That's not the argument they are making though. No one is claiming that copyright infringement is justified because it helps other parts of the economy - that's a straw man argument.
If they were only making the argument that it harms their industry, then sure, that would be a reasonable assertion. But that's not their argument. Instead, they make the ludicrous claim that it harms the economy as a whole, so it is fair game to dispute that.
It's quite simple: If they said "Copright infringement is bad, because it will cause babies to turn into zombies", then obviously it's reasonable to point out how flawed that is. Whether there are other more valid arguments on this debate is neither here nor there.
If copyright infringement is so obviously harmful, then why aren't they making that argument, instead of making up false arguments? I personally believe in some form of copyright law, but these guys are making a hopeless argument.
(Speaking for myself btw, anything I download is not for free; I'm still paying hundreds to the TV companies a year in licence and cable fees, and I'm only downloading what's showing on my TV anyway. But I'd still be counted as someone causing harm to the industry and the entire economy. If they start pulling crap like banning people from the Internet, I'm far more likely to then stop paying them.)
He's not claiming it will improve the economy, he's saying there's no loss overall. A clue to this would be where he said:
There's no loss overall.
Indeed, your argument should be at the person who claimed "Multiplier effect", as well as the "Creative Industries". They are the ones who claim that the economy would be magically fixed just so long as we bought CDs and DVDs.
Which makes it seem rather pointless - if they were able to fire them because of that, why do they need the extra slip of paper where you "agreed" not to do it?
(Reposting as my comment seems to have been eaten.)
Again, an irrelevant point. I'm not commenting on whether US law is applicable, I'm just pointing out that "Slashdot is run by Americans" is a completely irrelevant argument. Consider, if Slashdot was run by outer mongolians, that would still clearly have no effect on whether they were liable under US law or not.
But on what basis do you conclude that the Imac set the trend for later companies dropping the floppy drive, but not the CDTV? If you mean "It couldn't have been the CDTV, because the Amiga didn't set trends", that's circular reasoning...
My point was that Commodore saw there being no need for a floppy in the CDTV, just as Apple saw there being no need in the Imac.
Many of those innovations in the Amiga came later in other platforms, which I would say counts as setting trends just as much as the Mac did. Also note that in parts of Europe (including the UK), the Amiga was mainstream as a home computer.
Because Super NES cartridge copiers (Pro Fighter, Super Magicom, Super Wild Card, etc.) are uncommon in English-speaking countries, most users will obtain "what is installed in the user's machine" by downloading it from a ROM site. This is copyright infringement, even if you already own a legit Game Pak. Universal Music Group v. MP3.com.
Sure, but that would be the liability of the user, and the ROM site. Saying that an application that makes use of installed data is somehow liable for encouraging copyright infringement would be a very worrying precedent I feel...
Alas, as when Apple stopped putting floppy drives in Macs, others followed
A common myth, but not supported by evidence. Some PC manufacturers were still shipping PCs with floppies years later. What actually happened was that over the years, various computer manufacturers dropped floppy drives, and it's impossible to claim that one caused the others to do so (and this seems an unlikely claim anyway - when CD/DVD writers and USB drives were commonplace, it was obvious there was no need for floppies - we don't need Apple to tell us this).
I might as well claim the Amiga CDTV (which dropped the floppy drive years earlier) caused Apple and others to follow.
The problem is shared-memory, not multi-processor or core itself. Graphics card have dedicated memory or reserve a chunk of the main memory.
Surely it's just as feasible with CPU SMP to reserve a chunk of memory for each thread, instead of sharing memory? AIUI that's a standard way of avoiding locking issues when doing SMP programming.
Haven't video game programmers been doing it forever, doing some things on the CPU, some on the graphics card?
Not really - although it's easy to use both the CPU and the GPU, normally this would not be at the same time. What's been going on "forever" is that the CPU would do some stuff, then tell the GPU to do some stuff, then the CPU would carry on.
What you can do is have a thread for the CPU stuff updating the game world, and then a thread for the renderer, but that's more tricky (as in, at least as difficult as any CPU multiprocessing), and hasn't been done by all games "forever". (There are also a few GPU functions that can be run in parallel, but these can be tricky to do right.)
The main area of multiprocessing is on the GPU itself - the reason that's easy is because graphics rendering is an embarrassingly parallel problem (plus the graphics card/libraries will do all the setting up of the threads for you - it's harder to do that for CPUs, because the needs for CPU SMP vary for each program).
The fact that it "uses most of the same computer program" is irrelevant, as surely that is what is installed in the user's machine, and therefore is not distributed by them?
Surely in general it must be legal for an application to make use of other copyrighted material installed on the user's machine (otherwise everything from an application using libraries or installed fonts, to Winamp, would be illegal). The idea that I could write a library, but have copyright law allow me to dictate that only certain applications can use it, even if legally installed on a user's machine, would be a very worrying precedent.
The question is whether (a) their ROM hack itself includes copyrighted material, or (b) there are other laws specific to ROM hacking that may apply?
That quote is completely irrelevant. Yes, most ppl are American here, so most topics are about the US. But that doesn't mean that when we are discussing a non-US topic, that US law is somehow automatically applicable!
I always wonder about people who argue that TPB wasn't about piracy*.... *And get over yourself. The term "piracy" has been used in this way since the 16th century!
Er, do you know what "TPB" stands for? Given that they call themselves The Pirate Bay, my suspicion is that they don't have a problem with the term "piracy". But don't let that rather obvious point get in the way of having a straw man argument with yourself.*
(As for what their intent was - well sure, it is clear what their views on copyright laws are. However, my concern is only whether running a torrent search engine is legal or illegal; their political views shouldn't come into it.)
Seeing how many people try to defend them as if it is some form of free speech or fair use or whatever.... it's wrong, period, and anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves.
Well, I'm glad that debate's settled then!
Their latest scheme to avoid paying is wrong as well
RTFA - they're not avoiding paying, the claim is that they will make it more expensive for the companies to claim what they've stolen, er, their fine. Whether that would work or not, I have no idea (the obvious question being why hasn't someone already tried this with previous fines).
but what do you expect from a culture that values selfishness and unethical immoral behavior.
This whole trial has revolved around bad faith for me. In a wholly technical sense, they have done nothing wrong. But their intent has clearly been to defraud/infringe copyright/etc.
Either they've done something illegal, or they haven't. If "intent to infringe copyright" is illegal and it's what they've done, then they've broken the law. If it's not illegal, then their intent shouldn't matter.
As for "bad faith" - if someone hasn't do anything illegal, but they have views that the law should be different, that's somehow relevant to the courts?
I don't agree with the idea that copyright laws shouldn't exist at all, but I respect their right to hold their opinion about the law.
The escalating violence in society is most definitely due to media, media in all forms, not just video games.
Well, I'm glad that's been settled then. There I was thinking we might need to do some research, but all I had to do was read an anonymous comment on Slashdot.
Oh, and I'd also like a citation for "escalating violence". Modern times are the least violent in all of recorded history. No, I think it's far more likely that the escalating depiction of violence in the media (by that, I mean the news) spreads the myth that we're more violent today, because we're far more likely to hear about it.
As for:
The issue is not whether violent/sexual games are good or bad. The question is if it's appropriate for children.
I wish that was the question. In many countries, such as the UK, games and other media can be criminalised even for adults, taking the form of the film censors, laws on publication to adults, and now even criminalisation of simple possession of adult material that the Government doesn't like.
Oh please - smartphones have been aimed at consumers (as opposed to business) for years. They've certainly been just as commonplace as the Iphone here in the UK. Furthermore, the division between non-smart and smartphones is much less clear in the last 5 or so years, as almost all phones adopt things such as Internet access, mp3 playing, running software and so on. I suspect what you call a "consumer smartphone" is what everyone else has just been calling a "phone" - i.e., the features that were previously only in "smartphones" filtering down to a larger userbase. However, the Iphone is still as expensive as smartphones, so it doesn't win any points here anyway.
If you have a list of things which the Iphone did that other phones are still playing catch up, then please let's hear them.
Now all the traditional business smartphone companies are trying to catch up.
The sales suggest otherwise. Apple are doing okay, but make no mistake, they're a niche player compared to giants such as Nokia.
I agree with you on phones, though I'm not convinced that "Mac was the future" back then - even though Windows may have been dire, it was still true that PCs were dominant in business, leaving other platforms such as Mac, Amiga, to other markets.
Excellent point - whatever happened to "Think Different"?
Well I am thinking different - that's why I don't have an Ipod, Iphone or a Mac...
(Although in this case, the Iphone is not in any kind of monopoly position, it's just a niche in the mobile phone market - it only gets hype about the Iphone only applications because of the app store, and not supporting industry standards like Java, so apps for it have to be Iphone only.)
Looks like it supports Java, unlike the Iphone, so if nothing else it can draw on a large existing base of applications, without requiring applications to be specifically written for it. This is a good thing in my opinion - one of the nice things about phones, unlike desktop computers, is that we've finally broken away from this problem where every phone is incompatible with each other. Or so I thought - then the Iphone came along.
(It's funny to see people showing off all amazed that their expensive new Iphone can do mapping software. I then get out my 5 year old phone that was cheap low-end when I bought it, and fire up Google Maps...)
Well my Motorola V980 phone is better than the Iphone. No, it doesn't do touchscreen or wifi, but that's just a "list of checkboxes", right? (It also does video recording simply by pointing and clicking - it Just Works.)
but since they are implemented in such a crappy way
* Installing an application from any site on my phone Just Works, it doesn't need the phone to be hacked. * Tethering on my phone Just Works, it doesn't need the phone to be hacked. * Copy and paste on my phone Just Works, I don't have to retype the material.
I've given you three objective examples of implementation. So let's hear your examples - I want evidence, not "crappy way". What sort of debate is that? I might as well say "My Amiga 500 is also better than any PC out there - who cares about feature lists, it's just better, it just is, honest, because I say so, anything else is just crappy." I like to think I can come to Slashdot for some intelligent debate, not "Who cares about features, it's just crappy".
Slashdot Mirror
That's not the argument they are making though. No one is claiming that copyright infringement is justified because it helps other parts of the economy - that's a straw man argument.
If they were only making the argument that it harms their industry, then sure, that would be a reasonable assertion. But that's not their argument. Instead, they make the ludicrous claim that it harms the economy as a whole, so it is fair game to dispute that.
It's quite simple: If they said "Copright infringement is bad, because it will cause babies to turn into zombies", then obviously it's reasonable to point out how flawed that is. Whether there are other more valid arguments on this debate is neither here nor there.
If copyright infringement is so obviously harmful, then why aren't they making that argument, instead of making up false arguments? I personally believe in some form of copyright law, but these guys are making a hopeless argument.
(Speaking for myself btw, anything I download is not for free; I'm still paying hundreds to the TV companies a year in licence and cable fees, and I'm only downloading what's showing on my TV anyway. But I'd still be counted as someone causing harm to the industry and the entire economy. If they start pulling crap like banning people from the Internet, I'm far more likely to then stop paying them.)
He's not claiming it will improve the economy, he's saying there's no loss overall. A clue to this would be where he said:
There's no loss overall.
Indeed, your argument should be at the person who claimed "Multiplier effect", as well as the "Creative Industries". They are the ones who claim that the economy would be magically fixed just so long as we bought CDs and DVDs.
They're taking your work, right? In that case - oh wait.
Which makes it seem rather pointless - if they were able to fire them because of that, why do they need the extra slip of paper where you "agreed" not to do it?
(Reposting as my comment seems to have been eaten.)
Again, an irrelevant point. I'm not commenting on whether US law is applicable, I'm just pointing out that "Slashdot is run by Americans" is a completely irrelevant argument. Consider, if Slashdot was run by outer mongolians, that would still clearly have no effect on whether they were liable under US law or not.
But on what basis do you conclude that the Imac set the trend for later companies dropping the floppy drive, but not the CDTV? If you mean "It couldn't have been the CDTV, because the Amiga didn't set trends", that's circular reasoning...
My point was that Commodore saw there being no need for a floppy in the CDTV, just as Apple saw there being no need in the Imac.
Many of those innovations in the Amiga came later in other platforms, which I would say counts as setting trends just as much as the Mac did. Also note that in parts of Europe (including the UK), the Amiga was mainstream as a home computer.
Because Super NES cartridge copiers (Pro Fighter, Super Magicom, Super Wild Card, etc.) are uncommon in English-speaking countries, most users will obtain "what is installed in the user's machine" by downloading it from a ROM site. This is copyright infringement, even if you already own a legit Game Pak. Universal Music Group v. MP3.com.
Sure, but that would be the liability of the user, and the ROM site. Saying that an application that makes use of installed data is somehow liable for encouraging copyright infringement would be a very worrying precedent I feel...
Ah yes, obviously those are the only two possible options!
Any location with a large crowd is a target
Indeed - such as the queue of people waiting to be fingerprinted and brain-scanned...
Alas, as when Apple stopped putting floppy drives in Macs, others followed
A common myth, but not supported by evidence. Some PC manufacturers were still shipping PCs with floppies years later. What actually happened was that over the years, various computer manufacturers dropped floppy drives, and it's impossible to claim that one caused the others to do so (and this seems an unlikely claim anyway - when CD/DVD writers and USB drives were commonplace, it was obvious there was no need for floppies - we don't need Apple to tell us this).
I might as well claim the Amiga CDTV (which dropped the floppy drive years earlier) caused Apple and others to follow.
The problem is shared-memory, not multi-processor or core itself. Graphics card have dedicated memory or reserve a chunk of the main memory.
Surely it's just as feasible with CPU SMP to reserve a chunk of memory for each thread, instead of sharing memory? AIUI that's a standard way of avoiding locking issues when doing SMP programming.
Haven't video game programmers been doing it forever, doing some things on the CPU, some on the graphics card?
Not really - although it's easy to use both the CPU and the GPU, normally this would not be at the same time. What's been going on "forever" is that the CPU would do some stuff, then tell the GPU to do some stuff, then the CPU would carry on.
What you can do is have a thread for the CPU stuff updating the game world, and then a thread for the renderer, but that's more tricky (as in, at least as difficult as any CPU multiprocessing), and hasn't been done by all games "forever". (There are also a few GPU functions that can be run in parallel, but these can be tricky to do right.)
The main area of multiprocessing is on the GPU itself - the reason that's easy is because graphics rendering is an embarrassingly parallel problem (plus the graphics card/libraries will do all the setting up of the threads for you - it's harder to do that for CPUs, because the needs for CPU SMP vary for each program).
The fact that it "uses most of the same computer program" is irrelevant, as surely that is what is installed in the user's machine, and therefore is not distributed by them?
Surely in general it must be legal for an application to make use of other copyrighted material installed on the user's machine (otherwise everything from an application using libraries or installed fonts, to Winamp, would be illegal). The idea that I could write a library, but have copyright law allow me to dictate that only certain applications can use it, even if legally installed on a user's machine, would be a very worrying precedent.
The question is whether (a) their ROM hack itself includes copyrighted material, or (b) there are other laws specific to ROM hacking that may apply?
That quote is completely irrelevant. Yes, most ppl are American here, so most topics are about the US. But that doesn't mean that when we are discussing a non-US topic, that US law is somehow automatically applicable!
Yes, that foolish Anonymous Coward and his inconsistent views.
That's almost as bad as you having an argument with yourself...
I always wonder about people who argue that TPB wasn't about piracy*. ... *And get over yourself. The term "piracy" has been used in this way since the 16th century!
Er, do you know what "TPB" stands for? Given that they call themselves The Pirate Bay, my suspicion is that they don't have a problem with the term "piracy". But don't let that rather obvious point get in the way of having a straw man argument with yourself.*
(As for what their intent was - well sure, it is clear what their views on copyright laws are. However, my concern is only whether running a torrent search engine is legal or illegal; their political views shouldn't come into it.)
* Yes, get over yourself.
Seeing how many people try to defend them as if it is some form of free speech or fair use or whatever.... it's wrong, period, and anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves.
Well, I'm glad that debate's settled then!
Their latest scheme to avoid paying is wrong as well
RTFA - they're not avoiding paying, the claim is that they will make it more expensive for the companies to claim what they've stolen, er, their fine. Whether that would work or not, I have no idea (the obvious question being why hasn't someone already tried this with previous fines).
but what do you expect from a culture that values selfishness and unethical immoral behavior.
What?
(Unethical and immoral? Woah, double bad!)
This whole trial has revolved around bad faith for me. In a wholly technical sense, they have done nothing wrong. But their intent has clearly been to defraud/infringe copyright/etc.
Either they've done something illegal, or they haven't. If "intent to infringe copyright" is illegal and it's what they've done, then they've broken the law. If it's not illegal, then their intent shouldn't matter.
As for "bad faith" - if someone hasn't do anything illegal, but they have views that the law should be different, that's somehow relevant to the courts?
I don't agree with the idea that copyright laws shouldn't exist at all, but I respect their right to hold their opinion about the law.
The escalating violence in society is most definitely due to media, media in all forms, not just video games.
Well, I'm glad that's been settled then. There I was thinking we might need to do some research, but all I had to do was read an anonymous comment on Slashdot.
Oh, and I'd also like a citation for "escalating violence". Modern times are the least violent in all of recorded history. No, I think it's far more likely that the escalating depiction of violence in the media (by that, I mean the news) spreads the myth that we're more violent today, because we're far more likely to hear about it.
As for:
The issue is not whether violent/sexual games are good or bad. The question is if it's appropriate for children.
I wish that was the question. In many countries, such as the UK, games and other media can be criminalised even for adults, taking the form of the film censors, laws on publication to adults, and now even criminalisation of simple possession of adult material that the Government doesn't like.
Oh please - smartphones have been aimed at consumers (as opposed to business) for years. They've certainly been just as commonplace as the Iphone here in the UK. Furthermore, the division between non-smart and smartphones is much less clear in the last 5 or so years, as almost all phones adopt things such as Internet access, mp3 playing, running software and so on. I suspect what you call a "consumer smartphone" is what everyone else has just been calling a "phone" - i.e., the features that were previously only in "smartphones" filtering down to a larger userbase. However, the Iphone is still as expensive as smartphones, so it doesn't win any points here anyway.
If you have a list of things which the Iphone did that other phones are still playing catch up, then please let's hear them.
Now all the traditional business smartphone companies are trying to catch up.
The sales suggest otherwise. Apple are doing okay, but make no mistake, they're a niche player compared to giants such as Nokia.
Get your Masters upgrade (for about $20) seven years after you graduate.
For me it was three years and one term after I graduated... (more precisely, I believe it's six years after the end of your first term there).
I agree with you on phones, though I'm not convinced that "Mac was the future" back then - even though Windows may have been dire, it was still true that PCs were dominant in business, leaving other platforms such as Mac, Amiga, to other markets.
Excellent point - whatever happened to "Think Different"?
Well I am thinking different - that's why I don't have an Ipod, Iphone or a Mac...
(Although in this case, the Iphone is not in any kind of monopoly position, it's just a niche in the mobile phone market - it only gets hype about the Iphone only applications because of the app store, and not supporting industry standards like Java, so apps for it have to be Iphone only.)
Looks like it supports Java, unlike the Iphone, so if nothing else it can draw on a large existing base of applications, without requiring applications to be specifically written for it. This is a good thing in my opinion - one of the nice things about phones, unlike desktop computers, is that we've finally broken away from this problem where every phone is incompatible with each other. Or so I thought - then the Iphone came along.
(It's funny to see people showing off all amazed that their expensive new Iphone can do mapping software. I then get out my 5 year old phone that was cheap low-end when I bought it, and fire up Google Maps...)
Ah yes, it's the grumpy featurism claim.
Well my Motorola V980 phone is better than the Iphone. No, it doesn't do touchscreen or wifi, but that's just a "list of checkboxes", right? (It also does video recording simply by pointing and clicking - it Just Works.)
but since they are implemented in such a crappy way
* Installing an application from any site on my phone Just Works, it doesn't need the phone to be hacked.
* Tethering on my phone Just Works, it doesn't need the phone to be hacked.
* Copy and paste on my phone Just Works, I don't have to retype the material.
I've given you three objective examples of implementation. So let's hear your examples - I want evidence, not "crappy way". What sort of debate is that? I might as well say "My Amiga 500 is also better than any PC out there - who cares about feature lists, it's just better, it just is, honest, because I say so, anything else is just crappy." I like to think I can come to Slashdot for some intelligent debate, not "Who cares about features, it's just crappy".