To American Farkers: Please don't take that link seriously. I'm a 3rd generation Torontonian (yes, there is such a thing) and I've never heard of a "Toronto Free Press".
Second, the way these polls happen and the questions asked really bias the results. I will paraphrase what I interpret to be the majority opinion here: "Americans are really cool, and they're our best friends. But their government SUCKS ASS and some of those hardcore NRA members and Right Wing Christians really freak us out."
Unfortunately he's an American citizen. He's subject to American laws. The US chose to recognise those UN sanctions, so its not a UN violation but a US violation.
He's being deported to the US on the basis of an expired passport. When he hits american soil, he'll be charged. So he's not being EXTRADICTED for violation of law, but since the authorities know about his arrival they pretty much HAVE to charge him. This isn't a situation where law enforcement has alot of discretion.
It really comes down to whether the Department of Justice wants to pursue this. I'm sure we can all look forward to Ashcroft & Company executing their evaluation on the basis of common sense and justice...:(
Having worked with disabled people in a support capacity earlier in life, I can offer some observations (which are fully qualified as personal opinion only!):
1. Disabilities affect your state of mind. Just as you think differently if you speak a different language or come from a different culture, the mere fact that you're disabled impacts ALL aspects of your life, directly or indirectly. Think of it this way: if you know, for example, that you will NEVER have a sex life and that you will NEVER go through the traditional dating/marriage male/female dynamic, how does that change you life? For better? For worse?
2. Disabilities usually come with ongoing pain. Sores from prolonged periods of sitting in a wheelchair. Muscle problems from over developed/under developed muscles due to 'incorrect' body posture. Rashes from your adult diapers. Pain is NOT a natural state, and will pervade all aspects of your personality. When my mother had a serious muscle injury that persisted for about 18 months, the constant pain changed her personality completely (for the worse). Many times this is the reason why elderly people seem cantankerous and cranky...this is not their natural disposition. They were not 'always this way'.
3. People with disabilities are needy. Some more than others. The best adjusted ones are people who have disabilities onset late in life, or the ones that somehow have the strength of will (plus physical capability) of being independent. But some do not/cannot become independent, and thus are need as a matter of living. In many disabled people, I've seen an amplified sense of demand and outrage at minor things. It also amplifies the 'me-me-me-me' attitude, which I interpret as a corrupted sense of self preservation.
I think the movie "My Left Foot" did a great job portraying all of the personality differences if you're looking for a good dramatised case study.
Short of it is: I don't doubt that Hawking is an a**hole. I would be a bit surprised if he wasn't, in all honesty. But try not to judge too harshly...despite his great intelligence I suspect his social skills are unique to himself and somewhat limited. In this case I prefer to feel pity for his first wife, and reserve judgment on the man.
My parent post was modded as flamebait, but I'll still respond...
I agree with you that fair use (which is a concept defined differently from a legal perspective, country to country) should allow you to copy from one device to another. However, my point was that given multiple vendors with multiple technologies, the full extent of fair use implies NO copy protection. If its hardware specific, you lock out some hardware vendors...if its software specific, you eliminate some platforms from fair use AND the copy protection is much inferior.
I'm trying to look at this from both sides of the battle. Fair use should trump legislated monopolies at any/all points. However, 100% open perfect digital copies will be something that content providers will fight till their dying days.
So far, I have not heard of a viable business model proposed here on Slashdot that addresses both concerns: FAIR USE and RESEPCT of COPYRIGHTS. Its the holy grail of the internet right now IMHO, and is probably years away.
ANYWHERE on ANY DEVICE = INFINITE COPYING. This is a non-starter for almost any digital media oriented company. Just as much as any currently proposed limitation would be a non-starter for tech savy users like Slashdotters.
I would be prepared to accept some limits upon digital media if i retained the opportunity to share single pieces of content on multiple devices, make some backups, and trade/share within a finite circle of friends. For example, I buy a CD...its great, and I want to share it with friends who don't have it...they can get a copy, which is limited/crippled from future sharing. Similarly, I can make a copy for my own personal use, while I lock up the original in a safe place.
Unfortunately such models require a strict hardware/software DRM scheme (which will inevitably be broken, but barrier to circumvention will probably be high). I don't trust ANY corporation, especially Microsoft or Time/Warner/AOL, in this regard.
Even the most ethically run companies (i'm thinking of places like Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, or Canada's Mountain Equipment Co-Operative) still have to run their companies without incurring a loss.
If you take this into consideration, you still realise its a good idea for the Office Depot. It shows that they're creative and listens to the needs of their customers.
Our dump here in Mississauga, Ontario, is free (to encourage recycling and proper disposal of hazardous materials) so i won't need this service. Unfortunately the 21' 200lb Radiation King(tm) went to the dust-bin in the sky a loooong time ago.
I always figured the purpose of a 'dirty bomb' is to make a large parcel of land uninhabitable. The short term casualty list would be relatively low, but the economic devastation would be tremendous. Imaging a 10x10 square block section of lower Manhattan not being inhabitable for a good 50 years due to irradiation? All that high price real estate lost, lives disrupted....infrastructure wasted. We're talking BILLIONS of $, and probably several banks and insurance companies would go under due to the strain.
And, of course, the long term side effects of cancer over the lifetimes of all the people present at the time. Its a psychological blow.
They suspect that they can get away with it. I'm assuming that you've logged a politely worded, reasonable constructive complaint with HR and your management, and that it was ignored or provided with lip service.
You have two options:
1. Take a principled stand, and refuse to provide after-hours service unless you are compensated (e.g. free internet, or cellphone, or overtime). The risk here is that you'll be fired...probably for specious reasons unrelated to this issue, supposedly.
2. You suck it up and take it. There's no honour in losing your job and collecting unemployment. However, if you take this position (which most people would), remember when the economy bounces back that YOU show as much loyalty to the company as THEY showed to you.
Personally, I'd start looking for work elsewhere now.
The mp3 player came with a battery charger. The unfortunate aspect to the player is that you need to take the NiHM battery out to place it in the charger; I gather the device is too small to incoporate a native plug-in-and-charge outlet.
the NiHM battery appears to be standard; a speciality electronics retailer should have it in stock. I was planning on buying a backup that I could charge as a hot-swap replacement, but haven't got around to it yet.
I recently bought a Korean import player at my local OEM computer shop. The Muro MR-100 is a standard flash based MP3 player -- 256mb ram, FM radio, variety of settings. But the whiz-bang feature that sold me on it was the FM transmitter built in!
For a 4 hour road trip on the long weekend I copied over my Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio plays and had a nice alternative to radio for the weekend. The transmitter worked flawlessly, and it saved me time and $ from burning my own CDs for the trip.
I agree that alot of the 'amazing new features' are totally bogus, but every once in awhile there is some real innovation between product generations (aside from increased capacity).
I agree with your thinking. This also applies to subject matters pertaining to the humanities.
For example, as a Canadian I am deeply interested in the War of 1812 and its effects on the formation of my country. The latest Wikipedia article on the subject contains a much more balanced perspective on the war than most other 'summary' accounts, and represents new thinking/interpretation of the war that is coming into vogue over the past decade or so.
At this point I have a much greater degree of respect for the Wikipedia than i do for 'dead tree' accounts. The oraganic, evolving nature of the content is a much more representative to the nature of intellectual discourse, debate, and socratic thinking IMHO.
Without doing any goolging, I'm willing to bet $$$ that Hatch is in favour of the NRA and rejects restrictions on gun ownership/registration.
I find this vaguely amusing -- P2P applications which hurt businesses must be made ILLEGAL, but ownership of devices that can be used to maim and kill humans and animals IS A GOD GIVEN RIGHT!
PS Note: I am against gun ownership, but consider legislating against such to be a wasted time and effort.
Did you notice that the 3 movies you reference are all sequels? All mass-market driven genre flicks that re-use the same thematic and plot devices over...and over...and over.
No offense, but I think the quality of movies has been steadily declining for years. It used to be that crime dramas staring hip-hop rap stars would be the straight-to-video releases... but lately quality films like the sequel to The Talented Mr Ripley, Ripley's Game are not even getting a theatrical release, since they won't make $20 million in the first weekend.
Face it -- the movie industry is now driven by big-bang first weekend releases targeted at teenagers who lack critical judgment. No one ever went poor marketing to teenagers directly.
Existenz, which was released simultaneously to The Matrix, is also a good alternative if you want to watch a movie with more depth. Cronenberg has really grasped a strong sense of the 'what is reality' themes from Philip K Dick, along with the technology/biological fusion themes of Gibson. It was more of a thinking movie than an action shoot-em-up. The Matrix was fun to watch (unlike the sequels), but Existenz is a movie that I thought about when leaving the theatre.
PS Side note... While writing this post I just realised that Dick and Gibson are/were essentially emmigre Americans who live(d) in Vancouver, BC. I wonder if its the rain that alters their perceptions of reality in such creative ways?...
Here in Canada, we had an equally shady company callled Future Shop that was Canadian owned. It first fought off Computer City in the mid-90s, eventually buying out the remaining Canadian outlets when they went bankrupt.
Unfortunately, Best Buy evaluated the market place and realised it would be hard pressed to come into Canada and compete head-to-head with Future Shop. So what happens? Best Buy buys out Futureshop completely. We're talking like a cash buyout of 70+ superstores across the country.
Now Canadians have a choice of shopping at Future Shop (run by Best Buy behind the scenes) or Best Buy. Whoops, no more comparison shopping...prices are almost always the same on products, and in many cases the stores carry alternatives to eachother so you can't price match. Few people realise that FS and BB are the same entity.
So when you say BB doesn't have monopoly power, I guess that's because Circuit City and Fry's offer competition state-side. In Canada, however, we don't have the population density to carry so many large companies so Fry's and Circuit City have stayed away.
As a proud Canadian I'm the first to trumpet our successes to whoever will listen. But...
In all honesty, the US was a much more open a free-market society until the last few years. Aside from the absolute hard-right turn taken under the Bush administration, the aggressive nature and consolidation of media companies in the last 5-7 years has really put a chill on the US society IMHO. Note: I realise that this started under Clinton too.
For me, there are a few significant events where the rule of law were circuvmented, or big business exercised a strong influence over the legislative bodies in recent times. These are having profound negative effects on American life and commerce.
1. Microsoft anti-trust. Found guilty, but government backs off on any significant penalty. IBM never got off so lightly, and the results were the PC revolution.
2. Consolidation of media ownership. Especially regarding radio. Less diversity = less room for competing opinions. More big business = more big business attitudes reflected in editorial biases.
3. Abuse of copyright/patent system. Think EOLAS, think SCO, think Mosano, etc. Combined with a culture of litigation, this really makes you wonder if the US is unconciously abandoning its heritage of innovation. The money is compensating for this pull downwards, but will this always be the case?
Unequivocally the US leads the North American economy...Canada has, to a great extent, benefited from this for years. But sometimes we wake up, look in the mirror, and wonder "What the hell are the neighbours doing now???". I think that, lately, our values expressed in our judicial and legislative system are more in line with what Americans expect than their political leadership have provided.
You can make your threats as vauge or specific as you want... you can be ~very~ anonymous given the tools available today (mail, internet, courier, payphone, stolen cellphones).
However, at one point, sooner or later, you need to pickup the cheque or cash. Wire transfers can be traced, as can direct deposits. If there's a cash-only transaction, the cash can be marked and the police can watch the drop point.
We also have something colloquially called CANCON, short for Canadian Content. Our equivalent of the FCC mandates that media formats distribute a certain volume of Canadian created/produced content to compensate from the inevitable avalanche of American culture spilling over our boarders. It is somewhat effective, and has led to the rise of a domestic music and television industry. Unfortunately it has also contributed to the existence of some artifically supported recording companies and mediocre airwave content. I'm indifferent on the matter, as are many Canadians.
Re:Canada not afraid
on
P2P Bits
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I'm not so sure that its legal, just that the CIRA has not come up with a viable copyright infringement legal case that works within our justice system...yet. Once they have a framework, I fully expect numerous lawsuits in a similar vein to the RIAA.
We're in the midst of federal elections here. Unfortunately its the standard issue of compromised choices. I can vote for the Conservatives, who although state they are hands-off for business subsidies and want to eliminate CANCON, they also would override the canadian consititution in issues of gay rights, want to privatise healthcare, and have heavy backing by funadmentalist christian groups from the rural western provinces.
Alternatively, I can vote for the Liberals who have been plagued with spending scandals, are firm supporters of CANCON, and wish to strengthen copyrights rules. Unfortunately they're the more progressive party in terms of personal rights and freedoms and have a less aggressive tax-cut strategy.
The New Democratic Party would raise taxes both on the recording industry and on the CDs... no one would buy them anymore, and the recording companies would go bankrupt.;)
Why MP3 trading is a foregone conclusion:
1. P2P Applications
2. Binary Newsgroups
3. Bittorrent
4. IRC
5. FTP
6. Messenger to messenger.
6. Now anonymous based e-mail accounts.
The RIAA is currently trying to sue users of #1. They might go after #3, 4 and 5. They can't stop #2 and #6. They've lost, whether you believe that mp3 trading is copyright infringement or not.
This is where I hope ISPs clue into who THEIR customers are.
The legal process is *notoriously* slow. Hopefully the ISPs rotate their DHCP logs faster than they can receive/action the supoena...(nudge nudge, wink wink).
Slashdot Mirror
To American Farkers: Please don't take that link seriously. I'm a 3rd generation Torontonian (yes, there is such a thing) and I've never heard of a "Toronto Free Press".
Second, the way these polls happen and the questions asked really bias the results. I will paraphrase what I interpret to be the majority opinion here: "Americans are really cool, and they're our best friends. But their government SUCKS ASS and some of those hardcore NRA members and Right Wing Christians really freak us out."
Unfortunately he's an American citizen. He's subject to American laws. The US chose to recognise those UN sanctions, so its not a UN violation but a US violation.
:(
He's being deported to the US on the basis of an expired passport. When he hits american soil, he'll be charged. So he's not being EXTRADICTED for violation of law, but since the authorities know about his arrival they pretty much HAVE to charge him. This isn't a situation where law enforcement has alot of discretion.
It really comes down to whether the Department of Justice wants to pursue this. I'm sure we can all look forward to Ashcroft & Company executing their evaluation on the basis of common sense and justice...
Having worked with disabled people in a support capacity earlier in life, I can offer some observations (which are fully qualified as personal opinion only!):
1. Disabilities affect your state of mind. Just as you think differently if you speak a different language or come from a different culture, the mere fact that you're disabled impacts ALL aspects of your life, directly or indirectly. Think of it this way: if you know, for example, that you will NEVER have a sex life and that you will NEVER go through the traditional dating/marriage male/female dynamic, how does that change you life? For better? For worse?
2. Disabilities usually come with ongoing pain. Sores from prolonged periods of sitting in a wheelchair. Muscle problems from over developed/under developed muscles due to 'incorrect' body posture. Rashes from your adult diapers. Pain is NOT a natural state, and will pervade all aspects of your personality. When my mother had a serious muscle injury that persisted for about 18 months, the constant pain changed her personality completely (for the worse). Many times this is the reason why elderly people seem cantankerous and cranky...this is not their natural disposition. They were not 'always this way'.
3. People with disabilities are needy. Some more than others. The best adjusted ones are people who have disabilities onset late in life, or the ones that somehow have the strength of will (plus physical capability) of being independent. But some do not/cannot become independent, and thus are need as a matter of living. In many disabled people, I've seen an amplified sense of demand and outrage at minor things. It also amplifies the 'me-me-me-me' attitude, which I interpret as a corrupted sense of self preservation.
I think the movie "My Left Foot" did a great job portraying all of the personality differences if you're looking for a good dramatised case study.
Short of it is: I don't doubt that Hawking is an a**hole. I would be a bit surprised if he wasn't, in all honesty. But try not to judge too harshly...despite his great intelligence I suspect his social skills are unique to himself and somewhat limited. In this case I prefer to feel pity for his first wife, and reserve judgment on the man.
My parent post was modded as flamebait, but I'll still respond...
I agree with you that fair use (which is a concept defined differently from a legal perspective, country to country) should allow you to copy from one device to another. However, my point was that given multiple vendors with multiple technologies, the full extent of fair use implies NO copy protection. If its hardware specific, you lock out some hardware vendors...if its software specific, you eliminate some platforms from fair use AND the copy protection is much inferior.
I'm trying to look at this from both sides of the battle. Fair use should trump legislated monopolies at any/all points. However, 100% open perfect digital copies will be something that content providers will fight till their dying days.
So far, I have not heard of a viable business model proposed here on Slashdot that addresses both concerns: FAIR USE and RESEPCT of COPYRIGHTS. Its the holy grail of the internet right now IMHO, and is probably years away.
ANYWHERE on ANY DEVICE = INFINITE COPYING. This is a non-starter for almost any digital media oriented company. Just as much as any currently proposed limitation would be a non-starter for tech savy users like Slashdotters.
I would be prepared to accept some limits upon digital media if i retained the opportunity to share single pieces of content on multiple devices, make some backups, and trade/share within a finite circle of friends. For example, I buy a CD...its great, and I want to share it with friends who don't have it...they can get a copy, which is limited/crippled from future sharing. Similarly, I can make a copy for my own personal use, while I lock up the original in a safe place.
Unfortunately such models require a strict hardware/software DRM scheme (which will inevitably be broken, but barrier to circumvention will probably be high). I don't trust ANY corporation, especially Microsoft or Time/Warner/AOL, in this regard.
...#4) All of the above.
Even the most ethically run companies (i'm thinking of places like Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, or Canada's Mountain Equipment Co-Operative) still have to run their companies without incurring a loss.
If you take this into consideration, you still realise its a good idea for the Office Depot. It shows that they're creative and listens to the needs of their customers.
Our dump here in Mississauga, Ontario, is free (to encourage recycling and proper disposal of hazardous materials) so i won't need this service. Unfortunately the 21' 200lb Radiation King(tm) went to the dust-bin in the sky a loooong time ago.
At least this article was ~probably~ written by Charles McGrath...
I always figured the purpose of a 'dirty bomb' is to make a large parcel of land uninhabitable. The short term casualty list would be relatively low, but the economic devastation would be tremendous. Imaging a 10x10 square block section of lower Manhattan not being inhabitable for a good 50 years due to irradiation? All that high price real estate lost, lives disrupted....infrastructure wasted. We're talking BILLIONS of $, and probably several banks and insurance companies would go under due to the strain.
And, of course, the long term side effects of cancer over the lifetimes of all the people present at the time. Its a psychological blow.
They suspect that they can get away with it. I'm assuming that you've logged a politely worded, reasonable constructive complaint with HR and your management, and that it was ignored or provided with lip service.
You have two options:
1. Take a principled stand, and refuse to provide after-hours service unless you are compensated (e.g. free internet, or cellphone, or overtime). The risk here is that you'll be fired...probably for specious reasons unrelated to this issue, supposedly.
2. You suck it up and take it. There's no honour in losing your job and collecting unemployment. However, if you take this position (which most people would), remember when the economy bounces back that YOU show as much loyalty to the company as THEY showed to you.
Personally, I'd start looking for work elsewhere now.
The mp3 player came with a battery charger. The unfortunate aspect to the player is that you need to take the NiHM battery out to place it in the charger; I gather the device is too small to incoporate a native plug-in-and-charge outlet.
the NiHM battery appears to be standard; a speciality electronics retailer should have it in stock. I was planning on buying a backup that I could charge as a hot-swap replacement, but haven't got around to it yet.
I recently bought a Korean import player at my local OEM computer shop. The Muro MR-100 is a standard flash based MP3 player -- 256mb ram, FM radio, variety of settings. But the whiz-bang feature that sold me on it was the FM transmitter built in!
For a 4 hour road trip on the long weekend I copied over my Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio plays and had a nice alternative to radio for the weekend. The transmitter worked flawlessly, and it saved me time and $ from burning my own CDs for the trip.
I agree that alot of the 'amazing new features' are totally bogus, but every once in awhile there is some real innovation between product generations (aside from increased capacity).
I agree with your thinking. This also applies to subject matters pertaining to the humanities.
For example, as a Canadian I am deeply interested in the War of 1812 and its effects on the formation of my country. The latest Wikipedia article on the subject contains a much more balanced perspective on the war than most other 'summary' accounts, and represents new thinking/interpretation of the war that is coming into vogue over the past decade or so.
At this point I have a much greater degree of respect for the Wikipedia than i do for 'dead tree' accounts. The oraganic, evolving nature of the content is a much more representative to the nature of intellectual discourse, debate, and socratic thinking IMHO.
Without doing any goolging, I'm willing to bet $$$ that Hatch is in favour of the NRA and rejects restrictions on gun ownership/registration.
I find this vaguely amusing -- P2P applications which hurt businesses must be made ILLEGAL, but ownership of devices that can be used to maim and kill humans and animals IS A GOD GIVEN RIGHT!
PS Note: I am against gun ownership, but consider legislating against such to be a wasted time and effort.
Did you notice that the 3 movies you reference are all sequels? All mass-market driven genre flicks that re-use the same thematic and plot devices over...and over...and over.
No offense, but I think the quality of movies has been steadily declining for years. It used to be that crime dramas staring hip-hop rap stars would be the straight-to-video releases... but lately quality films like the sequel to The Talented Mr Ripley, Ripley's Game are not even getting a theatrical release, since they won't make $20 million in the first weekend.
Face it -- the movie industry is now driven by big-bang first weekend releases targeted at teenagers who lack critical judgment. No one ever went poor marketing to teenagers directly.
Existenz, which was released simultaneously to The Matrix, is also a good alternative if you want to watch a movie with more depth. Cronenberg has really grasped a strong sense of the 'what is reality' themes from Philip K Dick, along with the technology/biological fusion themes of Gibson. It was more of a thinking movie than an action shoot-em-up. The Matrix was fun to watch (unlike the sequels), but Existenz is a movie that I thought about when leaving the theatre.
PS Side note... While writing this post I just realised that Dick and Gibson are/were essentially emmigre Americans who live(d) in Vancouver, BC. I wonder if its the rain that alters their perceptions of reality in such creative ways?...
Here in Canada, we had an equally shady company callled Future Shop that was Canadian owned. It first fought off Computer City in the mid-90s, eventually buying out the remaining Canadian outlets when they went bankrupt.
Unfortunately, Best Buy evaluated the market place and realised it would be hard pressed to come into Canada and compete head-to-head with Future Shop. So what happens? Best Buy buys out Futureshop completely. We're talking like a cash buyout of 70+ superstores across the country.
Now Canadians have a choice of shopping at Future Shop (run by Best Buy behind the scenes) or Best Buy. Whoops, no more comparison shopping...prices are almost always the same on products, and in many cases the stores carry alternatives to eachother so you can't price match. Few people realise that FS and BB are the same entity.
So when you say BB doesn't have monopoly power, I guess that's because Circuit City and Fry's offer competition state-side. In Canada, however, we don't have the population density to carry so many large companies so Fry's and Circuit City have stayed away.
As a proud Canadian I'm the first to trumpet our successes to whoever will listen. But...
In all honesty, the US was a much more open a free-market society until the last few years. Aside from the absolute hard-right turn taken under the Bush administration, the aggressive nature and consolidation of media companies in the last 5-7 years has really put a chill on the US society IMHO. Note: I realise that this started under Clinton too.
For me, there are a few significant events where the rule of law were circuvmented, or big business exercised a strong influence over the legislative bodies in recent times. These are having profound negative effects on American life and commerce.
1. Microsoft anti-trust. Found guilty, but government backs off on any significant penalty. IBM never got off so lightly, and the results were the PC revolution.
2. Consolidation of media ownership. Especially regarding radio. Less diversity = less room for competing opinions. More big business = more big business attitudes reflected in editorial biases.
3. Abuse of copyright/patent system. Think EOLAS, think SCO, think Mosano, etc. Combined with a culture of litigation, this really makes you wonder if the US is unconciously abandoning its heritage of innovation. The money is compensating for this pull downwards, but will this always be the case?
Unequivocally the US leads the North American economy...Canada has, to a great extent, benefited from this for years. But sometimes we wake up, look in the mirror, and wonder "What the hell are the neighbours doing now???". I think that, lately, our values expressed in our judicial and legislative system are more in line with what Americans expect than their political leadership have provided.
You can make your threats as vauge or specific as you want... you can be ~very~ anonymous given the tools available today (mail, internet, courier, payphone, stolen cellphones).
However, at one point, sooner or later, you need to pickup the cheque or cash. Wire transfers can be traced, as can direct deposits. If there's a cash-only transaction, the cash can be marked and the police can watch the drop point.
...also a character created by a Canadian. Daily Planet = Toronto Star.
I referred to it incorrectly in my original post... the CRIA is the Canadian Recording Industry Association, the Canadian RIAA equivalent.
We also have something colloquially called CANCON, short for Canadian Content. Our equivalent of the FCC mandates that media formats distribute a certain volume of Canadian created/produced content to compensate from the inevitable avalanche of American culture spilling over our boarders. It is somewhat effective, and has led to the rise of a domestic music and television industry. Unfortunately it has also contributed to the existence of some artifically supported recording companies and mediocre airwave content. I'm indifferent on the matter, as are many Canadians.
I'm not so sure that its legal, just that the CIRA has not come up with a viable copyright infringement legal case that works within our justice system...yet. Once they have a framework, I fully expect numerous lawsuits in a similar vein to the RIAA.
;)
We're in the midst of federal elections here. Unfortunately its the standard issue of compromised choices. I can vote for the Conservatives, who although state they are hands-off for business subsidies and want to eliminate CANCON, they also would override the canadian consititution in issues of gay rights, want to privatise healthcare, and have heavy backing by funadmentalist christian groups from the rural western provinces.
Alternatively, I can vote for the Liberals who have been plagued with spending scandals, are firm supporters of CANCON, and wish to strengthen copyrights rules. Unfortunately they're the more progressive party in terms of personal rights and freedoms and have a less aggressive tax-cut strategy.
The New Democratic Party would raise taxes both on the recording industry and on the CDs... no one would buy them anymore, and the recording companies would go bankrupt.
Ok, good for you... but then ~why~ complain that you can't see a site properly when its ADVERTISING a product?
Given that Wotan eventually loses in the Ring Cycle, we shouldn't consider Linux's arrival via "Ride of the Valkyrie" to be a good thing. ;)
Apocalypse Now didn't have a very health ending either.
Why MP3 trading is a foregone conclusion:
1. P2P Applications
2. Binary Newsgroups
3. Bittorrent
4. IRC
5. FTP
6. Messenger to messenger.
6. Now anonymous based e-mail accounts.
The RIAA is currently trying to sue users of #1. They might go after #3, 4 and 5. They can't stop #2 and #6. They've lost, whether you believe that mp3 trading is copyright infringement or not.
This is where I hope ISPs clue into who THEIR customers are.
The legal process is *notoriously* slow. Hopefully the ISPs rotate their DHCP logs faster than they can receive/action the supoena...(nudge nudge, wink wink).