Are they worried about pirates or "personal" showings which they won't get a cut of the profits? Well, piracy obviously exists despite their best efforts and public showings of the discs are already illegal.
The quality difference of a CAM MPG vs a DVD-RIP DIVX is dramatic. The latter is a decent enough substitute (for many) for DVD. The former is (usually) enought to get the gist of the plot. With films dependent on dialogue (i.e. not Star Wars) it's often difficult to tell what's being said as sound quality is often poor on Cam releases. I gave up watching Ghost World the other day with my wife for precisely those reasons while watching a Cam copy.
Gosh, I guess I am lucky living in Columbus, Ohio where my Time Warner service is usually between 200-350k/sec, anytime!
Shut it. Here (London) from a decent site I can get 55-60kbyte/sec. To be fair, this is pretty consistent, so when I last rebooted my machine it'd been up for four days my received btytes amount to 17 gigs. A friend of mine on an NTL connection outside of London in the North get's 70kbyte/s consistent. Also random info, I think my provider (Telewest) is partially owned by Microsoft.
They do this with review copies of Computer Games (which has more at risk than movies) in some instances. That way if a disk image get's released they can identify the source.
I remember when Fallout 2 (I think) came out they didn't actually encode any sort of identifier, and when the game out a few days later on the ISO scene they (Interplay) posted their regrets on not doing so. Didn't care either way, loved Fallout so much I that I own two copies of that game...
This is one case where I wish the DMCA WOULD swing into action...
Why on Earth would you want that? No-one is forcing you to watch the poor quality version, but undoubtedly there are some people who would want to watch it. I had a copy of LOTR before it was released but waited until I saw it in the cinema to rewatch it on my PC. And it's an utter joke if you think this will somehow make AOTC lose all profitability.
If you are against piracy in general, then your comment makes no sense.
Erm no, the Darwin Award is to do with people risking their lives...unless you are claiming that Telewest are sending out death squads.
More seriously, not all users are caught (I am proof of this, although I have no doubt I would have been caught eventually, the point is I wasn't caught). Secondly, I would bet 99.99% of the time on a first offence Telewest merely issue a written warning. Taking people to court over a one-off "infringement" is going to be costly at best.
I am amused by the fact that they only kindly reminded you not to be stupid.
Firstly, they didn't remind me anything at all. I had an uncapped period for roughly a week or so, with no ill-effects to my service (some construction worker cut a cable near my street which interfered for a day or so, but obviously that was unrelated.) My friend was warned, but this may be due to excessive usage which they picked up on (40GB in downloads over roughly two days), or whatever system they use to detect it. I am fully aware that the Cable Modem is not my property as when I moved they billed me £480 for the modem (they cancelled the charge, but it was for some kind of insurance that if the box went missing I would have to pay)
Secondly, I'm not sure if you can categories individuals who uncap their modems as "stupid". I managed to download far more than I would have normally, with no ill-effects whatsoever. How is this stupid? There appears to be reoccurent fantasy about illegality regarding such matters. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it's within their legal right to prosecute, but the chances of it being worth their while is another matter. If nothing else, if I was prosecuted for such matters then I would simply assist every Telewest customer in existence to uncap their modem.
I agree that different pricing schemes would probably have to exist to allow non-peak time downloads or somesuch. The point is, nothing like that exists with Cable (in the UK, yet). While I can choose from a dizzying array of TV Channels, I have one option when it comes to "High Speed Internet" on cable - yay or nay. I will probably switch to 2Mbit ADSL soonish anyway, so it's not that relevent. When it comes to pricing, consumers cannot really be blamed for demanding/expecting "dumb" pricing, or speeds, or anything. There is precious little information which is readily available (as I stated).
To explain what I mean for I'll use an analogy. I am currently employed (call centre scum, etc). I have reached a certain level of service length, which means that I should be entitled to some kind of pay-rise (or at least appraisal). However "due to economic uncertainty" this appraisal/pay-rise has been delayed until further notice. Now, my employers may be being perfectly reasonable. They could be hameoraging money every single day, or they could of course be "conning" me, and are infact awarding the top managers massive rises (I doubt it, but still). The point is, I don't know, and can't easily find out (yet). I basically have to trust my employers. Similarly, we are told that expecting 512kbit/sec all the time is unrealistic. Perhaps it is, but all I have is the word of the Telco's. Isn't one of the features of the free-market supposed to be that we act upon "near-perfect information" rather than just blind trust?
If I could see how much by ISP was paying for bandwidth, and their network status (in terms of bandwidth % used, then perhaps I could either (A) Reduce my expecations (B) Use my bandwidth at more appropriate times if necessary) For now, I'll just leave my cable modem downloading at 60kbyte/sec all day every day from various Public FTP sites. Why? Because like the telco's "there's no incentive for me not to"
Yeah, I uncapped my cable modem (in the UK, on Blueyonder) for a period. 500kbyte/sec transfers were fun, but then when I had a power cut I had difficulty respoofing the modem with the configuration file. Apparently the cable company disabled the process of the modem getting the file.
A friend of mine, who also uncapped his modem but for a longer period received a letter from the cable company saying "Someone in your household has illegally attempt to modify one of the devices supplied by Telewest. Please desist or your service will be permanently withdrawn" or something like that.
My cable connection ocassionally gets uncapped for random periods, and I don't notice until I start downloading something (e.g. larger driver file) and get 300kbyte/sec.
If more information was available for customers to see how much bandwidth cost the ISP, then perhaps our expectations could be realistically scaled. Is having an uncapped 3 hour period between 2am and 5am feasible? I could simply schedule large downloads for that period. At present, I may as well just download at peak times, which probably is more irritating to the ISP receiving calls about slow web pages, or somesuch.
Didn't you guys do the same thing with the James Doohan coma story?
If you look at the story that's still there :
ThreeHamsWillKillHim writes "Apparently, it's rumored that actor James Doohan, from Star Trek fame, is in a coma." The article notes that he's not likely to come out of it. James Doohan is 82 and is known best for his role as Engineer Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott on Star Trek.
Basically, the record of Slashdot's original comment is still there. They did however change the headline - which I presume was to stop thousands of people posting "No he's not." or "Oh my god!" unnecessarily. The line isn't exactly blurred in these matters : You have to keep a record that you were originally wrong, and then add an update. Changing the headline can be interpreted as dubious though, although in the case it's just confusing as the headline is contradicted by the story, and then the story is contradicted by the update. Personally I think the change of headline should be noted along with the update.
Maybe this is why technical support over the phone is so terrible?
When I'm at work doing phone-based support I tend to read Slashdot. I'm not sure if this is a common occurence, but I ocassionally start saying the things I'm reading unintentionally.
ME : Goto Start/Settings/Control Panel..(trailing off, mumbling)...
THEM : Sorry, I can barely hear you...click on a Beowulf Cluster of what?
I played that game for hours upon hours for at least two years. Best game EVER.
I wish I was at home now, instead of this god forsaken call-center taking calls from morons. I could be doing a Barnards Star => Sol robots trade route. Or doing military missions out of Faece. *weeps*
Hey, you could - of course - buy it instead of stealing it!
Yeah, if you're some kind of crazy man!
But yes, it's possible to buy as I noted in another post. Although this DVD would seem to be definitely more value if it contains the full series (although, what format, etc?).
Then again I've spent well over £150 on DNA related goods (multiple versions of the books, video, audio-books) so I don't exactly feel _that_ guilty for "stealing" something funded with my liscence fee.
What actually is this? I missed the various BBC programs which were shown in the event of DNA's death so it may have been one of those.
Is it related to Neil Gaiman's "Don't Panic" book which is one of the best "nerd" books about a series that I've read? It basically is the story of the writing of the Hitchhikers Guide and sort of a mini-bio for DNA too. It's kind of a DVD-extra in itself, since it contains a couple of omitted scene from the radio series, as well as other stuff.
Oh, also, forgot to mention that you can get the series on CD (and Casette) from BBC stockists. If someone is less proxy-hampered than I am, I'm sure they can post a link somewhere.
For anyone who can, I'd recommend downloading the full twelve episodes of the Radio Series (Fit the 1st to Fit the 12th) on Kazaa (or any P2P) in MP3 format.
As well as being a good listen, it contains things not in the books (or any of the other versions). It was the original, and in some respects the best version of the Hitch Hikers Guide. You also get to see alternate ideas for things put in the books, etc. A good example is the Hagunneon (sp?) black space ship, being replaced in the book by the Disaster Area stunt ship.
Klerck, I know you do this to be irritating but I just want to say thanks. Due to retarded web-proxy access at my workplace I can only read Slashdot, but almost none of their external links. So thanks for mirroring.
I realise I've been trolled etc, but if this guy is basically a mathematician, then why has he been called to the stand to discuss contemporary software development?
I have a hard time understanding what it is that people want the government to do with copyright. It seems that most people are not against the law, and even favor enforcing it when it suits their interests, but then they regularly break the law, using napster or not paying for shareware or whatever, and get all disturbed when the government tries to enforce the law.
It's fairly simple : Most people don't really care about copyright "theft". They don't see it as stealing anyway. However, they are also aware that it's possible to go too far (taking the piss as it were). This includes people mass producing counterfit materials, or businesses using pirate software, etc.
In these instances, most people would support government "crackdowns". This is the point of a lot of laws : Not to eliminate the practice, but to keep it getting out of hand.
The problem here is that the Music Industry (and related fields) have become transfixed with numbers. To give an example, I have about 60GB of Mp3s in my personal posession. God knows how much this would work out if I had to purchase each and every song/album, but I suspect thousands of dollars. Obviously, there's no way I would/could have bought all the items legitimately (e.g. I have 3 Britney albums in MP3 - which I never listen to). The music industry have been listening to the "potential losses" stuff for too long and they've started to swallow their own propaganda. They honestly think if Kazaa/etc was destroyed that they would get billions more dollars. In an era where profits are declining and a lot of their existing catalogue is looking stale, obviously they're going to been keen on getting (what they think will be) billions anyway they can.
I suspect the majority of the government (and affiliated enforcement agencies) share the publics mentality of only cracking down where "someone is taking the piss". However, the danger is that the intensive lobbying by the RIAA and their ilk will push policy towards total banning (or lame attempts at) which the vast majority of the public, IMHO, would not support.
These types of rules are fairly commonplace. In my current work, we have a door which can only be opened via swipe card help by employees. Accoridng to the official work rules, we are technically not allowed to open the door for anyone else unless they explicitly show us their card. Obviously, you are not going to stand their and demand to see someones card if it's pouring with rain or somesuch. However, the rule exists not to be enforced religiously, but so they can explicitly reprimand someone who lets complete strangers into the building.
Slashdot Mirror
What about Deadwood?
Or do you mean Noam Chomsky, the linguist?
The quality difference of a CAM MPG vs a DVD-RIP DIVX is dramatic. The latter is a decent enough substitute (for many) for DVD. The former is (usually) enought to get the gist of the plot. With films dependent on dialogue (i.e. not Star Wars) it's often difficult to tell what's being said as sound quality is often poor on Cam releases. I gave up watching Ghost World the other day with my wife for precisely those reasons while watching a Cam copy.
Shut it. Here (London) from a decent site I can get 55-60kbyte/sec. To be fair, this is pretty consistent, so when I last rebooted my machine it'd been up for four days my received btytes amount to 17 gigs. A friend of mine on an NTL connection outside of London in the North get's 70kbyte/s consistent. Also random info, I think my provider (Telewest) is partially owned by Microsoft.
I remember when Fallout 2 (I think) came out they didn't actually encode any sort of identifier, and when the game out a few days later on the ISO scene they (Interplay) posted their regrets on not doing so. Didn't care either way, loved Fallout so much I that I own two copies of that game...
Why on Earth would you want that? No-one is forcing you to watch the poor quality version, but undoubtedly there are some people who would want to watch it. I had a copy of LOTR before it was released but waited until I saw it in the cinema to rewatch it on my PC. And it's an utter joke if you think this will somehow make AOTC lose all profitability.
If you are against piracy in general, then your comment makes no sense.
Erm no, the Darwin Award is to do with people risking their lives...unless you are claiming that Telewest are sending out death squads.
More seriously, not all users are caught (I am proof of this, although I have no doubt I would have been caught eventually, the point is I wasn't caught). Secondly, I would bet 99.99% of the time on a first offence Telewest merely issue a written warning. Taking people to court over a one-off "infringement" is going to be costly at best.
Firstly, they didn't remind me anything at all. I had an uncapped period for roughly a week or so, with no ill-effects to my service (some construction worker cut a cable near my street which interfered for a day or so, but obviously that was unrelated.) My friend was warned, but this may be due to excessive usage which they picked up on (40GB in downloads over roughly two days), or whatever system they use to detect it. I am fully aware that the Cable Modem is not my property as when I moved they billed me £480 for the modem (they cancelled the charge, but it was for some kind of insurance that if the box went missing I would have to pay)
Secondly, I'm not sure if you can categories individuals who uncap their modems as "stupid". I managed to download far more than I would have normally, with no ill-effects whatsoever. How is this stupid? There appears to be reoccurent fantasy about illegality regarding such matters. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it's within their legal right to prosecute, but the chances of it being worth their while is another matter. If nothing else, if I was prosecuted for such matters then I would simply assist every Telewest customer in existence to uncap their modem.
I agree that different pricing schemes would probably have to exist to allow non-peak time downloads or somesuch. The point is, nothing like that exists with Cable (in the UK, yet). While I can choose from a dizzying array of TV Channels, I have one option when it comes to "High Speed Internet" on cable - yay or nay. I will probably switch to 2Mbit ADSL soonish anyway, so it's not that relevent. When it comes to pricing, consumers cannot really be blamed for demanding/expecting "dumb" pricing, or speeds, or anything. There is precious little information which is readily available (as I stated).
To explain what I mean for I'll use an analogy. I am currently employed (call centre scum, etc). I have reached a certain level of service length, which means that I should be entitled to some kind of pay-rise (or at least appraisal). However "due to economic uncertainty" this appraisal/pay-rise has been delayed until further notice. Now, my employers may be being perfectly reasonable. They could be hameoraging money every single day, or they could of course be "conning" me, and are infact awarding the top managers massive rises (I doubt it, but still). The point is, I don't know, and can't easily find out (yet). I basically have to trust my employers. Similarly, we are told that expecting 512kbit/sec all the time is unrealistic. Perhaps it is, but all I have is the word of the Telco's. Isn't one of the features of the free-market supposed to be that we act upon "near-perfect information" rather than just blind trust?
If I could see how much by ISP was paying for bandwidth, and their network status (in terms of bandwidth % used, then perhaps I could either (A) Reduce my expecations (B) Use my bandwidth at more appropriate times if necessary) For now, I'll just leave my cable modem downloading at 60kbyte/sec all day every day from various Public FTP sites. Why? Because like the telco's "there's no incentive for me not to"
A friend of mine, who also uncapped his modem but for a longer period received a letter from the cable company saying "Someone in your household has illegally attempt to modify one of the devices supplied by Telewest. Please desist or your service will be permanently withdrawn" or something like that.
My cable connection ocassionally gets uncapped for random periods, and I don't notice until I start downloading something (e.g. larger driver file) and get 300kbyte/sec.
If more information was available for customers to see how much bandwidth cost the ISP, then perhaps our expectations could be realistically scaled. Is having an uncapped 3 hour period between 2am and 5am feasible? I could simply schedule large downloads for that period. At present, I may as well just download at peak times, which probably is more irritating to the ISP receiving calls about slow web pages, or somesuch.
I know that Catholics have developed something of a "reputation" but I don't think even the Pope is that eager.
If you look at the story that's still there :
ThreeHamsWillKillHim writes "Apparently, it's rumored that actor James Doohan, from Star Trek fame, is in a coma." The article notes that he's not likely to come out of it. James Doohan is 82 and is known best for his role as Engineer Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott on Star Trek.
Basically, the record of Slashdot's original comment is still there. They did however change the headline - which I presume was to stop thousands of people posting "No he's not." or "Oh my god!" unnecessarily. The line isn't exactly blurred in these matters : You have to keep a record that you were originally wrong, and then add an update. Changing the headline can be interpreted as dubious though, although in the case it's just confusing as the headline is contradicted by the story, and then the story is contradicted by the update. Personally I think the change of headline should be noted along with the update.
Jesus, your daughter must be tough. Last time that happened to me I cried like a girl.
When I'm at work doing phone-based support I tend to read Slashdot. I'm not sure if this is a common occurence, but I ocassionally start saying the things I'm reading unintentionally.
ME : Goto Start/Settings/Control Panel..(trailing off, mumbling)...
THEM : Sorry, I can barely hear you...click on a Beowulf Cluster of what?
I played that game for hours upon hours for at least two years. Best game EVER.
I wish I was at home now, instead of this god forsaken call-center taking calls from morons. I could be doing a Barnards Star => Sol robots trade route. Or doing military missions out of Faece. *weeps*
I was crap at BR though. Although I rocked at LORD.
Yeah, if you're some kind of crazy man!
But yes, it's possible to buy as I noted in another post. Although this DVD would seem to be definitely more value if it contains the full series (although, what format, etc?).
Then again I've spent well over £150 on DNA related goods (multiple versions of the books, video, audio-books) so I don't exactly feel _that_ guilty for "stealing" something funded with my liscence fee.
So, when will this be in the Simpsons then?
What actually is this? I missed the various BBC programs which were shown in the event of DNA's death so it may have been one of those. Is it related to Neil Gaiman's "Don't Panic" book which is one of the best "nerd" books about a series that I've read? It basically is the story of the writing of the Hitchhikers Guide and sort of a mini-bio for DNA too. It's kind of a DVD-extra in itself, since it contains a couple of omitted scene from the radio series, as well as other stuff.
Done.
Oh, also, forgot to mention that you can get the series on CD (and Casette) from BBC stockists. If someone is less proxy-hampered than I am, I'm sure they can post a link somewhere.
As well as being a good listen, it contains things not in the books (or any of the other versions). It was the original, and in some respects the best version of the Hitch Hikers Guide. You also get to see alternate ideas for things put in the books, etc. A good example is the Hagunneon (sp?) black space ship, being replaced in the book by the Disaster Area stunt ship.
Well worth it.
Klerck, I know you do this to be irritating but I just want to say thanks. Due to retarded web-proxy access at my workplace I can only read Slashdot, but almost none of their external links. So thanks for mirroring.
I realise I've been trolled etc, but if this guy is basically a mathematician, then why has he been called to the stand to discuss contemporary software development?
So, to continue the analogy, Linux people spend their weekends operating on themselves with their kitchen utensils?
It's fairly simple : Most people don't really care about copyright "theft". They don't see it as stealing anyway. However, they are also aware that it's possible to go too far (taking the piss as it were). This includes people mass producing counterfit materials, or businesses using pirate software, etc.
In these instances, most people would support government "crackdowns". This is the point of a lot of laws : Not to eliminate the practice, but to keep it getting out of hand.
The problem here is that the Music Industry (and related fields) have become transfixed with numbers. To give an example, I have about 60GB of Mp3s in my personal posession. God knows how much this would work out if I had to purchase each and every song/album, but I suspect thousands of dollars. Obviously, there's no way I would/could have bought all the items legitimately (e.g. I have 3 Britney albums in MP3 - which I never listen to). The music industry have been listening to the "potential losses" stuff for too long and they've started to swallow their own propaganda. They honestly think if Kazaa/etc was destroyed that they would get billions more dollars. In an era where profits are declining and a lot of their existing catalogue is looking stale, obviously they're going to been keen on getting (what they think will be) billions anyway they can.
I suspect the majority of the government (and affiliated enforcement agencies) share the publics mentality of only cracking down where "someone is taking the piss". However, the danger is that the intensive lobbying by the RIAA and their ilk will push policy towards total banning (or lame attempts at) which the vast majority of the public, IMHO, would not support.
These types of rules are fairly commonplace. In my current work, we have a door which can only be opened via swipe card help by employees. Accoridng to the official work rules, we are technically not allowed to open the door for anyone else unless they explicitly show us their card. Obviously, you are not going to stand their and demand to see someones card if it's pouring with rain or somesuch. However, the rule exists not to be enforced religiously, but so they can explicitly reprimand someone who lets complete strangers into the building.