You know what would be a "compelling physical product?" CD's for $5.00. Seriously.
Agreed.
I just bought 18 CDs a week or so ago. Most of them are new releases, but I only paid (including shipping) around $6.00 per CD. And this is generally how I've bought my music -- I wait for a good deal then I buy a bunch of CDs I want. I think I've only bought 4 other CDs this year outside of this batch. I find this approach significantly cheaper than iTunes, there's no DRM, the quality is higher, and I have physical backups. For new or hard to find bands, I'll shell out more for a CD. But this is because I'm interested in financially supporting the band.
What amazes me is how slowly record companies drop prices on music. It's not hard to find cheap DVDs of a movie out a couple years ago, cheap as in half price. But try and do the same for albums. The CD will still be over $10.
Here's a print view of the article so that you don't have to keep moving through the pages. Despite that annoyance, it was a good article. I wish there had been more concrete examples though.
I have a huge collection of Rifts RPG books as well as several other Palladium books. At one point, I had most of the books they had printed. But I feel they've really strayed. Their game system is broken and the point of each book is to just supply bigger, better, badder weapons and spells and whatnot. It completely throws off the game balance. It's been a while since I've played Rifts and I'm much happier with the new D20 system.
That said, I'd hate to see them go under given the circumstances as reported.
The early Dragon Warrior games were some of my favorites too. So for me, DW8 has been great. Very nostalgic and just what I've been looking for lately.
You have no rights to my unpublished works.
on
P2P and TV
·
· Score: 1
There should be NO protection for works that are never published...Any work that an "owner" is not interested in exploiting for commercial gain should be strictly PD. None of this nonsense about locking up masterpieces in a vault to rot away.
And since when do you have any right to tell me what to do with my ideas??? If I want to share them, I will. If I don't, then fine. It's my choice.
At what point are works "never published"? If my novel is rejected by a publisher, does that mean it's immediately in the public domain? What if I take my rejected TV pilot, rework it and a couple years later get it published? Should I have no rights to my ideas while I work on them?
Maybe after I'm dead, fine. Go through my "secret vault" and publish all my hidden masterpieces, but don't tell me that you have a right to my idea. I'll sell and share my creations when I'm ready, but don't you dare demand my hard work just because you think you're entitled to it.
Alternately, you could argue that since the work isn't available for sale at all, you aren't costing them a dime.
Doesn't matter. Copyright is the right to distribute. Commercialization is something completely separate. In other words, it doesn't matter if I'm going to give it away for free, or for profit, or even at all, if I hold the copyright of a work, you have no right to distribute the work whatsoever unless you have my permission.
The first link points to the new NW-E400 series of Sony flash MP3 players but the story is about an older model (NW-S23). I haven't heard anything about the NW-E400 having this DRM. Can anyone point me to an article or review that proves this? Otherwise, this story is just a troll (and it worked).
We're starting a site to distribute ready-to-go content for the PSP. It will start out carrying the movies via BitTorrent and regular downloads to your PC. We're looking into a direct PSP client too.
That may very well be true, but I recall that this technology was around LONG BEFORE the [PS2] console arrived.
Perhaps, but the earlier of these two patents was filed May 1, 2000. That was the same year the PS2 came out (March for Japan, October for US) and the PS1 had a Dual Shock controller long before that. I am surprised these patents can even apply.
Here's actual text of the orders (picked up from engadget.com):
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
IMMERSION CORPORATION, Plaintiff, v. SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT AMERICA, INC., SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT, INC., and MICROSOFT CORPORATION, Defendants.
No. C 02-0710 CW
JUDGMENT
This action came on for trial before the Court, the Honorable Claudia Wilken, United States District Judge, presiding, and the issues having been duly tried and the Jury having duly rendered its verdict as to the claims presented to it, and the Court having entered its findings as to the defense of inequitable conduct,
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED:
That judgment is entered in favor of Plaintiff Immersion Corp. (Immersion) against Defendants Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc., (SCEA) and Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc., (SCEI) (collectively Sony) on Immersion's claims of infringement of U.S. Patent Nos. 6,424,333 and 6,275,213. Judgment is also entered in Immersion's favor on Sony's counter-claims for declaratory judgment of non-infringement. Immersion shall recover of Defendants SCEA and SCEI jointly and severally the amount of $82,000,000.00. This sum shall be paid directly to Immersion forthwith; no escrow account is required. In accordance with the portion of the Court's January 10, 2005 order awarding Immersion pre-judgment interest at the prime rate, Immersion shall recover of Defendants pre-judgment interest in the amount of $8,703,608.00.1 Immersion shall recover its costs from Sony.
In a separate order, the Court also issues a permanent injunction against Sony, stayed pending appeal to the Federal Circuit, and a compulsory license fee for the duration of the stay.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
Dated: 3/24/05
CLAUDIA WILKEN United States District Judge
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
IMMERSION CORPORATION, Plaintiff, v. SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT AMERICA, INC., SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT, INC., and MICROSOFT CORPORATION, Defendants.
No. C 02-0710 CW
ORDER ENTERING PERMANENT INJUNCTION AND GRANTING DEFENDANTS' MOTION TO STAY INJUNCTION PENDING APPEAL
For the reasons set forth in its January 10, 2005 Order, and having entered judgment in favor of Plaintiff Immersion Corp. (Immersion), the Court hereby PERMANENTLY ENJOINS Defendants Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc., (SCEA) and Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc., (SCEI) (collectively Sony) from manufacturing, using, and/or selling in, or importing into, the United States the infringing Sony Playstation system, including its Playstation consoles, Dualshock controllers, and those games found by the jury to infringe. [FN1: The jury found that the following games, in conjunction with the Playstation consoles and Dualshock controllers, infringed either the '213 patent, the '333 patent or both patents: A Bug's Life; Amplitude; Ape Escape; Atlantis: The Lost Empire; Bloody Roar 2; Cool Boarders 3; Cool Boarders 4; Cool Boarders 2001; Crash Bash; Crash Team Racing; Drakan: The Ancients' Gate; Emperor's New Groove; Extermination; FantaVision; Final Fantasy X; Formula One 2001; The Getaway; Gran Turismo; Gran Turismo 2; Gran Turismo 3; Grand Theft Auto: Vice City; Grand Theft Auto 3; Grind Session; ICO; Jak & Daxter; Kinetica; Kingdom Hearts; Legend of the Dragoon; The Mark of Kri; Medal of Honor Frontline; Medievil 2; Metal Gear Solid 2; Monster's, Inc.; Sly Cooper and the Thievius Racoonus; SOCOM Navy Seals; Speed Punks; Spyro: Ripto's Rage; Spyro: Year of the Dragon; Stuart Little 2; Syphon Filter 2; Syphon Filter 3; Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3; Twisted Metal: Black; Twisted Metal 4; Twisted Metal: Small Brawl; Treasure Planet; and War of the Monsters.] As described in the January 10 Order, no recall is required of products already sold, but Sony will pay a license fee on all products already placed in the stream of
All is well and good right now, Aggrazel's still not evil.
The chances of Aggrazel remaining not evil however in the long term future are not good. Every human turns evil sooner or later.. it is only matter of time.
Come on people! What's with the massive, ignorant, I-didn't-think-before-I-hit-submit generalizations that get modded insightful around here?
I'm not saying Google will do this, but I can't think of a single, not-for-profit tech company that hasn't done some morally or ethically reprehensible thing at one point in its history. Can you?
I'm not saying you'll do this, but I can't think of a single, self-aware human being that hasn't done some morally or ethically reprehensible thing at one point in his or her history. Can you?
I see this as analogous to Windows Activation, where the customer is treated from the off as a de facto pirate, and forced to go through a laborious process to use software they've already paid for.
Uh, then don't pay for it. Don't use iTunes or Windows if you don't like the product.
Nobody is forcing anyone to do anything here. There are alternatives, plenty of them, to iTunes and the iPod. Consumer ignorance does not equal anti-competitive behavior.
"Honestly, judge, I was forced to buy and iPod! Oh the misery!"
Okay, so for us MUD-less ones, how do we get started? What are some popular MUDs? Or is that even the right question?
I think part of the problem with MUDs is that there's a larger learning curve than for getting into Everquest or FFXI. So, would some MUD veterans like to give some suggestions on how to reach MUD enlightenment?
I have not evaluated the new enterprise version of SourceForge, so it's hard for me to compare.
Setting up GForge isn't a cakewalk, but it's not horrible either. If you're going to run it on Debian Linux, then it's very simple. Otherwise, you just have to follow the directions and give yourself a couple of hours. A lot of it depends on how many options are you going to use. Will you use Subversion? Mailing Lists? LDAP? Adding these components will increase the install time.
Most all the developers like GForge, but it took us a while to figure out exactly how we were going to use it. One concern we had was cross-project reporting, that is, developing reports that span several GForge projects. There are new default reports in 4.0 that do this and once you figure out the database schema it's pretty easy to add whatever else you need.
Manager buy-in has been fine since GForge is years ahead of what we were using (which was next to nothing) and cost us next to nothing. However, we didn't get professional support from the GForge Group though I wish we had. Their prices were very reasonable, could do all sorts of customizations, and could have saved us (me) some time.
So, in conclusion, I definitely recommend you check out GForge and contact the GForge Group. I imagine they can do better than what SourceForge is offering.
Slashdot Mirror
Not quite the same. In this case, you don't have a choice to use valet parking or not. Point is, it's not your car.
All I can say is: yep.
I left because management, from the bottom to the top, had no clue. It's a shame.
You know what would be a "compelling physical product?" CD's for $5.00. Seriously.
Agreed.
I just bought 18 CDs a week or so ago. Most of them are new releases, but I only paid (including shipping) around $6.00 per CD. And this is generally how I've bought my music -- I wait for a good deal then I buy a bunch of CDs I want. I think I've only bought 4 other CDs this year outside of this batch. I find this approach significantly cheaper than iTunes, there's no DRM, the quality is higher, and I have physical backups. For new or hard to find bands, I'll shell out more for a CD. But this is because I'm interested in financially supporting the band.
What amazes me is how slowly record companies drop prices on music. It's not hard to find cheap DVDs of a movie out a couple years ago, cheap as in half price. But try and do the same for albums. The CD will still be over $10.
That was _fast_. The announcement session hasn't even finished at OSCON.
Greg just mentioned that a downloads features will be coming to Google Code Hosting.
Here's a print view of the article so that you don't have to keep moving through the pages. Despite that annoyance, it was a good article. I wish there had been more concrete examples though.
Seriously, one could fairly easily convert this guy's suggestion to SCUM:
- Vision and scope document = Product backlog
- Work breakdown structure = Sprints and task estimation
- Code review = Sprint review
And with SCRUM you have a much larger pool of resources for help, suggestions, and case studies.I have a huge collection of Rifts RPG books as well as several other Palladium books. At one point, I had most of the books they had printed. But I feel they've really strayed. Their game system is broken and the point of each book is to just supply bigger, better, badder weapons and spells and whatnot. It completely throws off the game balance. It's been a while since I've played Rifts and I'm much happier with the new D20 system.
That said, I'd hate to see them go under given the circumstances as reported.
The early Dragon Warrior games were some of my favorites too. So for me, DW8 has been great. Very nostalgic and just what I've been looking for lately.
At least according to Strong Bad
There should be NO protection for works that are never published...Any work that an "owner" is not interested in exploiting for commercial gain should be strictly PD. None of this nonsense about locking up masterpieces in a vault to rot away.
And since when do you have any right to tell me what to do with my ideas??? If I want to share them, I will. If I don't, then fine. It's my choice.
At what point are works "never published"? If my novel is rejected by a publisher, does that mean it's immediately in the public domain? What if I take my rejected TV pilot, rework it and a couple years later get it published? Should I have no rights to my ideas while I work on them?
Maybe after I'm dead, fine. Go through my "secret vault" and publish all my hidden masterpieces, but don't tell me that you have a right to my idea. I'll sell and share my creations when I'm ready, but don't you dare demand my hard work just because you think you're entitled to it.
But in any case, I'm looking forward to what the slashdot masses think of my project...and to how my ISP holds up.
..." as part of the reports.
Well, I just installed it and it looks pretty good. I can't get an informer account at the moment due to slashdotting, but I'll try again tomorrow.
One feature I immediately expected but didn't see was something along the lines of "If you like this site, check out
Good luck with the project!
jaaron
Alternately, you could argue that since the work isn't available for sale at all, you aren't costing them a dime.
Doesn't matter. Copyright is the right to distribute. Commercialization is something completely separate. In other words, it doesn't matter if I'm going to give it away for free, or for profit, or even at all, if I hold the copyright of a work, you have no right to distribute the work whatsoever unless you have my permission.
The first link points to the new NW-E400 series of Sony flash MP3 players but the story is about an older model (NW-S23). I haven't heard anything about the NW-E400 having this DRM. Can anyone point me to an article or review that proves this? Otherwise, this story is just a troll (and it worked).
From what I've read, people in Japan are already sharing video clips that are in the PSP native format.
:)
Efforts are underway....
We're starting a site to distribute ready-to-go content for the PSP. It will start out carrying the movies via BitTorrent and regular downloads to your PC. We're looking into a direct PSP client too.
So, it will happen, just give us a week or so.
Links to the patents: 6,424,333, 6,275,213.
That may very well be true, but I recall that this technology was around LONG BEFORE the [PS2] console arrived.
Perhaps, but the earlier of these two patents was filed May 1, 2000. That was the same year the PS2 came out (March for Japan, October for US) and the PS1 had a Dual Shock controller long before that. I am surprised these patents can even apply.
All is well and good right now, Aggrazel's still not evil.
The chances of Aggrazel remaining not evil however in the long term future are not good. Every human turns evil sooner or later.. it is only matter of time.
Come on people! What's with the massive, ignorant, I-didn't-think-before-I-hit-submit generalizations that get modded insightful around here?
I'm not saying Google will do this, but I can't think of a single, not-for-profit tech company that hasn't done some morally or ethically reprehensible thing at one point in its history. Can you?
I'm not saying you'll do this, but I can't think of a single, self-aware human being that hasn't done some morally or ethically reprehensible thing at one point in his or her history. Can you?
They have a feedback form. :)
I see this as analogous to Windows Activation, where the customer is treated from the off as a de facto pirate, and forced to go through a laborious process to use software they've already paid for.
Uh, then don't pay for it. Don't use iTunes or Windows if you don't like the product.
Nobody is forcing anyone to do anything here. There are alternatives, plenty of them, to iTunes and the iPod. Consumer ignorance does not equal anti-competitive behavior.
"Honestly, judge, I was forced to buy and iPod! Oh the misery!"
Give me a break.
I just wish we'd get rid of timezones. Why can we all just use UTC and be done with it? And don't even get me started on daylight savings...
Okay, so for us MUD-less ones, how do we get started? What are some popular MUDs? Or is that even the right question?
I think part of the problem with MUDs is that there's a larger learning curve than for getting into Everquest or FFXI. So, would some MUD veterans like to give some suggestions on how to reach MUD enlightenment?
I have not evaluated the new enterprise version of SourceForge, so it's hard for me to compare.
Setting up GForge isn't a cakewalk, but it's not horrible either. If you're going to run it on Debian Linux, then it's very simple. Otherwise, you just have to follow the directions and give yourself a couple of hours. A lot of it depends on how many options are you going to use. Will you use Subversion? Mailing Lists? LDAP? Adding these components will increase the install time.
Most all the developers like GForge, but it took us a while to figure out exactly how we were going to use it. One concern we had was cross-project reporting, that is, developing reports that span several GForge projects. There are new default reports in 4.0 that do this and once you figure out the database schema it's pretty easy to add whatever else you need.
Manager buy-in has been fine since GForge is years ahead of what we were using (which was next to nothing) and cost us next to nothing. However, we didn't get professional support from the GForge Group though I wish we had. Their prices were very reasonable, could do all sorts of customizations, and could have saved us (me) some time.
So, in conclusion, I definitely recommend you check out GForge and contact the GForge Group. I imagine they can do better than what SourceForge is offering.