the thing is true "film theft" comes from contract-signing industry insiders. All those screeners on the pirate bay were contractually passed out for "editorial" viewing. Why aren't we suing more guys like Tom Cruise, when his copy shows up because he illegally loaned it to his housekeeper? There have been cases where directors ask for "no screeners" and the studio sends them out anyway... how is that not exactly the same as what happens on Pirate Bay? The industry itself doesn't RESPECT copyright.. it's just a legal tool to leverage their businesses, they ignore it.. as long as they can "get away" with it too.
The consitution set copyright at 7 or 14 years originally.. the rest of the extensions are "think of the starving artist" type social welfare. Copyright after your dead doesn't benefit YOU and Congress is prohibited from granting titles of "nobility"...i.e. "duke of my yard" to the point that you can't even hold an honorary title as a US citizen. How is current, perpetual copyright, controlled by corporate executives any different than basically appointing a "duke of Disney" or "sultan of Dreamworks"?
If "IP" is going to get more protection than my REAL property, why don't they pay REAL property taxes on IP? I Imagine California would love to get tax money on multi-million dollar "property" locked up in Hollywood vaults!!
Re:Will they ever listen?
on
The Cult of Kindle
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
it fixes the end-to-end DRM problem. The device is completely locked.. but you don't have to put soul-stealing DRM on your PC desktop and beg permission every time you update either. You can buy a new book from anywhere, so they turned lock-down into a feature. I could see this being a method for delivering content like magazines and newspapers because of the push ability, that could save some publishers.
What people REALLY want is something e-paper about 13x19 tabloid size at 300dpi & reflective that can roll up. Better yet, have 2-3 that network to share a books on different pages. The current e-books are too small to be useful for anything other than reading sitting down.. like a book, and don't have things like tabs to mark sections of multiple open books. For most "geeks" to use this instead of books (like say O'Reilly material) you'd need to have 6-10 books open and 5 places bookmarked in each with both pages visible and stacked so you can quickly switch between them... just like a stack of real book when working on a project. It also needs to be the 13x19 because without that it eliminates using it for any kind of blueprint/charting work (another thing people would pay big $$ for)
the alternative is to buy into a HD-DVD format that Microsoft collects software royalties for every player and publisher for the menu/extras system!!
Sony is evil, but they don't have a monopoly on any one thing.. you can even buy a non-sony blu-ray player... Microsoft has the little anti-trust problem they're trying to "correct"...
They already have done that... NBC/Universal. Sure NBC thinks it was their decision to drop "evil" Apple because Jobs wouldn't let them shoot themselves in the foot over pricing. But in reality, it is Microsoft that paid them money for Zune to "use" music that started the whole thing. NBC is buying the DRM hook, line and sinker.. unfortunately, Microsoft eats their partners. (Witness Microsoft shooting their OWN DRM format and hardware partners in the back time and again) Divide and conquer at the board room level is where Bill and Steve B shine.
The transformers HD-DVD was very last minute. M$ got to the studio for "exclusive" HD over top of the director/producer.. I somewhat remember it being promised on Blu-ray back in July when it came out.
imagine if Microsoft had revenue from EVERY next gen DVD and player sold.... Blu-ray was smart to cut them out unless M$ assigned royalties over to the board.
The cartoon is the same way... just product placement for plastic toy robots. That's why Bay did so well making a movie about it!!! The bar was pretty low. Slashdoters that watched the cartoon have more expensive toys now.. like cars and cellphones, and Megan Fox (we wish anyway).
On the internet most anonymous stuff is considered noise unless it has very good references. How much credit would you put on a picture of a public official with marker colored mustaches on it in a public bathroom? That level of public pamphleteering is so over used to be pointless... much of the internet is the same way.
Look at Paula Jones of GrokLaw. She? is relatively anonymous so why should we credit her? But we do credit her because she produces official certified documents that are available publicly, if you know where to look. We can independently verify her claims, and then her opinion has value even if we don't know who she is. This is the same as Ben Franklin's early writings in secret, under a pen name as well as several others at the time of the American Revolution.
My opinion is that an anonymous site like this is either childish noise, or it's accurate. If public officials are after it for "noise" they could simply request it to be removed and show Google facts that support their position. The need to "out" this poster means somebody is hitting the mark, and being taken seriously.. In that respect they should answer the requests to the satisfaction of the public and this guy will go back to being noise. If the person does have real dirt, then they would be a protected whistleblower.
Given the situation, where a public body bought "poisoned" land, and it appears the lawyer did not do due diligence, there is a good deal of criticism in order as Federal and State laws don't protect the local government from responsibility.. they could be sued for millions tomorrow by the EPA even though they just bought the land! It's been 20 years of these environmental laws and a lawyer not presenting this evidence is either extremely negligent or in on the deal with somebody that owns the property perhaps on the council... there's not a lot of middle ground for "simple error" here.
Xbox that they 100% control as a closed device they get all the cash from, or the version of their monopoly OS, but people might hack it or copy it.... it's a win-win for them no matter which one customers buy.
no, we've had several articles about that here. Private recording of conversations is highly illegal in many places. There was a guy not too long back that recorded the police harassing him at his front door in his house and they charged him with EXACTLY this crime... and many other posters said their states had the same rules. Even business establishments are allowed to record, but there's rules about it.
M$, M$, M$... I'm feeling grown up today, You can't make me....
Now that outburst is out of the way...
Realize that Zune is not Plays-for-sure... Microsoft took Zune out of that program and created it's own store, with it's own deals, Microsoft's way or the highway. Plays-for-sure stores and music don't work on Zune only the Zune marketplace. So Zune is EXACTLY like iTunes in terms of vendor lock-in... only iTunes at least works on 2 OSes!
Apple didn't "buy" it's way in, it built up it's business slow and steady.. the first few years of iPods were awful and iTunes didn't really work well until version 4 or so. What Apple did do was to beat up music labels to get them at the table with reasonable terms for online music sales... THAT was the innovation.. or at least hard work nobody else did.. even now, the labels simply want to copy their agreements with Apple, but dictate that to other stores for better terms... that's not innovative and won't work. I don't see Microsoft's terms being better because if these labels start READING the Microsoft terms, they are far worse that Apple's... doubly so when you realize Microsoft has a monopoly on desktop PC OSes and your company is being used as a pawn.
but in most states a conversation is illegal to record unless all parties expressly allow it. The owner of a bar can't just start audio recording at all the tables if they want to...(video is OK with NO audio, and audio is allowed in "general" or at a register, but recording individuals is highly unethical and probably illegal, let alone to publish that somewhere. I don't see how IRC is any different other than it's "written" because it's typed on a computer so that may change the rules.. from an oral conversation.
I'd put IRC the same as having a conversation in a bar on Friday nite. You don't expect what you say to your companions to be "private" or "secret", but you don't expect the owner of the bar to bug the joint and post your recorded conversations on the internet so your wife, SO, Boss, etc can read what you said about them to somebody else. In most states audio recording of a "public space" is almost always illegal without express permission of EVERYBODY in the room because 2 seconds of a conversation recorded in secret can always be taken out of context or use to disrupt relationships. I don't see how what these guys are describing is any different than recording "private" conversations in a bar or something.
That is ironic, that all the music companies, particularly NBC/Universal, want to run away from Apple, that runs it's online store with just about the same terms for music labels as any Brick-n-mortar, to Microsoft that is known for eating it's competition.
Steve has done a great job getting people to PAY for music on line, and pushed companies to pull their head out of their asses so he can do that. Apple makes enough money to run iTMS and passes on more profit per song than labels get from CD's... what's not to love? But labels think he has "too much" power.. or rather he's profiting from iPods and they're not. WTF, these label execs are on crack.
Billy is an awesome salesman... great with suits and telling them what they want to hear... like the quote from Universal music head earlier this week, Bill knows how to get these guys under contract by slick talk but nail them on details to kill Bill's competition. It's a classic tactic from M$ to get CEO's to burn their "bridges" with the existing partners before going Microsoft, but these music heads are falling for the spiel even faster than corporate IT heads. What sells more than computers, TV and DVD players... that's Microsoft's next target, with Xbox, Zune, and HD-DVD... Imagine the monopoly power they'll have wen they get a quarter for every TV, Radio, DVD, etc sold by ANYBODY!!! These guys are jumping happily into the trap.
Since when has "legally" stopped Microsoft before? Be serious. They make Billions in profit from Window/Office they can burn without even a blip. (5 Billion on Xbox 1!) In SPITE of the Plays-for-sure fiasco that nobody actually bought those players (or at least the online music) anyway M$ will make another attempt. There's a big portion of andi-Apple MS fanbois that won't buy an iPod simply because it's "Apple" and stupid. They don't want to understand fair use and such all they see is Apple's higher price and tie-in... they pirate everything anyway so "buying" media isn't a big deal. In that segment iPod/iTunes will never make sense.
I think M$ is trying to "buy" their way in with "discount" pricing at vendors in the M$ family (BB, Amazon, etc), but also addressing some pent-up market that exists because of Apple's huge share. Zune is the "underdog" product, customers don't really attach A + B = monopoly like slashdotters do. Also, Zune is part of the Xbox division, not the CE division so there's the idea that M$ may move things to the Xbox Live side to sync with zune rather than windows side like CE.
I'd hope you'd write higher quality code for customers... in every way... including being original work unless noted so you don't get yourself (and them!) into legal trouble later. I'd think dealing with lawyers would be more incentive than not cheating on a class project.
if they have good lawyers that day, they show up with Federal Court Marshals, and a warrant to collect information for discovery in their pocket. They show up and tell you to "step away from the computers" until they collect their evidence. They typically can't seize equipment, but you have to shut down until they run their spyware on all your machines active and inactive. You can have the lawyers try to stop them, but if you attempt to access the machines you can be held in contempt of court for tampering with evidence. In short, they can shut your business down as "evidence" until you comply. That is REALLY expensive because you have federal marshals there, and they force your employees to go home, and you to miss shippments (because you can't access the computers to process orders!) So even if they get nothing they publicly "flogged" you in front of everybody.
along the same lines you PRACTICE IT as well. There's no book that has every situation in it. You can be an expert in systems, but how they all interact is very much like a doctor or lawyer because systems are so complex and new things always come up. IT really isn't engineering anymore, you figure the average desktop PC probably has more "interactions" (in terms of discrete program pieces and how they're put together) than a city skyscraper... and people don't rebuild skyscrapers every 5 years. I'd argue Vista took more engineers to build than recent construction projects.
actually, you are doing the right thing, but not documenting it... that's VERY bad for you. That's why big companies are all about "write ups" so that they have a paper trial so when they fire you, you are really gone, and they have documentation to show a judge. They also have documentation for OTHER employees that proves the rules are the same for everyone, again VERY important. In your case you are following the steps, but not putting them in writing or getting witnesses at the end, so if this chick was to sue you for trying to sex her up, you'd have no history to defend yourself with.
In the US you would qualify for unemployment if they just fired you "at will" though. The company has to prove they had a "cause" to fire you or it's considered a layoff and you still qualify for unemployment. Something capricious as firing for 1 or 2 CDs copied under a week-old rule would not qualify as cause. Of course, if you're part time you still won't get anything, but in this case it's a "manager".
The PMI (www.pmi.org) professional managing projects cert is for that... but only at the high level CIO/manager level. It seems to have solid requirements for doing real project planning and delivering results, but it seems useless for independents/consultants because you have to have your work "approved" by somebody higher up (i.e. corporate ladder only). I don't see how it's going to not be like plumbers where you have to have really long "apprenticeships" at a big IT firm before you can qualify. Unlike plumbers it doesn't seem to promote "independents" the group that could benefit most from the cert being mobile and going to smaller businesses because if the reporting and structure processes.
It's not just for IT people, but because many enterprise projects that are high dollars involve IT, it's IT people that seem to be getting on board first because truly professional IT managers are tired of the treadmill too and want to get management respect and deliver results.
but it's the companies data, not yours. Once they strip out your name and such your privacy claims are limited. Not that people won't piece things back together using an outside database This is what happened in the Netflix case. They were able to guess user's #3956 name at ANOTHER website. They could probably keep the info off the net-at-large by only letting researchers use their equipment under NDA so not everybody has this info.
As far as "legal searching" goes, they already do this... legally, they just pay money for private access to these databases with your name still attached! Anything tied to banking or SSN the govt already has in spades.
Slashdot Mirror
the thing is true "film theft" comes from contract-signing industry insiders. All those screeners on the pirate bay were contractually passed out for "editorial" viewing. Why aren't we suing more guys like Tom Cruise, when his copy shows up because he illegally loaned it to his housekeeper? There have been cases where directors ask for "no screeners" and the studio sends them out anyway... how is that not exactly the same as what happens on Pirate Bay? The industry itself doesn't RESPECT copyright.. it's just a legal tool to leverage their businesses, they ignore it .. as long as they can "get away" with it too.
The consitution set copyright at 7 or 14 years originally.. the rest of the extensions are "think of the starving artist" type social welfare. Copyright after your dead doesn't benefit YOU and Congress is prohibited from granting titles of "nobility" ...i.e. "duke of my yard" to the point that you can't even hold an honorary title as a US citizen. How is current, perpetual copyright, controlled by corporate executives any different than basically appointing a "duke of Disney" or "sultan of Dreamworks"?
If "IP" is going to get more protection than my REAL property, why don't they pay REAL property taxes on IP? I Imagine California would love to get tax money on multi-million dollar "property" locked up in Hollywood vaults!!
it fixes the end-to-end DRM problem. The device is completely locked.. but you don't have to put soul-stealing DRM on your PC desktop and beg permission every time you update either. You can buy a new book from anywhere, so they turned lock-down into a feature. I could see this being a method for delivering content like magazines and newspapers because of the push ability, that could save some publishers.
What people REALLY want is something e-paper about 13x19 tabloid size at 300dpi & reflective that can roll up. Better yet, have 2-3 that network to share a books on different pages. The current e-books are too small to be useful for anything other than reading sitting down.. like a book, and don't have things like tabs to mark sections of multiple open books. For most "geeks" to use this instead of books (like say O'Reilly material) you'd need to have 6-10 books open and 5 places bookmarked in each with both pages visible and stacked so you can quickly switch between them... just like a stack of real book when working on a project. It also needs to be the 13x19 because without that it eliminates using it for any kind of blueprint/charting work (another thing people would pay big $$ for)
the alternative is to buy into a HD-DVD format that Microsoft collects software royalties for every player and publisher for the menu/extras system!!
Sony is evil, but they don't have a monopoly on any one thing.. you can even buy a non-sony blu-ray player... Microsoft has the little anti-trust problem they're trying to "correct"...
They already have done that... NBC/Universal. Sure NBC thinks it was their decision to drop "evil" Apple because Jobs wouldn't let them shoot themselves in the foot over pricing. But in reality, it is Microsoft that paid them money for Zune to "use" music that started the whole thing. NBC is buying the DRM hook, line and sinker.. unfortunately, Microsoft eats their partners. (Witness Microsoft shooting their OWN DRM format and hardware partners in the back time and again) Divide and conquer at the board room level is where Bill and Steve B shine.
The transformers HD-DVD was very last minute. M$ got to the studio for "exclusive" HD over top of the director/producer .. I somewhat remember it being promised on Blu-ray back in July when it came out.
imagine if Microsoft had revenue from EVERY next gen DVD and player sold.... Blu-ray was smart to cut them out unless M$ assigned royalties over to the board.
The cartoon is the same way... just product placement for plastic toy robots. That's why Bay did so well making a movie about it!!! The bar was pretty low. Slashdoters that watched the cartoon have more expensive toys now.. like cars and cellphones, and Megan Fox (we wish anyway).
On the internet most anonymous stuff is considered noise unless it has very good references. How much credit would you put on a picture of a public official with marker colored mustaches on it in a public bathroom? That level of public pamphleteering is so over used to be pointless... much of the internet is the same way.
Look at Paula Jones of GrokLaw. She? is relatively anonymous so why should we credit her? But we do credit her because she produces official certified documents that are available publicly, if you know where to look. We can independently verify her claims, and then her opinion has value even if we don't know who she is. This is the same as Ben Franklin's early writings in secret, under a pen name as well as several others at the time of the American Revolution.
My opinion is that an anonymous site like this is either childish noise, or it's accurate. If public officials are after it for "noise" they could simply request it to be removed and show Google facts that support their position. The need to "out" this poster means somebody is hitting the mark, and being taken seriously.. In that respect they should answer the requests to the satisfaction of the public and this guy will go back to being noise. If the person does have real dirt, then they would be a protected whistleblower.
Given the situation, where a public body bought "poisoned" land, and it appears the lawyer did not do due diligence, there is a good deal of criticism in order as Federal and State laws don't protect the local government from responsibility.. they could be sued for millions tomorrow by the EPA even though they just bought the land! It's been 20 years of these environmental laws and a lawyer not presenting this evidence is either extremely negligent or in on the deal with somebody that owns the property perhaps on the council... there's not a lot of middle ground for "simple error" here.
Xbox that they 100% control as a closed device they get all the cash from, or the version of their monopoly OS, but people might hack it or copy it.... it's a win-win for them no matter which one customers buy.
no, we've had several articles about that here. Private recording of conversations is highly illegal in many places. There was a guy not too long back that recorded the police harassing him at his front door in his house and they charged him with EXACTLY this crime... and many other posters said their states had the same rules. Even business establishments are allowed to record, but there's rules about it.
M$, M$, M$... I'm feeling grown up today, You can't make me....
Now that outburst is out of the way...
Realize that Zune is not Plays-for-sure... Microsoft took Zune out of that program and created it's own store, with it's own deals, Microsoft's way or the highway. Plays-for-sure stores and music don't work on Zune only the Zune marketplace. So Zune is EXACTLY like iTunes in terms of vendor lock-in... only iTunes at least works on 2 OSes!
Apple didn't "buy" it's way in, it built up it's business slow and steady.. the first few years of iPods were awful and iTunes didn't really work well until version 4 or so. What Apple did do was to beat up music labels to get them at the table with reasonable terms for online music sales... THAT was the innovation.. or at least hard work nobody else did.. even now, the labels simply want to copy their agreements with Apple, but dictate that to other stores for better terms... that's not innovative and won't work. I don't see Microsoft's terms being better because if these labels start READING the Microsoft terms, they are far worse that Apple's... doubly so when you realize Microsoft has a monopoly on desktop PC OSes and your company is being used as a pawn.
You mean they're not REALLY biting the hand that feeds IT? Who'd of thunk!
but in most states a conversation is illegal to record unless all parties expressly allow it. The owner of a bar can't just start audio recording at all the tables if they want to...(video is OK with NO audio, and audio is allowed in "general" or at a register, but recording individuals is highly unethical and probably illegal, let alone to publish that somewhere. I don't see how IRC is any different other than it's "written" because it's typed on a computer so that may change the rules.. from an oral conversation.
I'd put IRC the same as having a conversation in a bar on Friday nite. You don't expect what you say to your companions to be "private" or "secret", but you don't expect the owner of the bar to bug the joint and post your recorded conversations on the internet so your wife, SO, Boss, etc can read what you said about them to somebody else. In most states audio recording of a "public space" is almost always illegal without express permission of EVERYBODY in the room because 2 seconds of a conversation recorded in secret can always be taken out of context or use to disrupt relationships.
I don't see how what these guys are describing is any different than recording "private" conversations in a bar or something.
There's nothing wrong with it, it seems to be proper grammar. It is a bit confusing and should have been edited into two sentences for easier reading.
That is ironic, that all the music companies, particularly NBC/Universal, want to run away from Apple, that runs it's online store with just about the same terms for music labels as any Brick-n-mortar, to Microsoft that is known for eating it's competition.
Steve has done a great job getting people to PAY for music on line, and pushed companies to pull their head out of their asses so he can do that. Apple makes enough money to run iTMS and passes on more profit per song than labels get from CD's... what's not to love? But labels think he has "too much" power.. or rather he's profiting from iPods and they're not. WTF, these label execs are on crack.
Billy is an awesome salesman... great with suits and telling them what they want to hear... like the quote from Universal music head earlier this week, Bill knows how to get these guys under contract by slick talk but nail them on details to kill Bill's competition. It's a classic tactic from M$ to get CEO's to burn their "bridges" with the existing partners before going Microsoft, but these music heads are falling for the spiel even faster than corporate IT heads. What sells more than computers, TV and DVD players... that's Microsoft's next target, with Xbox, Zune, and HD-DVD... Imagine the monopoly power they'll have wen they get a quarter for every TV, Radio, DVD, etc sold by ANYBODY!!! These guys are jumping happily into the trap.
Since when has "legally" stopped Microsoft before? Be serious. They make Billions in profit from Window/Office they can burn without even a blip. (5 Billion on Xbox 1!) In SPITE of the Plays-for-sure fiasco that nobody actually bought those players (or at least the online music) anyway M$ will make another attempt. There's a big portion of andi-Apple MS fanbois that won't buy an iPod simply because it's "Apple" and stupid. They don't want to understand fair use and such all they see is Apple's higher price and tie-in... they pirate everything anyway so "buying" media isn't a big deal. In that segment iPod/iTunes will never make sense.
I think M$ is trying to "buy" their way in with "discount" pricing at vendors in the M$ family (BB, Amazon, etc), but also addressing some pent-up market that exists because of Apple's huge share. Zune is the "underdog" product, customers don't really attach A + B = monopoly like slashdotters do. Also, Zune is part of the Xbox division, not the CE division so there's the idea that M$ may move things to the Xbox Live side to sync with zune rather than windows side like CE.
I'd hope you'd write higher quality code for customers... in every way... including being original work unless noted so you don't get yourself (and them!) into legal trouble later. I'd think dealing with lawyers would be more incentive than not cheating on a class project.
if they have good lawyers that day, they show up with Federal Court Marshals, and a warrant to collect information for discovery in their pocket. They show up and tell you to "step away from the computers" until they collect their evidence. They typically can't seize equipment, but you have to shut down until they run their spyware on all your machines active and inactive. You can have the lawyers try to stop them, but if you attempt to access the machines you can be held in contempt of court for tampering with evidence. In short, they can shut your business down as "evidence" until you comply. That is REALLY expensive because you have federal marshals there, and they force your employees to go home, and you to miss shippments (because you can't access the computers to process orders!) So even if they get nothing they publicly "flogged" you in front of everybody.
along the same lines you PRACTICE IT as well. There's no book that has every situation in it. You can be an expert in systems, but how they all interact is very much like a doctor or lawyer because systems are so complex and new things always come up. IT really isn't engineering anymore, you figure the average desktop PC probably has more "interactions" (in terms of discrete program pieces and how they're put together) than a city skyscraper... and people don't rebuild skyscrapers every 5 years. I'd argue Vista took more engineers to build than recent construction projects.
actually, you are doing the right thing, but not documenting it... that's VERY bad for you. That's why big companies are all about "write ups" so that they have a paper trial so when they fire you, you are really gone, and they have documentation to show a judge. They also have documentation for OTHER employees that proves the rules are the same for everyone, again VERY important. In your case you are following the steps, but not putting them in writing or getting witnesses at the end, so if this chick was to sue you for trying to sex her up, you'd have no history to defend yourself with.
In the US you would qualify for unemployment if they just fired you "at will" though. The company has to prove they had a "cause" to fire you or it's considered a layoff and you still qualify for unemployment. Something capricious as firing for 1 or 2 CDs copied under a week-old rule would not qualify as cause. Of course, if you're part time you still won't get anything, but in this case it's a "manager".
The PMI (www.pmi.org) professional managing projects cert is for that... but only at the high level CIO/manager level. It seems to have solid requirements for doing real project planning and delivering results, but it seems useless for independents/consultants because you have to have your work "approved" by somebody higher up (i.e. corporate ladder only). I don't see how it's going to not be like plumbers where you have to have really long "apprenticeships" at a big IT firm before you can qualify. Unlike plumbers it doesn't seem to promote "independents" the group that could benefit most from the cert being mobile and going to smaller businesses because if the reporting and structure processes.
It's not just for IT people, but because many enterprise projects that are high dollars involve IT, it's IT people that seem to be getting on board first because truly professional IT managers are tired of the treadmill too and want to get management respect and deliver results.
but it's the companies data, not yours. Once they strip out your name and such your privacy claims are limited. Not that people won't piece things back together using an outside database This is what happened in the Netflix case. They were able to guess user's #3956 name at ANOTHER website. They could probably keep the info off the net-at-large by only letting researchers use their equipment under NDA so not everybody has this info.
As far as "legal searching" goes, they already do this... legally, they just pay money for private access to these databases with your name still attached! Anything tied to banking or SSN the govt already has in spades.