I love this. Somebody says "I thought something which isn't actually the truth and doesn't really apply to what you're saying" and it gets a +5 insightful!
For civil cases it's a matter of probability, and for people just bullshitting on Slashdot, there isn't a set of legal requirements. Otherwise, all the people talking about the MPAA being a criminal cartel for suing movie pirates would have to prove their claims in court. Of course double standards are to be expected on Slashdot.
Here in China everybody downloads music and movies, even though legit CDs are maybe $1.50 and legit DVDs are maybe $2-$3.50. It has absolutely destroyed the industries. Slashdotters love to blame the quality of movies and music for problems in the industry, but the truth is that both Hong Kong movies and more especially Mainland movies are way better than the silly shit they used to have 15 years ago, even as less and less movies are getting made. Johnny To and Wong Kar Wai are the two best directors in the world, and HK actors are as charasmatic as anybody in Hollywood or Bollywood. (On the other hand Chinese pop more or less sucks, but that's always been true).
I buy pirated DVDs & download movies. Everybody does. But I can't help but feel that as a whole, more and better movies would be made if movie companies were able to restrict the unlimited copying of their movies.
So to sum it up: A Utah businessman nobody cares about plans on asking politicians to implement an unworkable idea. This wouldn't make page 9 of a high-school newspaper, what's it doing on Slashdot?
If you think America's politics are fucked up, why did you move to Japan? Their quasi-fascist state does everything the US tells it too anyway, plus it's wildly racist against foreigners (racist creeds against Koreans and Chinese are recent #1 best sellers - from personal experience I can say police will stop me on the street to check my papers). Conviction rates approach 100%, country-area votes count up to four times what city-area votes do, Nanking deniers are given positions of authority (imagine Bush doubting the Holocaust), the press is tightly controlled by the government - the list just goes on.
Japan's government is by far the least likable of any first world nation, and quite a bit behind even many 3rd world nations. Sure you can be ignorant about the government and just enjoy life - but that's true in the US just as much as Japan, right?
You forget that for the record companies, releasing a Garth Brook CD isn't simply a matter of putting his CDs on the shelves and watching the catch registers fill up. Garth Brooks would not be so popular if the label wasn't putting multi-million dollar promotional campaigns into the music, huge recording costs, etc. His music isn't so good that millions of people would spontaneously discover his music on a P2P network - he relies on a significant hype machine. His music must sell a large number of CDs to recoup the costs. Similarly, Hollywood movies can make $100 million and still lose a lot of money.
Radio is all the same? When I lived in the US I could come across Pop, Jamaican Dance Hall, Hip-Hop, Techno, R&B, & Tejana, etc, along with older music. Maybe you don't like it but you must admit that's a lot more music diversity than "classic" rock stations.
A nice conspiracy theory, but empirically speaking, Kazaa lists essentially no unsigned musicians, and very few "indie" musicians from anything other than RIAA-subsidiary labels.
Well, they sell CSI video games, and video games are definitely a few intellectual steps below your average Jerry Bruckheimer flick. Claiming video games are some intellectual pursuit is a joke.
I agree! And when I go to a ballgame, I want the money to go directly into the ballplayer's pockets. When I buy a beer, I want the money to go directly to the brewmeister. When I buy "A Catcher in the Rye," I want the money to go directly into J.D. Salinger's molest-a-schoolgirl fund.
What is this whole nonsense about contracts, anyway? It's all a bunch of theft!
Huh? Of course wood is going to be somewhat flammable, I'm sure you know that. You'd try to minimize it, for instance by not lining the boats with tar and oil as the original post seemed to imply.
I wonder if Roman ships may have been innately more flammable than that 80 year old boat.
Unlikely - setting ships on fire was an obvious and common strategy back then, so boats would have to have been at least somewhat fireproofed. If they were really floating fire hazards, they wouldn't have lasted long.
If I was responsible for the Onion's re-design I'd be heading my head in shame. It's clearly the worst re-design I've ever seen, enough to finally convince me to stop reading the Onion and their one repeated joke.
I guess there's some expenses involved, but there's easier and cheaper and cooler ways to do the same thing. Version 1.5 of Skype supports call forwarding with Skype-In accounts. So for $30/year for the phone number, plus about $.02/minute for the call, people can call my Skype number and I can talk on my normal house phone or cell phone. The sound quality is the same as any other phone call even if it's coming from another country, and my phone doesn't have to be on.
Sorry if this post sounds like an advertisement but it genuinely is pretty cool in certain applications, such as forwarding international calls. There's no call out service, though - for that I use phone cards or just skype on my computer. I'm sure that'll change soon.
"Yellow Peril" isn't a cute name the GP post made up, it's a name widely given to the depiction of Asians as a alternate humanity that's taking over the world with an alien work ethic. Especially when done by people who don't know what the hell they're talking about, and just want to propogate racist fears without sounding overtly racist.
Anyway good for the hard-working immigrants you're aware of! Hard-working immigrants have been a tired American cliche for a long time. Personally I think the Asian gangbanger cliche is more interesting - my friend's Cousin was head of a Chinese gang before being arrested for nearly killing a guy who was breaking into his car in an Indian Casino.
As far as Japan or China taking over the US with their Engineering ability, are you aware of the world? Japan's economy sucks and anyway their products are known for design and quality control, rather than particularly innovative engineering. I know several Japanese engineers for major corporations, and as far as they're concerned, Engineering is low-paying shit work. China is in a game of follow-up and their economy is driven by manufacturing rather than engineering prowess. As a resident of China I hope China's economy goes up gangbusters, but currently it's so far short of the US, it's impossible to make any meaningful comparison. Sure all these nations have engineers but it's nothing like the Yellow Peril you evoke. There's no way their engineering programs match up to the US.
And the US is by FAR the most environmentally destructive nation in the world. Particularly if you consider how much of the energy-demanding and environment-destroying manufacturing has been offloaded to China, Mexico, and other nations, by US corporations, often specifically to get around US environmental restrictions. It's just another case of NIMBY.
On the other hand, here in China, the cost of a legitimate DVD is about $1.50 (whereas the cost of a bootleg is $.60, but oftentimes is of lower quality). DVDs are everywhere!
I just can't see this making sense with such a disparity. DVD sellers will either be forced to ignore selling DVD to the world's second largest economy (basically abandoning the extremely large market to the bootleggers), or they're setting up a situtation where all DVDs areound the world will be sold at Chinese prices, plus a few cents for shipping.
They won't raise prices to US levels, because nobody would buy them at such a locally high price. I don't really see what their options are except only releasing Chinese-dubbed movies that would be of no interest to the American market. Maybe that's not a big deal for the the major Hollywood studios' blockbuster releases, but foreign movies of all kinds are popular in China - and not everybody like the re-dubs, anyway.
The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers. -- Attributed to Socrates by Plato
On the other hand, the youth of Socrates' time were suspicious of Democracy, and after the Peloponnesian War set up a fascist government that attempted to kill remnants of Democracy, as well as anybody who disagreed with their rule. Government head Critias was Socrates' associate and pupil and widely hated by Athenians, and his relation (and the entire movement's relation) to Socrates was probably the reason Socrates was later executed by the state. This relation to a much-hated movement would continue to be held against Socrates, much like (say) Mao's role in the Cultural Revolution would weigh negatively on anybody studying his writings or poetry.
Plato idolized Socrates, and was using the quote to disassosiate Socrates from a reign of terror that everybody hated. Without knowing your history you seem to interpret it as "ah shucks, even Socrates 2500 years ago could be an old codger!" which isn't at all the case, Plato wasn't one to tell gee-whiz anecdotes.
Whatever dude. Financial status of the parents is the single most important factor in the scholastic and financial success of their children. If daycare is the cost of being able to live in an upper-middle-class neighberhood, there is simply no question that it makes sense. As the USA's class gap widens, this will certainly become more and more true.
And how many people in the US are raised by foreign-language-speaking maids? What planet do you live on? Since you think working parents are bad parents, perhaps you're stuck in the 1950s??? Do you look at over-the-top moralizing like "Reefer Madness" with a straight face, and get ideas for your next Slashdot post?
Even centralized sharing of copyrighted works is an established Human custom -- what else would you call libraries?
Uhhh...you know that you don't have a right-to-copy books from the library, right? Libraries (at least that I'm familiar with) will also rent out music, anyway.
Do insane people rattle on about the RIAA now, instead of Masons or Elder of Zion or English Bankers?
And give me a break, everybody knows P2P networks are almost entirely used for copyrighted works. Just because the GP post hasn't done a formal study doesn't invalidate this. 95% is probably a very conservative estimate - most P2P sites have very very weak collections of anything legitimate. Your whole argument is based around pretending the obvious isn't true. Maybe it works great when rallying the similarly-minded against the RIAA, but it won't convince somebody who hasn't drunk the Kool-Aid.
Anyway, the disk arrived today, and it's NOT playable on my player. Fuck the movie and entertainment industry. They've made my dad unhappy, they've prevented me from watching a show which, had I watched, could only have helped their cause (exposure, exposure, exposure).
I'd expect people on Slashdot to be a little more technically literate than this. DVD region codes are trivial (if annoying) to get around. Most DVD players have a short code that makes them region-free (look on dvdrhelp.com), or you could use a program like DVD Shrink or DVD Decrypter to rip and re-burn it, or you could watch the movie on your computer with a region-free player.
But I'm guessing you live in the same nation as your father, in which case it's not DVD regional encoding that's the problem. It's that DVD-recorders often use a non-standard format which is better for recording, but won't work on other DVD players. Your father can turn this option off if he'd prefer, to make standard DVD disks that work on other player. But it also means he can't do certain convenient tasks, especially if he's using a DVD-RW disk -assigning chapter breaks, going back to get rid of the commercials, etc. There might be computer programs that allow you to read these specially formatted DVD disks but I haven't checked.
Is it more complex complex than a VHS recording? Yes (although VHS could also be NTSC v. PAL v. SECAM). But saying "fuck the movie industry" for technical complexities that aren't of their making doesn't seem fair.
Why not just let independent labels sell via ITMS? Otherwise, Apple would end up funding marketing efforts for thousands of flop albums.
It shows how hypocritical Slashdot can be about the music industry - for all the people calling for Apple to sign independent labels or even start one of their own, nobody seems to realize that Apple already carries many indie labels, and even one-band labels can sign up with iTMS. Only, almost nobody actually cares about Indie Music.
Slashdot Mirror
For civil cases it's a matter of probability, and for people just bullshitting on Slashdot, there isn't a set of legal requirements. Otherwise, all the people talking about the MPAA being a criminal cartel for suing movie pirates would have to prove their claims in court. Of course double standards are to be expected on Slashdot.
Here in China everybody downloads music and movies, even though legit CDs are maybe $1.50 and legit DVDs are maybe $2-$3.50. It has absolutely destroyed the industries. Slashdotters love to blame the quality of movies and music for problems in the industry, but the truth is that both Hong Kong movies and more especially Mainland movies are way better than the silly shit they used to have 15 years ago, even as less and less movies are getting made. Johnny To and Wong Kar Wai are the two best directors in the world, and HK actors are as charasmatic as anybody in Hollywood or Bollywood. (On the other hand Chinese pop more or less sucks, but that's always been true).
I buy pirated DVDs & download movies. Everybody does. But I can't help but feel that as a whole, more and better movies would be made if movie companies were able to restrict the unlimited copying of their movies.
So to sum it up: A Utah businessman nobody cares about plans on asking politicians to implement an unworkable idea. This wouldn't make page 9 of a high-school newspaper, what's it doing on Slashdot?
Japan's government is by far the least likable of any first world nation, and quite a bit behind even many 3rd world nations. Sure you can be ignorant about the government and just enjoy life - but that's true in the US just as much as Japan, right?
Radio is all the same? When I lived in the US I could come across Pop, Jamaican Dance Hall, Hip-Hop, Techno, R&B, & Tejana, etc, along with older music. Maybe you don't like it but you must admit that's a lot more music diversity than "classic" rock stations.
A nice conspiracy theory, but empirically speaking, Kazaa lists essentially no unsigned musicians, and very few "indie" musicians from anything other than RIAA-subsidiary labels.
Oh I see! You're not splitting hairs at all! It can manipulate image which then causes behaviors, but not manipulate behaviors! It's all so clear!
Well, they sell CSI video games, and video games are definitely a few intellectual steps below your average Jerry Bruckheimer flick. Claiming video games are some intellectual pursuit is a joke.
Why should the MPAA have any problem with a search engine dedicated entirely to the distribution of Linux distributions?
What is this whole nonsense about contracts, anyway? It's all a bunch of theft!
There's already a precedent for buying a new copy of the White Album on whatever new technology the aliens sell us.
The personal web-page is a joke link to the weirdest page I'm aware of, actually...I live in China and do not rub food on people!
Huh? Of course wood is going to be somewhat flammable, I'm sure you know that. You'd try to minimize it, for instance by not lining the boats with tar and oil as the original post seemed to imply.
Unlikely - setting ships on fire was an obvious and common strategy back then, so boats would have to have been at least somewhat fireproofed. If they were really floating fire hazards, they wouldn't have lasted long.
So, you don't get invited to those kinds of parties, I guess?
If I was responsible for the Onion's re-design I'd be heading my head in shame. It's clearly the worst re-design I've ever seen, enough to finally convince me to stop reading the Onion and their one repeated joke.
Sorry if this post sounds like an advertisement but it genuinely is pretty cool in certain applications, such as forwarding international calls. There's no call out service, though - for that I use phone cards or just skype on my computer. I'm sure that'll change soon.
Anyway good for the hard-working immigrants you're aware of! Hard-working immigrants have been a tired American cliche for a long time. Personally I think the Asian gangbanger cliche is more interesting - my friend's Cousin was head of a Chinese gang before being arrested for nearly killing a guy who was breaking into his car in an Indian Casino.
As far as Japan or China taking over the US with their Engineering ability, are you aware of the world? Japan's economy sucks and anyway their products are known for design and quality control, rather than particularly innovative engineering. I know several Japanese engineers for major corporations, and as far as they're concerned, Engineering is low-paying shit work. China is in a game of follow-up and their economy is driven by manufacturing rather than engineering prowess. As a resident of China I hope China's economy goes up gangbusters, but currently it's so far short of the US, it's impossible to make any meaningful comparison. Sure all these nations have engineers but it's nothing like the Yellow Peril you evoke. There's no way their engineering programs match up to the US.
And the US is by FAR the most environmentally destructive nation in the world. Particularly if you consider how much of the energy-demanding and environment-destroying manufacturing has been offloaded to China, Mexico, and other nations, by US corporations, often specifically to get around US environmental restrictions. It's just another case of NIMBY.
I just can't see this making sense with such a disparity. DVD sellers will either be forced to ignore selling DVD to the world's second largest economy (basically abandoning the extremely large market to the bootleggers), or they're setting up a situtation where all DVDs areound the world will be sold at Chinese prices, plus a few cents for shipping.
They won't raise prices to US levels, because nobody would buy them at such a locally high price. I don't really see what their options are except only releasing Chinese-dubbed movies that would be of no interest to the American market. Maybe that's not a big deal for the the major Hollywood studios' blockbuster releases, but foreign movies of all kinds are popular in China - and not everybody like the re-dubs, anyway.
On the other hand, the youth of Socrates' time were suspicious of Democracy, and after the Peloponnesian War set up a fascist government that attempted to kill remnants of Democracy, as well as anybody who disagreed with their rule. Government head Critias was Socrates' associate and pupil and widely hated by Athenians, and his relation (and the entire movement's relation) to Socrates was probably the reason Socrates was later executed by the state. This relation to a much-hated movement would continue to be held against Socrates, much like (say) Mao's role in the Cultural Revolution would weigh negatively on anybody studying his writings or poetry.
Plato idolized Socrates, and was using the quote to disassosiate Socrates from a reign of terror that everybody hated. Without knowing your history you seem to interpret it as "ah shucks, even Socrates 2500 years ago could be an old codger!" which isn't at all the case, Plato wasn't one to tell gee-whiz anecdotes.
And how many people in the US are raised by foreign-language-speaking maids? What planet do you live on? Since you think working parents are bad parents, perhaps you're stuck in the 1950s??? Do you look at over-the-top moralizing like "Reefer Madness" with a straight face, and get ideas for your next Slashdot post?
Uhhh...you know that you don't have a right-to-copy books from the library, right? Libraries (at least that I'm familiar with) will also rent out music, anyway.
And give me a break, everybody knows P2P networks are almost entirely used for copyrighted works. Just because the GP post hasn't done a formal study doesn't invalidate this. 95% is probably a very conservative estimate - most P2P sites have very very weak collections of anything legitimate. Your whole argument is based around pretending the obvious isn't true. Maybe it works great when rallying the similarly-minded against the RIAA, but it won't convince somebody who hasn't drunk the Kool-Aid.
I'd expect people on Slashdot to be a little more technically literate than this. DVD region codes are trivial (if annoying) to get around. Most DVD players have a short code that makes them region-free (look on dvdrhelp.com), or you could use a program like DVD Shrink or DVD Decrypter to rip and re-burn it, or you could watch the movie on your computer with a region-free player.
But I'm guessing you live in the same nation as your father, in which case it's not DVD regional encoding that's the problem. It's that DVD-recorders often use a non-standard format which is better for recording, but won't work on other DVD players. Your father can turn this option off if he'd prefer, to make standard DVD disks that work on other player. But it also means he can't do certain convenient tasks, especially if he's using a DVD-RW disk -assigning chapter breaks, going back to get rid of the commercials, etc. There might be computer programs that allow you to read these specially formatted DVD disks but I haven't checked.
Is it more complex complex than a VHS recording? Yes (although VHS could also be NTSC v. PAL v. SECAM). But saying "fuck the movie industry" for technical complexities that aren't of their making doesn't seem fair.
It shows how hypocritical Slashdot can be about the music industry - for all the people calling for Apple to sign independent labels or even start one of their own, nobody seems to realize that Apple already carries many indie labels, and even one-band labels can sign up with iTMS. Only, almost nobody actually cares about Indie Music.