I imagine that it is pretty much OK to transcribe a book to your computer to transfer to your PDA, but you are not allowed to post that copyrighted work to your web page and give it away. On the same note I imagine (even though the RIAA is trying to take even this away) that it is pretty much OK to rip your CD for use in your portable.mp3 player, but you are not allowed to post those songs to your web page and give them away.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but that is pretty much how it works, right?
As much fun as it is to slam the RIAA for being a bunch of clueless twits, lets look at this objectively without ranting:
1: RIAA is not trying to prevent you from transferring songs to your MP3 player, they are trying to combat ripping for the purpose of distribution of MP3s over the internet. The fact that your player depends on files encoded in MP3/WMA/Ogg format is a side effect.
2: The Diamond Rio was attacked by RIAA because it (in the eyes of the RIAA) would allow users to utilize the MP3s illegally obtained from the 'net and unchain them from the computer. The RIO is also not SDMI compliant. The crappy software that comes with it is, but there are 3rd party alternative software that proves you can transfer MP3s TO and FROM the Rio (at least the 300 and 500 models).
3: RIAA, like any other corporation, exists to extract maximum profits from those whom it does business. It can be expected to attack those who attack its business model. It does not matter whether this business model is outdated or not! RIAA is most likely not against streaming music (webcasting), since this is another source of revenue. Following the maximum profit ideal stated above, RIAA will only implement/allow streaming of their material when they feel they can extract a profit from it. This means, they feel they must control distribution. "Robin Hood" sites that stream copyrighted materials might be protesting music costs/artists' rights/IP anarchy but that does not stop the fact that they are stealing. The issue of how much is being charged for streaming by legal webcasters is another issue.
I do not like the way IP laws are heading in this country (USA) and RIAA, MPAA, DVDCCA, and Congress are doing their best to screw the end-user. The fact that RIAA has a bunch of desireable copyrighted works ripe for piracy and they are paranoid about protecting it is a given. Fight the fight by repealing bad laws and publicly exposing their abuse of IP laws. Stealing might be an expression of social disorder as a form of protest, but that does not change the fact that it is stealing. Remove the problem of most people looking the other way when IP theft occurs from the fight for fair use and RIAA hasn't got a leg to stand on.
I thought they solved this with broadcasts of sporting events... they can change the ads on the signs at the edge of the playfield in baseball games.
Simply have the actor use a product that is an odd color like cyan, so it can be masked out and substituted with a product and logo. That way, when the first run has actors eating "Lay's" and drinking "Coke". Reruns can have "Utz" and "Pepsi". If the show is after 10PM they can change the can to beer. No sponsor? Change it to "Chips" and "Drink." Hackers or disgruntles employees can change them to "shit" and "piss"...
So I take it that theft results in the chopping off of the thief's right hand... Think about it, do any of you know what the left hand is used for over there? I'll give you a clue, they have no toilet paper there, only a hose-like contraption held in the right hand and a left hand.
Of course, this hand-chopping goes along with physical theft, stealing a loaf of bread, for instance...
So what is the penalty for IP theft? What part of the body to they cut off? The brain? Or part of the brain?
So, which half of the brain do they cut off? The side that controls the right hand, the side that is responsible for creativity, or the side responsible for analytical thought?
You forgot the reasons for version skipping? Why it was none other than marketing. Wordperfect had a higher version number than MS Word at the time (6.0 vs. 2.0 AFAIR) and MS decided to skip up to a version number higher than WP. That started a brief version number war until MS decided to dump versions altogether and name releases after the last two digits of the release year, until they became Y2K compliant, and now release versions based on the entire year.
Whenever the replay goes to send viewing data to SonicBlue, the fierwall changes all the data. It could either be random data or you could tell them you watched the NASA TV all day every day
And stand in shock and amazement (then on the floor, face down) when the Secret Service comes busting down your door, and then you realize you fumbled the spelling of "NASA TV" as "NSA TV".
I suspect when they control the hardware (theoretically) and find that the evil pirate thieves still copy their media, they'll declare computers as a technology insecure and unsuitable for people.
This is probably a goal. Replacing all those general-purpose computers with PS2's and X-boxes would be a corporate wet-dream:
Fire up Office-Xbox on the console. Modem or broadband connection to MSN (only) checks to see if you paid your monthly license subscription and (if you paid) allows access to the documents stored on an encrypted internal hard disk. At least everyone thinks its encrypted. Built-in tamper switches in the console cause it to "phone home" if opened for law-enforcement action. Feds are also called if it does not make a net connection for monthly license payment. To relieve oneself of this burden/liability, the console needs to be returned to MS for disposal.
Need to distribute? Send those documents via your Hotmail or MSN (only) account to another Hotmail or MSN address via the new MS-modified TCP/IP protocol (routeable only on MSN, all non-MSN connections must go through MSN gateways). Sneakernet distribution? Save the documents to an encrypted flash memory device.
Forget to pay via your Passport account, and get locked out of your documents.
No worries about software piracy, since Office Xbox and every other MS or MS partner offering comes included with the console. Software access is dictated via unalterable serial number in the console that is attached to every thing the computer transmits or creates. This serial number is compared with your account info at MS.
Forget to pay, and you cannot read, write, or print your documents. Neither can anyone else for that matter.
Before things get any worse, the US DOJ wakes from its stupor after letting MS get off scott-free in 2002, and tries to bring MS to court on antitrust and racketeering charges. MS responds by pointing out that it is within MS' rights to terminate licenses for any reason and deactivates all government-owned X-boxes essentially crippling the government. Access is restored when Gates is declared president-for-life.
Why don't we lock the convicted spammers in a padded room with a television set to display an endless stream of infomercials, commercials, and religious programming with no way to turn it off? Better yet, we can have a pay-per-view 24/7 webcam focused on the spammer shackled to the wall that is subjected to this treatment. The webcam page can have pushbutton forms to impliment things such as water-drip torchure, the pneumatic ram punching glove hit him in the stomach gag, release one starved and abused lab rat, and other inventive buttons...
For shame! Why starve and abuse a lab rat? What did the rat ever do to anyone?
A lot of the cost of those cartridges seems to be markup at the HP level...
Don't blame HP for this, they won't compete with retailers, neither will most others. Thus, as a rule, I don't buy direct from manufacturers because there is no financial benefit.
An exception to this rule are companies that price-control their retailers--like Apple. Or companies who you would think could use the extra profit anyways--like Apple.
In the end... it just might be good for the US in damaging the MPAA stranglehold... but that part will take time. (Watch what happens when other countries produce content targeted at Americans..!)
You're kidding, right? When will Joe Six-pack go rent or buy a video featuring Hindu (or other ethnicity) actors subtitled in English? Recent breakthrough films like Crouching Tiger are an anomaly, possibly banking on old "chop-sockey" formula films of the 70's.
Add that these films will most likely be "unrated" by the MPAA, and various popular stores like Blockbuster and Wal-Mart won't carry them.
It will however be a great time for those of us that like foreign or "art" films.
I haven't seen the longer movie=fewer showings argument justified yet.
This was tried back when Top Gun was in the theaters. It was a big hit at the time and Sylvester Stallone's new movie Cobra had some time shaved off of it so they could get one more showing per day per screen. It'd didn't help much really, you need to fill those seats as well. Besides, Cobra sucked rocks.
I agree that the cat is now out of the proverbial bag. There is no longer a CSS "trade secret".
Reverse-engineering, I always thought, was like what AMD did in "clean room" examination of the 386 and 486 processors. If they did it any other way, such as microscopic examination of the silicon instead of coming up with their own implementaion, I'd bet AMD would be a memory right now.
As for giving more ammo, the case is already fsck'd as it is... I have little faith the court system will see the light, there's big money involved here, and big money gets what big money wants. Because of this, everyone should shut up? Why then post the above story on Slashdot for comments?
The link you gave is a complaint from January 2000, and pretty much sums up in much better detail some of the contents of my original post... so I gave away nothing that hasn't already been said before by the lawyers. I am assuming of course, that the high priced lawyers (or their legal assistants) employed by the DVD CCA are much more adept at keeping good research on this matter than my recreational reading on DeCSS.
Reverse-engineered? I thought that the whole DeCSS thing came about because Xing's XingDVD player program didn't encrypt the key in memory. After getting this key, the process of backtracking the workings of DeCSS started (including getting several more keys).
This is more like disassembling and tracing and documenting the code, which I am quite sure is against the license for Xing's (and many other companies') products. Even if DeCSS was "reverse-engineered" from this purloined key, it would not really be reverse-engineered because of the method that the key was obtained from.
As for the the DVD CCA's claim that it is a trade secret, as long as those who were involved with the documentation of DeCSS were not in any way responsible for the safekeeping of the code owned by the DVD CCA (like if they were DVD CCA employees, or employees working on a DVD implementation for a DVD CCA licensee), then there's no trade secret violation. Much as the same as if I "discovered" the formula for Coca-Cola(TM) by kitchen experimentation and posted it on Slashdot.
The only gripe the DVD CCA should have here is the way Xing implemented their decryption method. Since Xing was bought by Real, now it should be Real's legal problem.
Voting sucks
on
Fair IP Laws?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
You can be damned sure competitors would love to participate in voting. Voting against all patents supplied by their competitors.
This can even bring about a new problem... IP cartels. Say IBM, Sun, Apple, MS and AOL qualify tons of reviewers and team up against... well... everyone.
Strategic partners get approval votes, everyone else gets rejection votes. They get their IP protection as patents and everyone else's (potential) IP protection for free.
Voting is ripe for abuse. Better yet would be hiring consultants from professional/academic fields by a system similar to jury duty? Have qualified applicants in a pool and select X number of them randomly. That would prevent burn out, allow a rotation of reviewers, and if made compulsory, save the Guv'ment some bucks ($5/day for patent review duty, whee!)
I don't know if you've "seen" this scene, it was likely in an old radio play of Star Wars back in the late 70's-early 80's. Luke was making a big deal of joining the Academy. And from what I recall, that radio play (based on ANH) also featured a landspeeder-type race, which reminds me lately of the pod race. Biggs featured in this play a bit.
Wow, that point hit home. If we remove all the instances of human judgement from our social activities and interactions (like what we do with our spare time, music, movies, etc.), our society ceases to be a human, flexible, diverse society, and becomes a rigid, homogenous, and sterile machine which is merely comprised of humans.
Somehow I heard all this before...
Resistance is futile...
You will be assimilated.
We are the Borg collective. You will surrender all your intellectual property to us.
There's a growing concern over WiFi and its health effects since it operates so close to the microwave oven frequencies.
All we need to do is let the soccer moms and paranoids of the world know there'll be microwave light bulbs cooking the brains of our children in our local schools. That'll pretty much take care of the problem. And fsck up Fusion Lighting's chance for a killer IPO.
Considering OS X is 14 months old now, and users suffered through 10.0, 10.1, and now 10.2, that's a hell of a lot of updates to an OS (not counting the interim updates as well).
Since its a new OS, you can count on rapid feature development and the incorporation of new technologies. Do you really expect Apple to hold back releasing 2D-3D acceleration for another 2-3 years just so people who purchased a TiBook 3 weeks ago won't bitch? I would be suprised if there aren't any speed optimizations for older Macs, be they G3's or last month's TiBooks.
I consider the rapid progress of OS X to be a Good Thing, even more so when each release sucks less than the previous one.
With Office X, Flash MX and Photoshop 7, I'm happy as hell. I haven't booted OS 9 since last November or December. My portable (iBook) had its drive wiped last year and is now running 10.1.4, no Classic environment at all.
It was a considerable leap of faith to abandon the Wintel platform and go all OS X. Then again, I'm an old NeXT diehard who used his workstation from 1993 to 1998 as his primary computer. Coming from a NeXT user's perspective, aside from the flashy eye candy in OS X, I'm as happy as a pig in shit.
I've had nothing but good experiences using Apple's stuff. My post indicated that yes, an MPEG had crappy synch between audio and video. Media Player (windows) played it just fine. I'm more than willing to blame the file:-)
just look at the incredible speed of Apple's Altivec-charged software MPEG2 encoder.
I just wish the MPEG1 decoder was so optimized. I was rather disappointed this afternoon to see the audio out of synch watching some pr0n I downloaded off of stileproject.com.
Slashdot Mirror
These remain powered in flight. AND these are also commercially available and far cheaper than the Japanese solution.
1: RIAA is not trying to prevent you from transferring songs to your MP3 player, they are trying to combat ripping for the purpose of distribution of MP3s over the internet. The fact that your player depends on files encoded in MP3/WMA/Ogg format is a side effect.
2: The Diamond Rio was attacked by RIAA because it (in the eyes of the RIAA) would allow users to utilize the MP3s illegally obtained from the 'net and unchain them from the computer. The RIO is also not SDMI compliant. The crappy software that comes with it is, but there are 3rd party alternative software that proves you can transfer MP3s TO and FROM the Rio (at least the 300 and 500 models).
3: RIAA, like any other corporation, exists to extract maximum profits from those whom it does business. It can be expected to attack those who attack its business model. It does not matter whether this business model is outdated or not! RIAA is most likely not against streaming music (webcasting), since this is another source of revenue. Following the maximum profit ideal stated above, RIAA will only implement/allow streaming of their material when they feel they can extract a profit from it. This means, they feel they must control distribution. "Robin Hood" sites that stream copyrighted materials might be protesting music costs/artists' rights/IP anarchy but that does not stop the fact that they are stealing. The issue of how much is being charged for streaming by legal webcasters is another issue.
I do not like the way IP laws are heading in this country (USA) and RIAA, MPAA, DVDCCA, and Congress are doing their best to screw the end-user. The fact that RIAA has a bunch of desireable copyrighted works ripe for piracy and they are paranoid about protecting it is a given. Fight the fight by repealing bad laws and publicly exposing their abuse of IP laws. Stealing might be an expression of social disorder as a form of protest, but that does not change the fact that it is stealing. Remove the problem of most people looking the other way when IP theft occurs from the fight for fair use and RIAA hasn't got a leg to stand on.
Simply have the actor use a product that is an odd color like cyan, so it can be masked out and substituted with a product and logo. That way, when the first run has actors eating "Lay's" and drinking "Coke". Reruns can have "Utz" and "Pepsi". If the show is after 10PM they can change the can to beer. No sponsor? Change it to "Chips" and "Drink." Hackers or disgruntles employees can change them to "shit" and "piss"...
The possibilities are endless.
She's probably offended that Victoria's Secret doesn't sell bras for women who's mammaries look like two oranges stuffed in a pair of tube socks.
Of course, this hand-chopping goes along with physical theft, stealing a loaf of bread, for instance...
So what is the penalty for IP theft? What part of the body to they cut off? The brain? Or part of the brain?
So, which half of the brain do they cut off? The side that controls the right hand, the side that is responsible for creativity, or the side responsible for analytical thought?
You forgot the reasons for version skipping? Why it was none other than marketing. Wordperfect had a higher version number than MS Word at the time (6.0 vs. 2.0 AFAIR) and MS decided to skip up to a version number higher than WP. That started a brief version number war until MS decided to dump versions altogether and name releases after the last two digits of the release year, until they became Y2K compliant, and now release versions based on the entire year.
Fire up Office-Xbox on the console. Modem or broadband connection to MSN (only) checks to see if you paid your monthly license subscription and (if you paid) allows access to the documents stored on an encrypted internal hard disk. At least everyone thinks its encrypted. Built-in tamper switches in the console cause it to "phone home" if opened for law-enforcement action. Feds are also called if it does not make a net connection for monthly license payment. To relieve oneself of this burden/liability, the console needs to be returned to MS for disposal.
Need to distribute? Send those documents via your Hotmail or MSN (only) account to another Hotmail or MSN address via the new MS-modified TCP/IP protocol (routeable only on MSN, all non-MSN connections must go through MSN gateways). Sneakernet distribution? Save the documents to an encrypted flash memory device.
Forget to pay via your Passport account, and get locked out of your documents.
No worries about software piracy, since Office Xbox and every other MS or MS partner offering comes included with the console. Software access is dictated via unalterable serial number in the console that is attached to every thing the computer transmits or creates. This serial number is compared with your account info at MS. Forget to pay, and you cannot read, write, or print your documents. Neither can anyone else for that matter.
Before things get any worse, the US DOJ wakes from its stupor after letting MS get off scott-free in 2002, and tries to bring MS to court on antitrust and racketeering charges. MS responds by pointing out that it is within MS' rights to terminate licenses for any reason and deactivates all government-owned X-boxes essentially crippling the government. Access is restored when Gates is declared president-for-life.
An exception to this rule are companies that price-control their retailers--like Apple.
Or companies who you would think could use the extra profit anyways--like Apple.
Add that these films will most likely be "unrated" by the MPAA, and various popular stores like Blockbuster and Wal-Mart won't carry them.
It will however be a great time for those of us that like foreign or "art" films.
Reverse-engineering, I always thought, was like what AMD did in "clean room" examination of the 386 and 486 processors. If they did it any other way, such as microscopic examination of the silicon instead of coming up with their own implementaion, I'd bet AMD would be a memory right now.
As for giving more ammo, the case is already fsck'd as it is... I have little faith the court system will see the light, there's big money involved here, and big money gets what big money wants. Because of this, everyone should shut up? Why then post the above story on Slashdot for comments?
The link you gave is a complaint from January 2000, and pretty much sums up in much better detail some of the contents of my original post... so I gave away nothing that hasn't already been said before by the lawyers. I am assuming of course, that the high priced lawyers (or their legal assistants) employed by the DVD CCA are much more adept at keeping good research on this matter than my recreational reading on DeCSS.
This is more like disassembling and tracing and documenting the code, which I am quite sure is against the license for Xing's (and many other companies') products. Even if DeCSS was "reverse-engineered" from this purloined key, it would not really be reverse-engineered because of the method that the key was obtained from.
As for the the DVD CCA's claim that it is a trade secret, as long as those who were involved with the documentation of DeCSS were not in any way responsible for the safekeeping of the code owned by the DVD CCA (like if they were DVD CCA employees, or employees working on a DVD implementation for a DVD CCA licensee), then there's no trade secret violation. Much as the same as if I "discovered" the formula for Coca-Cola(TM) by kitchen experimentation and posted it on Slashdot.
The only gripe the DVD CCA should have here is the way Xing implemented their decryption method. Since Xing was bought by Real, now it should be Real's legal problem.
This can even bring about a new problem... IP cartels. Say IBM, Sun, Apple, MS and AOL qualify tons of reviewers and team up against ... well ... everyone.
Strategic partners get approval votes, everyone else gets rejection votes. They get their IP protection as patents and everyone else's (potential) IP protection for free.
Voting is ripe for abuse. Better yet would be hiring consultants from professional/academic fields by a system similar to jury duty? Have qualified applicants in a pool and select X number of them randomly. That would prevent burn out, allow a rotation of reviewers, and if made compulsory, save the Guv'ment some bucks ($5/day for patent review duty, whee!)
I don't know if you've "seen" this scene, it was likely in an old radio play of Star Wars back in the late 70's-early 80's. Luke was making a big deal of joining the Academy. And from what I recall, that radio play (based on ANH) also featured a landspeeder-type race, which reminds me lately of the pod race. Biggs featured in this play a bit.
"Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out"
'nuf said.
Somehow I heard all this before...
Resistance is futile...
You will be assimilated.
We are the Borg collective. You will surrender all your intellectual property to us.
There's a growing concern over WiFi and its health effects since it operates so close to the microwave oven frequencies.
All we need to do is let the soccer moms and paranoids of the world know there'll be microwave light bulbs cooking the brains of our children in our local schools. That'll pretty much take care of the problem. And fsck up Fusion Lighting's chance for a killer IPO.
It says, basically:
"*nVidia: GeForce2MX, GeForce3, GeForce4 Ti, GeForce4 or GeForce4MX. ATI: any AGP Radeon card. 32MB VRAM recommended for optimum performance."
Note the "Optimum Performance" part. I suppose older systems will get some benefit, but that's my guess.
Since its a new OS, you can count on rapid feature development and the incorporation of new technologies. Do you really expect Apple to hold back releasing 2D-3D acceleration for another 2-3 years just so people who purchased a TiBook 3 weeks ago won't bitch? I would be suprised if there aren't any speed optimizations for older Macs, be they G3's or last month's TiBooks.
I consider the rapid progress of OS X to be a Good Thing, even more so when each release sucks less than the previous one.
With Office X, Flash MX and Photoshop 7, I'm happy as hell. I haven't booted OS 9 since last November or December. My portable (iBook) had its drive wiped last year and is now running 10.1.4, no Classic environment at all.
It was a considerable leap of faith to abandon the Wintel platform and go all OS X. Then again, I'm an old NeXT diehard who used his workstation from 1993 to 1998 as his primary computer. Coming from a NeXT user's perspective, aside from the flashy eye candy in OS X, I'm as happy as a pig in shit.
I've had nothing but good experiences using Apple's stuff. My post indicated that yes, an MPEG had crappy synch between audio and video. Media Player (windows) played it just fine. I'm more than willing to blame the file :-)