I'm a newspaper photographer. I'll offer this perspective on Google's respect for copyright:
Google recently used some of my photographs on Google News, as the 'headline' photos to represent collected coverage of major stories. This fell outside any reasonable definition of fair use. This was for-profit publication of photographs that other publishers were paying for the right to use. Google used them for free.
Now, it's common in the news business that publishers use breaking news photos without permission, because they need to publish them quickly. But they ALWAYS pay afterwards, market rate, without question. This side of the business works on trust.
When I sent Google a bill, their first reaction was exactly what it should be: They would pay the market rate. They rang up to get my banking details for fund transfer, and that should have been the end of the matter.
Then they wrote to me saying that they wouldn't pay. They even denied publishing the images, which was clearly untrue. They told me that to take the matter further I would need to file a DMCA complaint -- and in doing so I must give Google permission to publish the DMCA complaint online. I believe this is outrageous! I only sell my pictures to UK publishers, yet here was a US company publishing my work without permission, and telling me that I would need to pursue them through the US legal system!
This gives me a fairly clear view of Google's attitude to other people's copyright. It seems that Google will take what they want, publish it however they want, profit, and then to hell with the people who originally produced the material in question.
I expect Java to gain ground again as developers create apps for Android phones.
Although the bare-bones Nexus One hasn't sold in huge numbers, HTC have already produced several superb Android-based alternatives, such as the Legend and the Desire. If/when Android becomes the commonplace operating system in the smartphone market, this will lead to a rise in Java development.
In fact, to join in with the recent Apple-bashing (which I whole-heartedly agree with), I'd suggest that mobile app development will move away from the iPhone, in favour of Android phones. When you are investing time and money in app development, there is simply more certainty in developing apps that will live or die on their merits, as opposed to Apple's 'approval' process.
I blogged a little about this earlier. In summary I think Apple is about to get its just deserts. A lot of the iPad's target audience will be iPhone users, who have grown weary of Apple keeping their products locked down so tight, and the company's pervasive controlling attitude. That is likely to hurt iPad sales, which will in turn hurt newspaper and magazine publishers that would have been relying on the iPhone and iPad as vessels for content delivery. The whole situation is a terrible shame, and a good argument in favour of open companies and open products.
"When you are just 20, you don't think a lot about ethics"
Really? I did.
What I suspect this person really means is: He was fully aware that what he was doing was unethical, but he liked the money. Saying that that he "didn't think" about the ethics is an attempt to excuse his behaviour.
MySpace account now cancelled. I first edited my privacy settings to be the most restrictive possible, then closed the account. This was the reason I gave:
"Cancelling due to MySpace selling user info to companies that may use it for marketing. Please ensure that none of my info, either current or historical, is supplied under any circumstances to any third-party individual, group or other entity either commercial or non-commercial. Thank you."
I work hard to produce quality photographs for British newspapers and British news web sites. A major American company recently published several of my photos on their web site without permission. The company acknowledges that the photos are mine but refuses to pay, and says that I must file a complaint under the US's Digital Millennium Copyright Act if I want them to stop using the photographs. What could the Pirate Party do to help British copyright holders in situations such as this?
There are several high-end design and visualisation packages that need to call home to authentication servers before they will work. And there are pirate versions of all of them, which include authentication servers that you run locally and the software talks to them instead.
It sounds like Ubisoft's plan is more obfuscated, with save/load data being mangled in some way, and they are relying on crackers not knowing how to mangle/un-mangle it.
Maybe it will take a day or a week for a pirate version to come out, with a local save/load server. But, for sure, people will still pirate the game, and potential customers will still move away from buying it due to the aggressive DRM.
I just don't buy PC games anymore, due to these anti-customer technologies. I don't pirate them either. And because PS3 games are so expensive at release time, I wait to buy them a few months after release, or if one of the larger retailers has them on special offer.
Put my phone in the wrong pocket once. I always put it in my left hip pocket, so I got a fright when I reached for it and it wasn't there. Eventually found it in my right hip pocket. Fortunately it still worked.
Could you ask permission from the copyright holder?
Some remakes (ie: direct copies of old games) are done with the blessing of the person who created the original game. Just tell them the truth: you like their game and you want to make a modern version of it. They may say yes.
Wikipedia is all about free content. Free as in "everyone can fork it, print it, distribute it on CD etc.". Not free as in "everyone can view it on *.wikipedia.org and if they want to do anything else with it, they go to Andy Smith and buy a license".
I would very much like to contribute photos which could then be used freely for anything Wiki related, including printing and distribution etc. But the license which Wiki requires would then give people the right to extract my work from Wiki and sell it independently, which is what I'm not willing to allow.
Why shouldn't I be able to contribute a photo to Wiki without also granting people permission to sell it as a poster?
I'm afraid this is a common misconception. Copyright refers to, literally, the right to copy something. If I give everyone in the world, or even just one single person, the right to copy an image, then I have _effectively_ surrendered my copyright.
For example: Suppose I give you the right to distribute one of my photos. A publisher then comes to me, wanting to license the photo for a book, and I quote them a couple of grand for the rights. You can then step in and quote them one grand.
I'm a professional photographer. Many times I've looked at a Wiki article that needs a photo, and I have a suitable one, but I'm not willing to surrender my copyright. I would happily grant Wiki a free license to use the photo but no, they want a complete surrender of copyright or they don't want the picture, so they don't get the picture:-(
I stopped buying PC games about a year ago due to DRM technologies such as SecuROM and StarForce, because of the faults they can cause when burning CDs, which is an essential part of my job.
Last month I bought a new mid-spec laptop and went shopping for an "old" game that would run on it, and I settled on Civ4. After buying it, I discovered that it too uses SecuROM so I will not install it. Instead, I think it's morally (and legally?) acceptable to download a pirate copy without DRM.
A couple of weeks ago my girlfriend and I both bought The Sims 2. Neither copy worked! I've since discovered that the copy-protection on the DVD is known to cause installation errors, and one of the recommended workarounds is to install the disk imaging software Alcohol, and this indeed allowed us to install the game. Alcohol can of course be very useful for people who want to pirate games.
I feel like games publishers are pushing me towards pirating their products. I don't want DRM to harm my system, and if the only way I can play a purchased game is to pirate it then how long will it be before I skip the purchasing?
"The iPhone 'product' is a hardware device, produced by Apple. You purchase it outright for cash in a one-time transaction."
Incorrect. Most iPhone users in this country (UK) have their phones as part of a locked-in contract, either 18 months or 24 months. The phones have recently begun being sold for use on O2's pay-as-you-go service, but the majority of people are under contract.
By the way, there are at least three grammatical / punctuation errors in the first paragraph of your Titanic book's web site: Two misplaced apostrophes and a missing hyphen.
Slashdot Mirror
If you're referring to his use of "copy-write", a spell-checker wouldn't catch that.
I'm a newspaper photographer. I'll offer this perspective on Google's respect for copyright:
Google recently used some of my photographs on Google News, as the 'headline' photos to represent collected coverage of major stories. This fell outside any reasonable definition of fair use. This was for-profit publication of photographs that other publishers were paying for the right to use. Google used them for free.
Now, it's common in the news business that publishers use breaking news photos without permission, because they need to publish them quickly. But they ALWAYS pay afterwards, market rate, without question. This side of the business works on trust.
When I sent Google a bill, their first reaction was exactly what it should be: They would pay the market rate. They rang up to get my banking details for fund transfer, and that should have been the end of the matter.
Then they wrote to me saying that they wouldn't pay. They even denied publishing the images, which was clearly untrue. They told me that to take the matter further I would need to file a DMCA complaint -- and in doing so I must give Google permission to publish the DMCA complaint online. I believe this is outrageous! I only sell my pictures to UK publishers, yet here was a US company publishing my work without permission, and telling me that I would need to pursue them through the US legal system!
This gives me a fairly clear view of Google's attitude to other people's copyright. It seems that Google will take what they want, publish it however they want, profit, and then to hell with the people who originally produced the material in question.
More info please?
I expect Java to gain ground again as developers create apps for Android phones.
Although the bare-bones Nexus One hasn't sold in huge numbers, HTC have already produced several superb Android-based alternatives, such as the Legend and the Desire. If/when Android becomes the commonplace operating system in the smartphone market, this will lead to a rise in Java development.
In fact, to join in with the recent Apple-bashing (which I whole-heartedly agree with), I'd suggest that mobile app development will move away from the iPhone, in favour of Android phones. When you are investing time and money in app development, there is simply more certainty in developing apps that will live or die on their merits, as opposed to Apple's 'approval' process.
It is now over 2 weeks since Opera Mini was submitted to Apple for approval:
http://my.opera.com/community/countup/
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/just-deserts.html
I blogged a little about this earlier. In summary I think Apple is about to get its just deserts. A lot of the iPad's target audience will be iPhone users, who have grown weary of Apple keeping their products locked down so tight, and the company's pervasive controlling attitude. That is likely to hurt iPad sales, which will in turn hurt newspaper and magazine publishers that would have been relying on the iPhone and iPad as vessels for content delivery. The whole situation is a terrible shame, and a good argument in favour of open companies and open products.
Shocking. People still use ICQ?
"When you are just 20, you don't think a lot about ethics"
Really? I did.
What I suspect this person really means is: He was fully aware that what he was doing was unethical, but he liked the money. Saying that that he "didn't think" about the ethics is an attempt to excuse his behaviour.
Scoundrels.
MySpace account now cancelled. I first edited my privacy settings to be the most restrictive possible, then closed the account. This was the reason I gave:
"Cancelling due to MySpace selling user info to companies that may use it for marketing. Please ensure that none of my info, either current or historical, is supplied under any circumstances to any third-party individual, group or other entity either commercial or non-commercial. Thank you."
I work hard to produce quality photographs for British newspapers and British news web sites. A major American company recently published several of my photos on their web site without permission. The company acknowledges that the photos are mine but refuses to pay, and says that I must file a complaint under the US's Digital Millennium Copyright Act if I want them to stop using the photographs. What could the Pirate Party do to help British copyright holders in situations such as this?
There are several high-end design and visualisation packages that need to call home to authentication servers before they will work. And there are pirate versions of all of them, which include authentication servers that you run locally and the software talks to them instead.
It sounds like Ubisoft's plan is more obfuscated, with save/load data being mangled in some way, and they are relying on crackers not knowing how to mangle/un-mangle it.
Maybe it will take a day or a week for a pirate version to come out, with a local save/load server. But, for sure, people will still pirate the game, and potential customers will still move away from buying it due to the aggressive DRM.
I just don't buy PC games anymore, due to these anti-customer technologies. I don't pirate them either. And because PS3 games are so expensive at release time, I wait to buy them a few months after release, or if one of the larger retailers has them on special offer.
Put my phone in the wrong pocket once. I always put it in my left hip pocket, so I got a fright when I reached for it and it wasn't there. Eventually found it in my right hip pocket. Fortunately it still worked.
Could you ask permission from the copyright holder?
Some remakes (ie: direct copies of old games) are done with the blessing of the person who created the original game. Just tell them the truth: you like their game and you want to make a modern version of it. They may say yes.
"they'd be hesitant to put an app with the same functionality on their devices"
But, you see, it's my device. I bought it. I'd like to be able to choose between the Google product and the Apple product and use the best one.
Pretty much anything's useful if someone is trying to get it for free.
Wikipedia is all about free content. Free as in "everyone can fork it, print it, distribute it on CD etc.". Not free as in "everyone can view it on *.wikipedia.org and if they want to do anything else with it, they go to Andy Smith and buy a license".
I would very much like to contribute photos which could then be used freely for anything Wiki related, including printing and distribution etc. But the license which Wiki requires would then give people the right to extract my work from Wiki and sell it independently, which is what I'm not willing to allow.
Why shouldn't I be able to contribute a photo to Wiki without also granting people permission to sell it as a poster?
I'm afraid this is a common misconception. Copyright refers to, literally, the right to copy something. If I give everyone in the world, or even just one single person, the right to copy an image, then I have _effectively_ surrendered my copyright.
For example: Suppose I give you the right to distribute one of my photos. A publisher then comes to me, wanting to license the photo for a book, and I quote them a couple of grand for the rights. You can then step in and quote them one grand.
I'm a professional photographer. Many times I've looked at a Wiki article that needs a photo, and I have a suitable one, but I'm not willing to surrender my copyright. I would happily grant Wiki a free license to use the photo but no, they want a complete surrender of copyright or they don't want the picture, so they don't get the picture :-(
"Holly Rockwood" -- awesome name.
I stopped buying PC games about a year ago due to DRM technologies such as SecuROM and StarForce, because of the faults they can cause when burning CDs, which is an essential part of my job.
Last month I bought a new mid-spec laptop and went shopping for an "old" game that would run on it, and I settled on Civ4. After buying it, I discovered that it too uses SecuROM so I will not install it. Instead, I think it's morally (and legally?) acceptable to download a pirate copy without DRM.
A couple of weeks ago my girlfriend and I both bought The Sims 2. Neither copy worked! I've since discovered that the copy-protection on the DVD is known to cause installation errors, and one of the recommended workarounds is to install the disk imaging software Alcohol, and this indeed allowed us to install the game. Alcohol can of course be very useful for people who want to pirate games.
I feel like games publishers are pushing me towards pirating their products. I don't want DRM to harm my system, and if the only way I can play a purchased game is to pirate it then how long will it be before I skip the purchasing?
Maybe he was just very fast at typing n/a?
"The iPhone 'product' is a hardware device, produced by Apple. You purchase it outright for cash in a one-time transaction."
Incorrect. Most iPhone users in this country (UK) have their phones as part of a locked-in contract, either 18 months or 24 months. The phones have recently begun being sold for use on O2's pay-as-you-go service, but the majority of people are under contract.
And a spelling mistake in the first paragraph of the book itself :-(
Oh dear.
By the way, there are at least three grammatical / punctuation errors in the first paragraph of your Titanic book's web site: Two misplaced apostrophes and a missing hyphen.
Have you submitted any good non-gaming stories yourself?