Oh, and for the record, only about 600 people have settled as of June. The rest of the 3,249 are still going slowly through the court process.
If you actually read that article you'd realize that what is says is that cases were filed against these people without the RIAA having their names. They are in court with these peoples' ISPs trying to get their identities released, they are not in court with the peoples themselves. I think it's extremely likely that these people, like the 600 before them, will all settle out of court.
And there is no legal difference between sharing for free and sharing for pay, with the sole exception of the amount of damages that can be awarded.
That's not entirely true. If you're sharing for pay it's clearly intentional, but on networks like Kazaa, "sharing" only consists of keeping a file in the same folder kazaa downloads to. I could easily see somebody deciding to make their kazaa folder be the same as the folder in which they keep any legal rips of their own CDs that they might have. To make a real world analogy, this is like if your friend let you use his bike, you left it unlocked and somebody decided to steal it. Is it somewhat foolish for you to leave the bike unlocked? Probably. Is it your fault it got stolen? No, it's the fault of the person who stole it.
This download network, like many other legal, commercial networks that have struck deals with colleges, is paid for by the university, not by the students themselves. I never really understood this. I mean, I know most schools feel that it is in some way their responsibility to pay for their students entertainment, i.e. concerts and other performances, fairs, etc., but this seems like going a little over the edge. I mean, NIU has 25,000 students, so if they were to pay for this program for all of their students it would be 25,000 students times $5 times let's say 8 months of school (plus whatever they pay for the kids that are there in the summer) or $1,000,000. That's a lot of money to add onto whatever they budget for student entertainment functions.
If I got a court summons or (more likely) a cease and desist letter from the RIAA I could put it in a nice frame and make a really cool wall hanging out of it.
How many music downloaders has the RIAA actually brought to court? Not very many. Almost all of the RIAA's attacks against downloaders have been settled out of court. They're more of a publicity stunt than they are a legal tactic. Now that I think of it, I can't remember any case where the RIAA has brought a music downloader to trial (not that there weren't any, there may have been) almost all of their real court cases are against companies that produce filesharing software. The reason, I believe, for this is that there is a big legal distinction between downloading somebody else's content and making money from other people downloading that content. I'm pretty sure that if someone accused of downloading music actually proceeded to go into court that they could have a reasonable chance at getting off. We'll probably never see that though because for someone to do this they would have to have the money to front for a lawyer, not to mention the time to see the case through.
Somebody post a bulleted list of featuress already! I'm a busy man, I don't have time to read anything longer than two and a half pages of double-spaced 12pt Courier, and that's only for the executive summary of my encyclopedia A-L anyways.
Really, I think end-user usability is an area for companies like redhat, mandrake, suse, etc. (even Lindows). Not that it wouldn't be great if more programmers were able to consider the non-geek users of their programs (or if they have trouble doing that, getting someone to help), but honestly, that's not the real way good usability with open source programs is going to develop. Companies like redhat are the ones that are really capable of pulling together hundreds of open source projects and making a product unified enough that a non-geek can manage it. Sure, there are non-commercial distros like Debian that do a good job at this, but it requires a lot of volunteer work and I would argue the end result of distros like Debian still isn't appropriate for many "regular users" (not that I'm putting down Debian, there are plenty of advantages to it and it's actually my distro of choice).
Okay, this isn't really oragami, but it involves building stuff out of paper and it's really nerdy and it's really cool. There's a program called Pepakura that I discovered a while ago that can take any 3D model and make a sheet that you can print out, cut out and fold to make a real-life 3d version of your model. I'm not great with 3D modelling so I couldn't do all that much with it, but it was still pretty fun. IIRC they have a version that's free to download so you can play around with it. Also, as an added bonus their English website is absolutely chock full of bad English translations!
I know what you're all thinking: "Professional paper-folders? How can that be?". Well actually, it's not too difficult for a talented paper-folder to make a decent living touring the competitive oragami circuits and getting endorsement deals with paper companies and such. They're really a lot like pro skateboarders or Nascar drivers, except they get more paper cuts.
Oh certainly, Penn and Teller is an opinion show, not a balanced examination of the issues. What I was saying is that their show tackles issues of all types and doesn't specifically attack one viewpoint (i.e. "the right" or "the left"). As for your specific example of the show featuring chiropracters, they actually do mention specifically that there are chiropracters who are legitimate and can help to relieve back pain. Perhaps this could have been emphasized more, but they clearly do say it. What they were meaning to point out is that some chiropracters represent their profession as an appropriate treatment for everything, not just back problems.
"Okay, we'll make this like, really huge collider and we'll smash matter and anti-matter together really fast, like SSSSKRKKRAASSSH. Oh man, this will be so awesome."
Ha! That's actually very interesting because I've actually just begun watching Bullshit in the past few days myself and I was also thinking about the ways they're similar. They cover a lot same ground with a few episodes being almost scarily similar (i.e. the "Talking to the Dead" episode of BS vs. the "John Edwards is the Biggest Douche in the Universe" episode of SP). I was planning on trying to match every episode of P&T:BS with an episode of South Park that covers similar ground to see if it could be done (off the top of my head, they both had episodes which dealt took a similar view about second hand smoke laws). But yes, above those direct similarities, both shows do generally give a mostly balanced view, attacking the deserving shysters and bullshitters of all types. They're two of my favorite shows for sure.
If you liked the original Thunderbirds and hate the live action remake but also love comedy sticking it to our current government then you are going to love Matt and Trey's new project.
Umm, yeah, I'm not sure liking Thunderbirds is actually required to enjoy this movie.
The thing I like the most about Matt Stone and Trey Parker's shows/movies is the extraordinary balance they generally provide. They make fun of the ridiculousness of all political perspectives. They make fun of people on the left, people on the right, liberals, conservatives, etc.
And that's really the way it should be, because both "sides" in politics are, for the most part, composed of reasonable people, the problem is the people to the extremes of both sides.
I cannot fathom what made the producers of Thunderbirds think that it would be a good idea to do it as a live action movie and not with puppets. Thunderbirds' whole fucking gimmick was the puppets. Without the puppets it would have just been another mediocre, wholly forgetable kids action cartoon.
Too bad it's on the Thames. British people just don't have the same deep appreciation for blowing stuff up that Americans do. I suppose that's one of the reasons we revolted though...
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Amazingly enough, the windows key works just fine in linux. It's not essential at all that it have a picture of tux on it.
There are no boobies in the mosaic, people. Nothing to see here.
This download network, like many other legal, commercial networks that have struck deals with colleges, is paid for by the university, not by the students themselves. I never really understood this. I mean, I know most schools feel that it is in some way their responsibility to pay for their students entertainment, i.e. concerts and other performances, fairs, etc., but this seems like going a little over the edge. I mean, NIU has 25,000 students, so if they were to pay for this program for all of their students it would be 25,000 students times $5 times let's say 8 months of school (plus whatever they pay for the kids that are there in the summer) or $1,000,000. That's a lot of money to add onto whatever they budget for student entertainment functions.
I get the feeling though that unlike most "illegal" networks, this one has considerably less porn.
Obviously, it would be worthless to me.
If I got a court summons or (more likely) a cease and desist letter from the RIAA I could put it in a nice frame and make a really cool wall hanging out of it.
How many music downloaders has the RIAA actually brought to court? Not very many. Almost all of the RIAA's attacks against downloaders have been settled out of court. They're more of a publicity stunt than they are a legal tactic. Now that I think of it, I can't remember any case where the RIAA has brought a music downloader to trial (not that there weren't any, there may have been) almost all of their real court cases are against companies that produce filesharing software. The reason, I believe, for this is that there is a big legal distinction between downloading somebody else's content and making money from other people downloading that content. I'm pretty sure that if someone accused of downloading music actually proceeded to go into court that they could have a reasonable chance at getting off. We'll probably never see that though because for someone to do this they would have to have the money to front for a lawyer, not to mention the time to see the case through.
Somebody post a bulleted list of featuress already! I'm a busy man, I don't have time to read anything longer than two and a half pages of double-spaced 12pt Courier, and that's only for the executive summary of my encyclopedia A-L anyways.
So yeah... dupe!
Really, I think end-user usability is an area for companies like redhat, mandrake, suse, etc. (even Lindows). Not that it wouldn't be great if more programmers were able to consider the non-geek users of their programs (or if they have trouble doing that, getting someone to help), but honestly, that's not the real way good usability with open source programs is going to develop. Companies like redhat are the ones that are really capable of pulling together hundreds of open source projects and making a product unified enough that a non-geek can manage it. Sure, there are non-commercial distros like Debian that do a good job at this, but it requires a lot of volunteer work and I would argue the end result of distros like Debian still isn't appropriate for many "regular users" (not that I'm putting down Debian, there are plenty of advantages to it and it's actually my distro of choice).
Wow, you mean a person's brain could have an effect on what they think? I am shocked!
Okay, this isn't really oragami, but it involves building stuff out of paper and it's really nerdy and it's really cool. There's a program called Pepakura that I discovered a while ago that can take any 3D model and make a sheet that you can print out, cut out and fold to make a real-life 3d version of your model. I'm not great with 3D modelling so I couldn't do all that much with it, but it was still pretty fun. IIRC they have a version that's free to download so you can play around with it. Also, as an added bonus their English website is absolutely chock full of bad English translations!
I know what you're all thinking: "Professional paper-folders? How can that be?". Well actually, it's not too difficult for a talented paper-folder to make a decent living touring the competitive oragami circuits and getting endorsement deals with paper companies and such. They're really a lot like pro skateboarders or Nascar drivers, except they get more paper cuts.
I think you're confusing hypocrisy with intentional irony.
Oh certainly, Penn and Teller is an opinion show, not a balanced examination of the issues. What I was saying is that their show tackles issues of all types and doesn't specifically attack one viewpoint (i.e. "the right" or "the left"). As for your specific example of the show featuring chiropracters, they actually do mention specifically that there are chiropracters who are legitimate and can help to relieve back pain. Perhaps this could have been emphasized more, but they clearly do say it. What they were meaning to point out is that some chiropracters represent their profession as an appropriate treatment for everything, not just back problems.
I can hear the scientists planning this now...
"Okay, we'll make this like, really huge collider and we'll smash matter and anti-matter together really fast, like SSSSKRKKRAASSSH. Oh man, this will be so awesome."
Ha! That's actually very interesting because I've actually just begun watching Bullshit in the past few days myself and I was also thinking about the ways they're similar. They cover a lot same ground with a few episodes being almost scarily similar (i.e. the "Talking to the Dead" episode of BS vs. the "John Edwards is the Biggest Douche in the Universe" episode of SP). I was planning on trying to match every episode of P&T:BS with an episode of South Park that covers similar ground to see if it could be done (off the top of my head, they both had episodes which dealt took a similar view about second hand smoke laws). But yes, above those direct similarities, both shows do generally give a mostly balanced view, attacking the deserving shysters and bullshitters of all types. They're two of my favorite shows for sure.
Screw Thunderbirds, this would be even cooler if it were in the style of Thundercats.
I mean, besides the obvious fact that Thundercats was a cooler show, cats kill birds, it's a fact of nature. Plus, you know, there's Cheetara.
From stop-motion construction paper cut-outs to stupid looking puppets. How far we've come!
The thing I like the most about Matt Stone and Trey Parker's shows/movies is the extraordinary balance they generally provide. They make fun of the ridiculousness of all political perspectives. They make fun of people on the left, people on the right, liberals, conservatives, etc.
And that's really the way it should be, because both "sides" in politics are, for the most part, composed of reasonable people, the problem is the people to the extremes of both sides.
I cannot fathom what made the producers of Thunderbirds think that it would be a good idea to do it as a live action movie and not with puppets. Thunderbirds' whole fucking gimmick was the puppets. Without the puppets it would have just been another mediocre, wholly forgetable kids action cartoon.
Too bad it's on the Thames. British people just don't have the same deep appreciation for blowing stuff up that Americans do. I suppose that's one of the reasons we revolted though...