathetic.
Anti-MS bias on a web site owned by the Open Source Technology Group? I'm astounded!
I guess you haven't run iTunes yet.
I use iTunes all the time, and so far I haven't found any limits on what I can do with imported media.
Music from iTMS is a different story, but most people seem to be aware that iTMS and iTunes aren't the same thing, and you don't need one to use the other...
What will studio photographers do?
http://www.kinoflo.com/
How am I going to back up my punched cards now?!
Abacus and glue?
That campaign was a roaring success: you don't see anyone copying floppies now, do you?
I think "newspaper-style" was added to the word comic so nobody would confuse it with the stand-up variety.
Redundant really, since Microsoft's anti-piracy schemes have never stood up...
How should we address "him"?
"Thine mighty 800lb gorillaness".
Governments all around the world are waging wars, rounding people up, and torturing them. What business can do that?
Halliburton.
And then I see the SAME people post how they love their iPod and fill it with DRM Apple songs that are not only lock them into Apple, but lock them into iTunes and lock them into an iPod for the rest of their life since they can't put the music they have bought on any other device.
I don't own an iPod, but I at least am perfectly aware that for music from any source other than iTMS can be transferred to an iPod without DRM being added; how does that lock anyone into Apple? And as for music from iTMS, the DRM can be easily circumvented if necessary using the instructions provided on Apple's own web site.
Can the WMA files from the Zune be quickly and easily burned to an audio CD?
If people here truly hate DRM for the right reasons, then they should protest Apple and demand that users do not buy iPods or OSX, the two most DRMed products currently in existence.
But not the Zune? A device that boasts deliberately crippled wireless doesn't rate a mention? I'm hardly neutral, but that is a degree of bias beyond belief.
Apart from the necessity of buying Apple hardware to use OS X (which isn't an illogical step for a company that makes most of its money from hardware and nearly went out of business the last time it tried licensing the OS), what DRM would that be? Does OS X disable itself if you modify the hardware? Does it phone home for activation? Does it prevent you using the same installer disk on multiple machines (bearing in mind it doesn't need an activation code)? See, having made the deliberate choice of buying Apple hardware I'm just dying to know what exactly this alleged DRM in OS X is preventing me from doing, and why its so much worse than Microsoft's...
Even with a wrench...
Was that "r" a typo?
At $500+ per unit and a goal of 1% of the phone market, it won't really make itself into THE platform to write apps for, now will it?
Not until they add a sensor array and start calling it the iCorder...