Everquest is one of the greatest things ever invented. The appeal/addiction is caused by a variety of factors, one of the main being: The game is a challenge. Achieving levels, items, alliances etc is often difficult and succeeding past a daunting challenge gives quite a sense of empowerment. Dark Age Of Camelot however, made the mistake of being too easy, and thus, many players who left EQ, hoping that DOC would be better have come back to EQ because in reality, they love the hardship and frustration. The Game Masters try their best to enforce fair play, which often means telling pathetic, whining, ungrateful, spoiled brats like this clown, "NO! You can't have that thing just because you whine". It is the ups and downs, the wins and the loses, the agony and the ecstasy that make the game addicting. If it weren't for all the factors this whacko is complaining about, he'd have been bored with it looooong ago.
He thinks that because he cannot have whatever he wants, that he hates the game, but in reality, that's why he loves it. There is a strong enforcement of the rules. The motto of the game masters is "We don't need your money". They would rather make the game good by enforcing fair play, than cater to Mr. Big Bucks by giving him what he wants.
It often seems that, in this world, whenever someone comes up with something really popular, all the whiney old lady temperance whackos complain that it is addicting. Well, life is addicting. If it weren't, you would just lie down and die at the first big challenge.
There is hardly any character trait more annoying that ungratefullness. This loser, after spending countless hours in a euphoria of high enjoyment, now whines and bad mouths the people who enabled this for him.
Sure, EQ has some problems, a lot of them, but when weighed against its good points, it comes in far ahead of anything else I knkow.
Also, Sony gets paid the same amount every month per subscriber. It is in their interest that you NOT be logged on using network resources, however, they have recently added features that give players incentive to stay online for a long time like putting your player up as a "Vendor" where other players can buy from you without your having to manually work the sale and offline chat where you can chat with players in the game, even though you are not logged in with your character.
Contrary to this loser's opinion, I think that Sony should be applauded for taking the risk to develop Everquest, knowing in the end, like all good things, they would be criticized and denegraded by the vocal minority of bottom feeders of the human race. Know well, that the silent majority of people who play Everquest love it.
I don't think there is really corruption involved.
Basically, the advance of technology has made copyrights unenforceable. Like the automobile made the horse and buggy obsolete.
There IS no solution, but the powers that be have to at least make a token effort.
It's already too late for something like this anyway.
1) There already exists plenty of hardware and software that permit unlimited file sharing. Nothing new is needed.
2) How is someone going to prove that "source code" was created after this law goes into effect. Anyone could write OR obtain source code, date the file April 5th 1999 and it doesn't fall under this law. If they are concerned about other copies of the source code implying other dates, they can search and replace all the variable names and function names. It's easy.
3) Every year or so Microsoft comes up with the latest thing to which everyone must upgrade. Well, honestly, there is very little of anything new that anyone really needs. Smart folks will simply hold onto their current computers longer letting the consumer electronics industry suffer a huge loss in revenue.
4) No copy protection can protect video and audio from being recorded once they leave digital format. People have been taping music and video for years on their analog recorders and its a good enough reproduction for just about anyone. All it takes is one person making a high quality analog duplication, and within hours or days everyone on the Internet can be capable of having their own copy.
5) The real problem is NOT copyright violations which have been going on since cassette tapes and VCRs were invented. The real problem is the cataloging and instant retrieval capabilities the internet has provided for the rapid distribution of digital anything. You can't stop that without shutting down the Internet completely. The evolution of the human race has accelerated by orders of magnitude with the introduction of the Internet and Search Engines. Most of all the knowledge of our civilization is almost instantly accessible to anyone who needs it. This, merely by its existence makes the concept of "intellectual" ownership obsolete. I'm not trying to be a scofflaw here, just looking reality squarely in the face. You might as well legislate that gravity is illegal.
They think it's bad now! Pretty soon everyone will have encrypted storage and encrypted communications. You won't even be able to have evidence that copyright violations have taken place! Documents can be divided up into separate files and only combined for the final viewing which legally bypasses the concept of copyright which defines a copy as having "tangible" form. In that scenario, the "copy" has no tangible form because it doesn't even exist until viewed. I think the media companies will have to come to the realization that their movies are going to end up just like television: advertisements for advertisements. Movies will be there to attract people to the advertisers of real hard goods like automobiles and nappy wipes. (actually, the sad thing is, even advertising is going to be stripped. Digital media lets you remove that stuff. People use their TIVOs to prerecord a show and then they can skip through the ads very fast. Programs like PopNot remove pop up ads from web sites and removing banner ads is trivial). The only way around that is to have the products actually and integral part of the movie (Tom Cruise drinking a coke before nuking a building, Bare Naked Ladies singing about the virtues of Japanese Import Cars).
6) So really, the media industries are going to pay even more in the long run for this. When this goes into effect, FREE-MEDIA producers will have a huge competitive edge. Artists who have seen the writing on the wall will be the popular ones. They will perform LIVE for their money and insert advertising in their free media. Artists who do not see the writing on the wall will have their CDs and movies sitting unpurchased on the shelves. Lets see how long they can keep up their "liberal" mindset when its their purse that's being robbed. That will separate the wheat from the chafe and we'll see who the real artists are and who the recording company schills really are. There are MILLIONS of musicians and ACTORS out there as good, and better than the ones who are promoted up the media dictatorship pyramid.
7) I can see Walt Disney wanting to elevate "copyright" violation to the same severity as Manslaughter. Ooops. It already is, sorry. You can see how ridiculous this gets. I can go on all night.
Probably not. Copier companies have enough money to buy an exemption.
Just like Nevada can legally have gambling and prostitution when all U.S. citizens are barred by the Federal Government from engaging in gambling anywhere in the world. If you have enough money, you can buy your way out.
Despite the government, we citizens try to plod on and live our lives the best we can. Just stepping out the door in the morning we probably break 100 laws.
Who knows? Who cares anymore? As an independent contract computer programmer, this law will burden me so heavily, I will be forced to go somewhere else to ply my trade.
Maybe it is time for the talent to leave the United States. In the near future I will be applying for Canadian Citizenship or possibly work in Mexico where all the other work is being shipped due to just too much hassle producing anything in the United States.
We have open borders and free trade to foreigners, but we shackle and imprison our own industries.
Hasta la vista baby.
If that is true, then the simple solution is to boycott! That's the easiest solution of all and every person can easily contribute to that by, of all things, NOT doing something! By NOT purchasing CDs, movies and equipment that adhere to this PRIOR RESTRAINT ON FREE SPEECH.
No one even needs to "crack" anything.
Just record the media after it leaves digital form (on the wires, from the speakers) back into digital format and you've circumvented the multi-billion dollar protection scheme. If a human eye can see it, or a human ear can hear it, then it ain't copy protected because the eyes and ears don't have any decryption device by Disney.
doh!
No, don't even rent a video. That video has to be purchased somewhere along the line and even your renting of it contributes to the copyright holders.
Go out and see some live music. Start supporting the artists instead of the lawyers.
From this point on, I will never go to a movie, rent a video or buy a CD unless forced to someway or another.
Your copyrights are not my problem. I am a computer programmer. Stop burdening me with your problems. If you want to pay me a licensing fee for helping YOU protect YOUR property, then maybe we can talk (probably be uselesss still). Until then, get your private, greedy and selfish concerns out of MY life.
If you want a good substitute for Movies and music, try playing Everquest. You'll get over those OLD forms of media REAL fast.
.... implants.
No matter what form media occurs in, it must be eventually be consumed by the ear and eye.
The analog signals to the speakers and screen can be recorded directly.
At that point, the material is unencrypted and can be recorded. Copies can be made of that, and distributed. Once that one copy hits the Internet, boom, the entire world can have it within days.
That cannot be stopped unless Disney wants congress to pass a law that all citizens must have ear and eye implants to decode their movies and music.
The problem never has been the copying of copyrighted material. That has been possible since xerox and cassette tape recorders!
What is new is the ability to catalog, locate and transmit media faster than ever before.
This whole thing is an exercise in futility.
I can't imagine why anyone with half a brain can't see that. Unless of course, they are merely trying to "look like they did something", knowing full well it's futile.
Slashdot Mirror
Everquest is one of the greatest things ever invented. The appeal/addiction is caused by a variety of factors, one of the main being: The game is a challenge. Achieving levels, items, alliances etc is often difficult and succeeding past a daunting challenge gives quite a sense of empowerment. Dark Age Of Camelot however, made the mistake of being too easy, and thus, many players who left EQ, hoping that DOC would be better have come back to EQ because in reality, they love the hardship and frustration. The Game Masters try their best to enforce fair play, which often means telling pathetic, whining, ungrateful, spoiled brats like this clown, "NO! You can't have that thing just because you whine". It is the ups and downs, the wins and the loses, the agony and the ecstasy that make the game addicting. If it weren't for all the factors this whacko is complaining about, he'd have been bored with it looooong ago. He thinks that because he cannot have whatever he wants, that he hates the game, but in reality, that's why he loves it. There is a strong enforcement of the rules. The motto of the game masters is "We don't need your money". They would rather make the game good by enforcing fair play, than cater to Mr. Big Bucks by giving him what he wants. It often seems that, in this world, whenever someone comes up with something really popular, all the whiney old lady temperance whackos complain that it is addicting. Well, life is addicting. If it weren't, you would just lie down and die at the first big challenge. There is hardly any character trait more annoying that ungratefullness. This loser, after spending countless hours in a euphoria of high enjoyment, now whines and bad mouths the people who enabled this for him. Sure, EQ has some problems, a lot of them, but when weighed against its good points, it comes in far ahead of anything else I knkow. Also, Sony gets paid the same amount every month per subscriber. It is in their interest that you NOT be logged on using network resources, however, they have recently added features that give players incentive to stay online for a long time like putting your player up as a "Vendor" where other players can buy from you without your having to manually work the sale and offline chat where you can chat with players in the game, even though you are not logged in with your character. Contrary to this loser's opinion, I think that Sony should be applauded for taking the risk to develop Everquest, knowing in the end, like all good things, they would be criticized and denegraded by the vocal minority of bottom feeders of the human race. Know well, that the silent majority of people who play Everquest love it.
I don't think there is really corruption involved. Basically, the advance of technology has made copyrights unenforceable. Like the automobile made the horse and buggy obsolete. There IS no solution, but the powers that be have to at least make a token effort.
It's already too late for something like this anyway. 1) There already exists plenty of hardware and software that permit unlimited file sharing. Nothing new is needed. 2) How is someone going to prove that "source code" was created after this law goes into effect. Anyone could write OR obtain source code, date the file April 5th 1999 and it doesn't fall under this law. If they are concerned about other copies of the source code implying other dates, they can search and replace all the variable names and function names. It's easy. 3) Every year or so Microsoft comes up with the latest thing to which everyone must upgrade. Well, honestly, there is very little of anything new that anyone really needs. Smart folks will simply hold onto their current computers longer letting the consumer electronics industry suffer a huge loss in revenue. 4) No copy protection can protect video and audio from being recorded once they leave digital format. People have been taping music and video for years on their analog recorders and its a good enough reproduction for just about anyone. All it takes is one person making a high quality analog duplication, and within hours or days everyone on the Internet can be capable of having their own copy. 5) The real problem is NOT copyright violations which have been going on since cassette tapes and VCRs were invented. The real problem is the cataloging and instant retrieval capabilities the internet has provided for the rapid distribution of digital anything. You can't stop that without shutting down the Internet completely. The evolution of the human race has accelerated by orders of magnitude with the introduction of the Internet and Search Engines. Most of all the knowledge of our civilization is almost instantly accessible to anyone who needs it. This, merely by its existence makes the concept of "intellectual" ownership obsolete. I'm not trying to be a scofflaw here, just looking reality squarely in the face. You might as well legislate that gravity is illegal. They think it's bad now! Pretty soon everyone will have encrypted storage and encrypted communications. You won't even be able to have evidence that copyright violations have taken place! Documents can be divided up into separate files and only combined for the final viewing which legally bypasses the concept of copyright which defines a copy as having "tangible" form. In that scenario, the "copy" has no tangible form because it doesn't even exist until viewed. I think the media companies will have to come to the realization that their movies are going to end up just like television: advertisements for advertisements. Movies will be there to attract people to the advertisers of real hard goods like automobiles and nappy wipes. (actually, the sad thing is, even advertising is going to be stripped. Digital media lets you remove that stuff. People use their TIVOs to prerecord a show and then they can skip through the ads very fast. Programs like PopNot remove pop up ads from web sites and removing banner ads is trivial). The only way around that is to have the products actually and integral part of the movie (Tom Cruise drinking a coke before nuking a building, Bare Naked Ladies singing about the virtues of Japanese Import Cars). 6) So really, the media industries are going to pay even more in the long run for this. When this goes into effect, FREE-MEDIA producers will have a huge competitive edge. Artists who have seen the writing on the wall will be the popular ones. They will perform LIVE for their money and insert advertising in their free media. Artists who do not see the writing on the wall will have their CDs and movies sitting unpurchased on the shelves. Lets see how long they can keep up their "liberal" mindset when its their purse that's being robbed. That will separate the wheat from the chafe and we'll see who the real artists are and who the recording company schills really are. There are MILLIONS of musicians and ACTORS out there as good, and better than the ones who are promoted up the media dictatorship pyramid. 7) I can see Walt Disney wanting to elevate "copyright" violation to the same severity as Manslaughter. Ooops. It already is, sorry. You can see how ridiculous this gets. I can go on all night.
Probably not. Copier companies have enough money to buy an exemption. Just like Nevada can legally have gambling and prostitution when all U.S. citizens are barred by the Federal Government from engaging in gambling anywhere in the world. If you have enough money, you can buy your way out. Despite the government, we citizens try to plod on and live our lives the best we can. Just stepping out the door in the morning we probably break 100 laws. Who knows? Who cares anymore? As an independent contract computer programmer, this law will burden me so heavily, I will be forced to go somewhere else to ply my trade. Maybe it is time for the talent to leave the United States. In the near future I will be applying for Canadian Citizenship or possibly work in Mexico where all the other work is being shipped due to just too much hassle producing anything in the United States. We have open borders and free trade to foreigners, but we shackle and imprison our own industries. Hasta la vista baby.
If that is true, then the simple solution is to boycott! That's the easiest solution of all and every person can easily contribute to that by, of all things, NOT doing something! By NOT purchasing CDs, movies and equipment that adhere to this PRIOR RESTRAINT ON FREE SPEECH.
No one even needs to "crack" anything. Just record the media after it leaves digital form (on the wires, from the speakers) back into digital format and you've circumvented the multi-billion dollar protection scheme. If a human eye can see it, or a human ear can hear it, then it ain't copy protected because the eyes and ears don't have any decryption device by Disney. doh!
No, don't even rent a video. That video has to be purchased somewhere along the line and even your renting of it contributes to the copyright holders. Go out and see some live music. Start supporting the artists instead of the lawyers. From this point on, I will never go to a movie, rent a video or buy a CD unless forced to someway or another. Your copyrights are not my problem. I am a computer programmer. Stop burdening me with your problems. If you want to pay me a licensing fee for helping YOU protect YOUR property, then maybe we can talk (probably be uselesss still). Until then, get your private, greedy and selfish concerns out of MY life. If you want a good substitute for Movies and music, try playing Everquest. You'll get over those OLD forms of media REAL fast.
.... implants. No matter what form media occurs in, it must be eventually be consumed by the ear and eye. The analog signals to the speakers and screen can be recorded directly. At that point, the material is unencrypted and can be recorded. Copies can be made of that, and distributed. Once that one copy hits the Internet, boom, the entire world can have it within days. That cannot be stopped unless Disney wants congress to pass a law that all citizens must have ear and eye implants to decode their movies and music. The problem never has been the copying of copyrighted material. That has been possible since xerox and cassette tape recorders! What is new is the ability to catalog, locate and transmit media faster than ever before. This whole thing is an exercise in futility. I can't imagine why anyone with half a brain can't see that. Unless of course, they are merely trying to "look like they did something", knowing full well it's futile.