Sure, there are probably technicians all over NASA beating themselves up over the littlest details that they "ought to have noticed", but in the final analysis, Columbia went down because NASA's funding wasn't sufficient to do the job properly.
The best memorial for these seven astronauts would be to go on, to keep flying shuttles, not to start a witch-hunt to find some poor SOB who might or might not have been at fault.
Could this lead to the DMCA being overturned? No, I'm serious - all of us here know that the DMCA prohibits us from making backups of DVDs due to having to break the CSS, but Joe Sixpack is less aware of this issue.
If it became commonly known that not only do DVDs degrade, but also you can't legally copy them to preserve the content that you already paid for, maybe there'll be enough disgruntled people writing to their Congresscritters that the DMCA will get a serious review.
That won't help Joe Sixpack until legally licensed DVD-copying shops start to appear, but until then us geeks might be able to legally help out our buddies...
Woohoo!! In which case, it's not a long step towards classifying Microsoft as a manufacturer of munitions and then they come under government control, right?
Of course, I'm not sure if that would be a good thing or a bad thing..
Actually, that was kind of tongue-in-cheek, not meant to be completely serious. Everybody with two braincells to rub together knows that trying to replace all the PCs in this country with DRM-enabled hardware is going to be like trying to place a limit on "the right to bear arms".
What we really need is a way to convince the NRA that DRM is just a short step away from making privately owned assault weapons illegal. (No, I don't know how to do that, but I'm a-thinkin'...).
Um, how about "my PC is my weapon in the fight against terrorism" and DRM is the federally mandated trigger-lock of the PC world...
Re:they'll just change the laws in 13 years
on
Copyright Rumblings
·
· Score: 1
To do this we need Campaign Finance Reform in America, I don't know who to blame in the rest of the world but in America the people have lost their voice.
Off topic, I know, but here's a way to reform Campaign Finance. I read this in a David Eddings book (one of the ones with Sparhawk and Ehlana, don't remember which)
Politicians didn't "run for office", they were selected to serve a 5 year term. Once selected, they were put under guard, not to protect them, but to ensure they didn't try to avoid completing their term. To ensure that they did their absolute best for the country, their personal property was liquidated and the funds invested in the Treasury, to be returned when their term was over. If the country prospered, so did they. If the country didn't prosper, neither did they. Kind of like buying Government Bonds, I guess.
So, just imagine "the voters" picking a few candidates in each State and the "lucky" winners of the election giving up everything they own when they went to Washington to represent the people...
It'll never happen, of course - as long as the people in power continue to benefit from pandering to the wished of the people who have money to give away, and expensive dinners, golf games, company directorships, etc...
The bandwidth problem is easy to get around - simply use the P2P network known as email, or the one known as the World Wide Web, to share lists of what you have. If I want to download a pile of stuff from you, I provide you with an address and you burn a CD for me, then drop it in the mail.
Sure, there's holes in that, but it's already working, people!! Everywhere where someone says to a buddy, "Hey, that's cool, can I get a copy?" it's working. There'd need to be some kind of "web of trust", where you don't send anything to someone that's not vouched for by some chain of people ending with someone you know.
I think it was Andrew Tanenbaum (of Minix fame) who said, "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes." In this case, never underestimate the bandwidth of a postal service full of CDs (or mini-CDs)...
So far, I am not aware of any DRM technology that does a very good job of supporting expiration of protection.
And for such DRM technology to exist and be effective, the PC clock must be sync'd to an external time source, by some kind of encrypted signal. Because ya know, it wouldn't take too long for someone to realize that pushing the clock forward would defeat the DRM.
A filter at each ISP can do the trick but it would be an enourmous task to get that implemented in every country. When its filtered just send your packets in some other protocol like vpn or ssh etc
Is anyone using HTTPS yet? That would be tough to block, because they'd be interfering with inter-state commerce, and if I recall correctly, that would run smack into the Constitution...
As for getting filters implemented in every country, that'll pretty soon take care of itself. When every PC in the US has the "Trusted Platform" chip built in, the Internet will fragment into two parts - the USA and Everyone Else. This will be due to the Trusted Platform equipment in the USA not letting itself talk to the non-Trusted Platform equipment in the European Union and elsewhere.
There's a big difference between libellous remarks and copyright infringement. If this idiot used his actual name as his eBay userid, then having libellous remarks attached to it could cause actionable harm to his reputation. eBay is not responsible, though, for what was said. The idiot should only be going after the person making the remarks. In the same way, the P2P networks should have similar immunity.
And in fact, the RIAA is trying to go after the infringing individuals - they just believe they have to attack the ISPs in order to get the information they need to focus their attack. That's not supposed to be defending the RIAA, either. Nevermind that the copyrights they're defending may have been acquired by undesirable means (locking artists into indentured servitude until they produce stuff acceptable to the RIAA), nevermind that they're trying to get the government to prop up their dying business model, just take the plain facts - they own the right to copy and distribute the tracks, and anyone who distributes without permission is infringing on that copyright.
In fact, leave out the music and just look at the money - the U.S.Mint literally has the right to copy dollar bills, and anyone else copying them is infringing on that right. Disagree? Go do the research, work out how to create the inks and paper, then produce your own dollar bills...
It's true, that the proper action should be to sue the person making the comments, not the host, but eBay is such a big, tempting, and above all rich target... This dude's probably looking at his cost of placing the auction, multiplying it by the auction number (because they probably started at auction #1, right?) and coming up with a complete finger-in-the-air worth of the company, of which he wants a slice.
Unless he's a total dick, he wouldn't have used his real name in the auction, and he can certainly come by another username with just a few keystrokes. Unless there's something really, really special about the "libelled" userid, he can just abandon it and walk away.
So, supposing he's not the biggest dick on the planet and in fact used a userid that wasn't particularly traceable to him, he's actually causing himself more harm by making a fuss. So, maybe he is the biggest dick on the planet...
This is, naturally, my humble opinion. Your milage may vary, contents may have settled during transit, slippery when wet, watch for ice on bridges and overpasses, read the fine manual. Expecially read the bit where eBay says they don't give a flying fuck about what people say about each other, because it's not their problem. (NeoMoose, that's not directed at you, it's directed at a certain asshole lawyer who probably doesn't even know that you and I are alive... And long may that remain true)
The suit may not, however, also be calling for bans on words such as l1ar, ch3ater, 5cam art1st, c0n man, etc.
The words themselves may not be libellous, but when they're put into feedback regarding a particular user, the whole statement probably is libellous. IMHO, IANAL, RTFM, RSVP, RSPCA
It's feasible right up to the point where a judge decides you're taking the piss and slaps you with Comtempt of Court.
Worse still, the judge might decide you're deliberately being uncooperative so that your terrorist buddies can continue to operate, at which point Homeland Security drags you off to an undisclosed location and impounds all your possessions and equipment.
I wonder if there's a "within a reasonable time" clause in the ruling? I mean, are Verizon legally bound to supply the requested information within a certain period of time?
See, the thing about RIAA flooding ISPs with information requests is that the ISP is legally bound to protect everyone else's privacy (I would think), which means they'd got to carefully check that each record handed over contains only the requested information. Are Verizon legally required to take on extra staff to handle thousands of requests, or can they let the requests pile up while some intern cranks out several responses per day ?
What this really needs is all you folks with broadband to download hundreds of copies of works from independant musicians. Nevermind if you like the stuff, just get the volumes high enough to make the RIAA light up. A test case where they prosecute someone for ripping off freely downloadable tracks would do quite a lot of damage to the RIAA's credibility. Especially if some Senator's or Congressperson's kids can be recruited to help out...
Personally, I'd find it kind of funny to print out the logs in Sanscrit, or Chinese, or even Braille...
Unless the court (or RIAA's lawyers) thought to specify getting the logs in English on magnetic or optical media, paper would be the way to go. Thin, low-quality paper paper and wet ink...
As for DVD-Rs, theoretically they ought to be immune from tariffs because the CSS key portion is already written over with junk. Bet the MPAA/RIAA still find a way to levy a tax on them, though. They'll probably claim that the DVD-R can still store DVD-ripped-to-AVI's, not to mention a ferocious quantity of MP3s. Speaking of which, any bets on how long it takes them to get the same tax levied on hard disks, for the same reason??
Think your vote means something? Heh, take a good look at campaign finance and you'll find out who is really in control.
If I were allowed to vote in the USA, I would, if only to be able to claim I voted for "the other guy". As I'm not a citizen, I have no vote, but I'm expected to pay taxes...
No, I'm not bitching, just stating a fact. I may very well apply for citizenship once my period of taxation-without-representation ends in about 4 years. That's assuming our glorious world leaders don't talk themselves into nuking each other any time soon...:)
As many people have pointed out before, the big-time pirates are generally believed to have DVD-copying machines that make bit-perfect copies without actually breaking CSS. This is because they don't give a rat's ass about watching the DVD, just copying it many, many times for profit.
CSS protects the DVD content from being played on an unauthorised machine - which means one without the appropriate license keys. In practise, that means using either an actual DVD player, or PC-software from a CSS-licensed provider. Never mind that the exact same hardware can run Linux or Windows, if you don't have an officially licensed CSS implementation for Linux, it's illegal...
As for hacking PC games to work with Linux, that's a much bigger deal than making it possible to view movies. Trying to restrict movies to real DVD players or to WinXX PCs is exactly like trying to make any other media only playable on proper players or WinXX PCs. I have a bunch of vinyl albums that I'd like to listen to while at work - I can't because I'm not going to drag my hifi to the office every day. One day I'll be bothered enough about it to make MP3s of those albums. Until then, my only option is to re-buy content I've already bought, at stupid prices. What's more, some of those albums are not, and probably never will be available on CD, or even cassette... Note: I'm not planning on trying to download these albums, I just want to be able to continue to enjoy the vinyl records I already have, in places where an actual turntable record player is impractical.
Just try thinking about it in terms of some other industry: a gun maker turning out a rifle for use only on a target range, or a shotgun for shooting anything except ducks; a car maker turning out a Moms-Only SUV, or a highway-only car; furniture for used only by married people; etc... Sounds stupid, doesn't it?
Pretty soon the list of things with legitimate uses outlawed because of potential illegal uses will include:
1) Guns - armed robbery, murder, etc 2) Cars - often used to leave the scene of a crime. 3) Telephones - wire fraud, scams, illegal wiretaps. 4) Clothes - commonly used by thieves, murderers, policitians, etc. Oh, sorry, strike out policitians - they're supposed to make outrageous election promises that nobody expects them to keep...
It's worse than that - they've stolen from the future too.
Suppose some non-Disney company wanted to produce a "claymation" version of Hunchback, Cinderella, or Snow White? How difficult would it be to defend against the inevitable lawsuit, and prove that their version was not in some way derived from Disney's??
I think your analogy is a little flawed - you left some words out.
If you buy a CD from the copyright holder and I copy that CD, now we both have copies of that CD.
The copyright holder, however, has only been paid for the original copy of the CD, even though two CDs now exist.
Explain again how is that not theft? I may not have stolen the physical CD, but I also haven't paid the fee for making a copy, so I've effectively stolen that money from the copyright holder.
Now, if you're talking about a CD full of GNU tools, and I copy it, that's fine, because the copyright holder specifically allows that to happen.
The idea that copying can be equivalent to theft is rooted in the idea of copyright - i.e. the right to make copies. It doesn't matter that the copied material can be endlessly, perfectly replicated at essentially zero cost. What matters is you're arrogantly assuming that just because you can make a copy, that it's OK to do so without consulting the owner of the original.
OK, another example - suppose I were to take Terry Pratchett's laptop, copy his latest book from it, then give the laptop back to him. By your reasoning, I haven't stolen anything. Also, by your reasoning, 10 million people could take copies of that book from me, all without stealing. However, even though Terry Pratchett still has the original in mint condition, he would find it difficult to market the book because 10 million people have illegal copies. How would that not be stealing?
Never mind the encrypted disc or the lack of SPDIF. Sooner or later, the soundcards have to be hooked up to speakers via headphone-out, or to an external hifi via line-out... Plug that into another soundcard, possibly via some voltage adjusting circuit, and re-digitise in a free format.
Slashdot Mirror
1) Budget Cuts
2) Lowest Bidder due to (1)
Sure, there are probably technicians all over NASA beating themselves up over the littlest details that they "ought to have noticed", but in the final analysis, Columbia went down because NASA's funding wasn't sufficient to do the job properly.
The best memorial for these seven astronauts would be to go on, to keep flying shuttles, not to start a witch-hunt to find some poor SOB who might or might not have been at fault.
If it became commonly known that not only do DVDs degrade, but also you can't legally copy them to preserve the content that you already paid for, maybe there'll be enough disgruntled people writing to their Congresscritters that the DMCA will get a serious review.
That won't help Joe Sixpack until legally licensed DVD-copying shops start to appear, but until then us geeks might be able to legally help out our buddies...
OK, I'll admit it - I forgot, is this the good guy or the bad guy? Is this a good thing, or not?
Of course, I'm not sure if that would be a good thing or a bad thing..
What we really need is a way to convince the NRA that DRM is just a short step away from making privately owned assault weapons illegal. (No, I don't know how to do that, but I'm a-thinkin'...).
Um, how about "my PC is my weapon in the fight against terrorism" and DRM is the federally mandated trigger-lock of the PC world...
Off topic, I know, but here's a way to reform Campaign Finance. I read this in a David Eddings book (one of the ones with Sparhawk and Ehlana, don't remember which)
Politicians didn't "run for office", they were selected to serve a 5 year term. Once selected, they were put under guard, not to protect them, but to ensure they didn't try to avoid completing their term. To ensure that they did their absolute best for the country, their personal property was liquidated and the funds invested in the Treasury, to be returned when their term was over. If the country prospered, so did they. If the country didn't prosper, neither did they. Kind of like buying Government Bonds, I guess.
So, just imagine "the voters" picking a few candidates in each State and the "lucky" winners of the election giving up everything they own when they went to Washington to represent the people...
It'll never happen, of course - as long as the people in power continue to benefit from pandering to the wished of the people who have money to give away, and expensive dinners, golf games, company directorships, etc...
Sure, there's holes in that, but it's already working, people!! Everywhere where someone says to a buddy, "Hey, that's cool, can I get a copy?" it's working. There'd need to be some kind of "web of trust", where you don't send anything to someone that's not vouched for by some chain of people ending with someone you know.
I think it was Andrew Tanenbaum (of Minix fame) who said, "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes." In this case, never underestimate the bandwidth of a postal service full of CDs (or mini-CDs)...
And for such DRM technology to exist and be effective, the PC clock must be sync'd to an external time source, by some kind of encrypted signal. Because ya know, it wouldn't take too long for someone to realize that pushing the clock forward would defeat the DRM.
Wups, did I say that out loud?? :)
Is anyone using HTTPS yet? That would be tough to block, because they'd be interfering with inter-state commerce, and if I recall correctly, that would run smack into the Constitution...
As for getting filters implemented in every country, that'll pretty soon take care of itself. When every PC in the US has the "Trusted Platform" chip built in, the Internet will fragment into two parts - the USA and Everyone Else. This will be due to the Trusted Platform equipment in the USA not letting itself talk to the non-Trusted Platform equipment in the European Union and elsewhere.
And in fact, the RIAA is trying to go after the infringing individuals - they just believe they have to attack the ISPs in order to get the information they need to focus their attack. That's not supposed to be defending the RIAA, either. Nevermind that the copyrights they're defending may have been acquired by undesirable means (locking artists into indentured servitude until they produce stuff acceptable to the RIAA), nevermind that they're trying to get the government to prop up their dying business model, just take the plain facts - they own the right to copy and distribute the tracks, and anyone who distributes without permission is infringing on that copyright.
In fact, leave out the music and just look at the money - the U.S.Mint literally has the right to copy dollar bills, and anyone else copying them is infringing on that right. Disagree? Go do the research, work out how to create the inks and paper, then produce your own dollar bills...
Unless he's a total dick, he wouldn't have used his real name in the auction, and he can certainly come by another username with just a few keystrokes. Unless there's something really, really special about the "libelled" userid, he can just abandon it and walk away.
So, supposing he's not the biggest dick on the planet and in fact used a userid that wasn't particularly traceable to him, he's actually causing himself more harm by making a fuss. So, maybe he is the biggest dick on the planet...
This is, naturally, my humble opinion. Your milage may vary, contents may have settled during transit, slippery when wet, watch for ice on bridges and overpasses, read the fine manual. Expecially read the bit where eBay says they don't give a flying fuck about what people say about each other, because it's not their problem. (NeoMoose, that's not directed at you, it's directed at a certain asshole lawyer who probably doesn't even know that you and I are alive... And long may that remain true)
The words themselves may not be libellous, but when they're put into feedback regarding a particular user, the whole statement probably is libellous. IMHO, IANAL, RTFM, RSVP, RSPCA
If it were mine, I think I'd be looking for a cool $1Bn...
Worse still, the judge might decide you're deliberately being uncooperative so that your terrorist buddies can continue to operate, at which point Homeland Security drags you off to an undisclosed location and impounds all your possessions and equipment.
Still want to try it?
See, the thing about RIAA flooding ISPs with information requests is that the ISP is legally bound to protect everyone else's privacy (I would think), which means they'd got to carefully check that each record handed over contains only the requested information. Are Verizon legally required to take on extra staff to handle thousands of requests, or can they let the requests pile up while some intern cranks out several responses per day ?
What this really needs is all you folks with broadband to download hundreds of copies of works from independant musicians. Nevermind if you like the stuff, just get the volumes high enough to make the RIAA light up. A test case where they prosecute someone for ripping off freely downloadable tracks would do quite a lot of damage to the RIAA's credibility. Especially if some Senator's or Congressperson's kids can be recruited to help out...
Unless the court (or RIAA's lawyers) thought to specify getting the logs in English on magnetic or optical media, paper would be the way to go. Thin, low-quality paper paper and wet ink...
Think of all those web apps that have 3+3+4 digits input boxes for phone numbers... It's the telephonic equivalent of the Year 2000 problem!!!
As for DVD-Rs, theoretically they ought to be immune from tariffs because the CSS key portion is already written over with junk. Bet the MPAA/RIAA still find a way to levy a tax on them, though. They'll probably claim that the DVD-R can still store DVD-ripped-to-AVI's, not to mention a ferocious quantity of MP3s. Speaking of which, any bets on how long it takes them to get the same tax levied on hard disks, for the same reason??
If I were allowed to vote in the USA, I would, if only to be able to claim I voted for "the other guy". As I'm not a citizen, I have no vote, but I'm expected to pay taxes...
No, I'm not bitching, just stating a fact. I may very well apply for citizenship once my period of taxation-without-representation ends in about 4 years. That's assuming our glorious world leaders don't talk themselves into nuking each other any time soon... :)
CSS protects the DVD content from being played on an unauthorised machine - which means one without the appropriate license keys. In practise, that means using either an actual DVD player, or PC-software from a CSS-licensed provider. Never mind that the exact same hardware can run Linux or Windows, if you don't have an officially licensed CSS implementation for Linux, it's illegal...
As for hacking PC games to work with Linux, that's a much bigger deal than making it possible to view movies. Trying to restrict movies to real DVD players or to WinXX PCs is exactly like trying to make any other media only playable on proper players or WinXX PCs. I have a bunch of vinyl albums that I'd like to listen to while at work - I can't because I'm not going to drag my hifi to the office every day. One day I'll be bothered enough about it to make MP3s of those albums. Until then, my only option is to re-buy content I've already bought, at stupid prices. What's more, some of those albums are not, and probably never will be available on CD, or even cassette... Note: I'm not planning on trying to download these albums, I just want to be able to continue to enjoy the vinyl records I already have, in places where an actual turntable record player is impractical.
Just try thinking about it in terms of some other industry: a gun maker turning out a rifle for use only on a target range, or a shotgun for shooting anything except ducks; a car maker turning out a Moms-Only SUV, or a highway-only car; furniture for used only by married people; etc... Sounds stupid, doesn't it?
1) Guns - armed robbery, murder, etc
2) Cars - often used to leave the scene of a crime.
3) Telephones - wire fraud, scams, illegal wiretaps.
4) Clothes - commonly used by thieves, murderers, policitians, etc. Oh, sorry, strike out policitians - they're supposed to make outrageous election promises that nobody expects them to keep...
A cubit is roughly 18inches...
Suppose some non-Disney company wanted to produce a "claymation" version of Hunchback, Cinderella, or Snow White? How difficult would it be to defend against the inevitable lawsuit, and prove that their version was not in some way derived from Disney's??
If you buy a CD from the copyright holder and I copy that CD, now we both have copies of that CD.
The copyright holder, however, has only been paid for the original copy of the CD, even though two CDs now exist.
Explain again how is that not theft? I may not have stolen the physical CD, but I also haven't paid the fee for making a copy, so I've effectively stolen that money from the copyright holder.
Now, if you're talking about a CD full of GNU tools, and I copy it, that's fine, because the copyright holder specifically allows that to happen.
The idea that copying can be equivalent to theft is rooted in the idea of copyright - i.e. the right to make copies. It doesn't matter that the copied material can be endlessly, perfectly replicated at essentially zero cost. What matters is you're arrogantly assuming that just because you can make a copy, that it's OK to do so without consulting the owner of the original.
OK, another example - suppose I were to take Terry Pratchett's laptop, copy his latest book from it, then give the laptop back to him. By your reasoning, I haven't stolen anything. Also, by your reasoning, 10 million people could take copies of that book from me, all without stealing. However, even though Terry Pratchett still has the original in mint condition, he would find it difficult to market the book because 10 million people have illegal copies. How would that not be stealing?
Never mind the encrypted disc or the lack of SPDIF. Sooner or later, the soundcards have to be hooked up to speakers via headphone-out, or to an external hifi via line-out... Plug that into another soundcard, possibly via some voltage adjusting circuit, and re-digitise in a free format.