Just make the early termination fee $1 billion and change the contract length from 2 years to 100 years. Then shut down all the towers and fire all employees so that the CEO and a few other high ups are the only ones collecting money. It isn't like they will need to worry about anyone ever leaving ever so who cares if they don't actually provide service since they have a "service not guaranteed" clause in the contract anyway.
Traffic shaping is ALSO bad because they will just "shape" your traffic to near-zero. They call it Quality of Service but the only thing it will be used for is to REDUCE the quality of your service.
Until TV shows are offered in this way instead of pay-per-view bullshit I will continue not to buy any TV shows. A good DVR and cable is the best way to watch TV and it looks like no one out there has the guts to provide a cheaper AND better model.
Around $70/yr for on-demand content to their library of COMPLETE seasons of TV shows from ALL the major networks and you will have your revolution.
What you are describing already exists and as of this writing costs $0 to its end users. The downside is that it isn't an on-demand service like the paid for services and is more like a dynamic radio.
The problem I am having with these companies and government representatives is that Net Neutrality isn't some new thing that some anti-something special interests group is trying to get. It is something that for the most part we internet users already have and all we want is to keep it.
say do you know of a good way to preview the whole cd?
Yes I do, unfortunuantely you could be sued for doing it. I suppose you could (ab)use iTMS's preview feature and then not buy anything. Too bad you still need to sign up to use that.
In ANY case, I rarely need to preview a CD before I buy it since I typically buy stuff either recomended by friends or from bands that I already know and like. Combine that with internet radio and I really don't need preview.
I realize this won't work for everyone, but this is how I do things.
The WHOLE point of the internet (or at least so I've read) was to create a communication infrastructure that could withstand a NUCLEAR attack. "Terrorists" are like mosquitoes compared to that.
Just one more problem that would need to be solved. Your comment doesn't change anything, except it adds one more thing that would have to be addresed.
This isn't a law book, it's a comment on slashdot. Obviously the actual laws would be written in much more than 2 minutes, which is about how long it took me to write that comment. I used vague terms to speed up this comment which wouldn't even be considered as a rough draft for actual law. It was purely meant to give you the basic idea beheind it, and nothing more.
Furthermore, sure you can sue corporations, but since corporations aren't people... no one really gets PUNISHED when that happens. The CEOs still recieve the same outrageous salary unless you somehow managed to drain the companies bank account with your lawsuit.
No, people need to be PUNISHED for being assholes not barely annoyed.
This is the problem with corporations that so few are able to grasp, the bullshit they pull isn't because they are composed of people, it is because it isn't a person and thus can't be held responsible like people can. Thus whatever people are inside the company feel they can do whatever they want via the company and screw everyone else without fear of real punishment.
but hey, if you want the Wild West, good for you... I guess.
don't put words in my mouth, it is becomming an extremely annoying practice amongst slashdotters, and just about everyone else for that matter.
What I really want is for people to be the masters and corporations to be the slaves. The exact opposite of what we have now. Obviously this is not meant to be taken literally but what it basically boils down to is that coproprations will only be alowed to do whatever is best for the customer. Also obviously only reasonable/possible requests would be allowed, for example a person couldn't ask for a toaster that will last forever since that is impossible, etc.
On the other hand, bullshit like NDAs, monoplies, trade secrets, and such will NOT be allowed. Only people will be allowed to have patents, and copyrights which they may choose to rent to corporations for a fee. Trademarks will only be enforced if a company in the same industry uses the same name, and in such a case the younger company will be forced to change it.
Warranties and other such contracts will also be allowed since they benefit the customer.
Basically corporations will be kept on a very short leash at all times. It's the kind of "tyranny" I would support in a heartbeat. Because after all, Corporations aren't people in any sense of the word.
Which carries more weight: the right of Apple to protect their trade secrets or the rights of journalists to protect their sources
I would like to express my view on this question.
Journalists meet my definition of "person", albeit just barely.
Apple does NOT.
Apple doesn't even meet the definion of "living"...and I'm not talking about the fruit.
You can debate semantics of how corporations and such are "people" simply becuase they are composed of many entities that DO meet the definition of "person" but the company, Apple, is NOT a person.
As a result, I conclude that Apple not only doesn't deserve rights, it doesn't deserve anything at all. This does not meet up with many existing laws, I believe these laws should be abolished.
The conclusion is simple, the journalist not only carries more weight, he/she carries all the weight.
goto http://www.rantradio.com, they have a few old show archives that you could mirror for them. It's all open stuff and if you need permissions just use the contact link to talk to the admin. I bet they will be happy for your help. The links for the show archives are in the right column near the bottom, or you could just wander around looking for something interesting.
Be sure to mention that your host will seed the file.
Who provides the vast majority of broadband? Cable companies.
Who don't like it when you use your expensive broadband for anything more than web surfing and checking email? All ISPs, many of which are Cable Companies.
Major conflict of intrest and they could kill two birds with one stone by outright blocking sites like this.
The question is: will they and can anyone or anything stop them?
So... say I go out and buy a Philips Brand DVD Player. Plays DivX, WMA files, mp3's, VCD. On my PC, I have tons of songs I've bought from Apple's ITMS that I'd like to be able to play on this DVD player. But I can't. So the solution to my problem is to sue Apple because the device I bought can't play Apple's AAC files (Regardless of Apple's licensing Fairplay or not)?
Did I ever say that? No, I didn't.
Let's ask a better question. Is there any legitimate technical reason that this DVD player can't play iTMS songs? No.
Is there a legal reason? YES! Apple refused to license the ability to play iTMS songs unless it fits their greater agenda.
Let's look at another company that licenses its technology. Fraunhofer offers a per decoder/encoder license to anyone willing to pay their fees. You don't have to ask permission to license, just pay them and they are happy. They even have clauses for broadcasting licenses excluding non-profit uses from having to pay. http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/software.html
How about an even more ambiguous technology, ordinary CDs. Every CD bearing the Compact Disc logo has to be licensed from Philips. Now have you EVER seen any optical drive that couldn't read ordinary CDs? Unless it was some kind of magneto-optical drive, or a GameCube, I doubt it. http://www.licensing.philips.com/licensees/patent/ cd/documents869.html
There is a fundamental difference between these two technologies and Fairplay, however. Both CDs and MP3s are actual technologies and not just some arbitrary code to scramble data so that only people Apple wants to can use it. The point however, is that these companies for the most part are willing to license to any company who wants to use their technology in a product. The fact that countless devices and applications can play CDs and MP3s is proof of that. THIS is what Apple should be doing, not artificially restricting developers based solely on their whims.
To address the rest of your qualms, you may not realize just how confusing DRM is to non technical people, sure it's obvious to us that songs bough from music stores pretty much won't work anywhere that the music store doesn't approve of, but I doubt normal people realize this. Think about it, only very recently have companies started artificially restricting how consumers use the products they buy. Cassette tapes could be played in ANY cassette player, Vinyl could be played on ANY turntable, CDs could be played in ANY CD player and even in things that aren't exclusively a CD player. These technologies were all incompatible between each other for OBVIOUS physical reasons, but where all STANDARDS amongst themselves. There were no special cassettes that would only play in a special player that I was aware of. You may even be aware of the RIAA EQ curve for turntables that cuts high end and boosts bass since when mastering vinyl they reduce the bass to prevent the needle from jumping off the record. This EQ curve was consistent from amplifier to amplifier because there was a STANDARD.
Sure, not knowing what the license agreement says isn't much of an excuse, but who REALLY reads those things? I know for a fact that very very few do. No company advertises "ONLY WORKS WHERE WE TELL YOU IT WORKS" or "NOT COMPATIABLE WITH ANYTHING" people just assume that it will work in obvious places because that is how it has ALWAYS been. This lawsuit is a result of this assumption, hopefully people will start realizing how much of a hassle DRM can be for them and start rejecting it. Unfortunuanly, Apple is legally coverd by that license (and I NEVER said otherwise), HOWEVER I still hope that he wins this case so that companies are forced to stop bullshitting people.
As for de-facto standards, I hardly believe that Real or MS are unbiased enough to comment on such things. You said it yourself, people are flocking to iTunes.
1. I was aware of the iHP thing, I mentioned it in my analogy, they are just iPods that Apple is the sole supplier of. Apple retains complete control.
2. Cell Phones are not part of the MP3 player market, they are part of the CELL PHONE market. Apple probably wanted to get in on this market too but didn't feel like making an iCell so they cut a deal with Motorola. I doubt it will hurt their iPod sales.
3. If apple does something stupid or holds back on techniques to make money for shareholders then they are LIABLE to the shareholders and the shareholders can sue. I don't claim to be an expert on business law, but I understand this liability is one of the down sides of being a publicly traded company.
4. Apple is NOT the sole provider of music in general, and I never said such a thing. You ASSUMED I was talking about the music industry in general when in reality I was referring specifically to online music sales. I will try to be more specific in the future. Furthermore yes there are other online music stores but most of them use their own incompatible form of DRM, to extend my analogy they release their music on their own patented special cassette. THE WHOLE POINT of this is that incompatibility is BAD FOR THE CONSUMER! For some reason, EVERYONE chooses iTMS over everyone else which makes it a defacto standard, this is what happens when you have many incompatible formats all doing the same thing. People choose one and ignore the others, they tell their friends to make the same choice and so on and so on. This is in effect a monopoly but it does not meet the legal definition due to the semantics of the situations. THIS is what I want to change.
5. I now realize that my initial comment simply wasn't clear enough: "In the case of Apple, NO ONE can license their DRM for ANY PRICE" what I should have said was "In the case of Apple, NO ONE can license their DRM for ANY PRICE if they are building a competing product". The whole point of the iTMS was to increase sales of the iPod. To clarify if a company like Panasonic wanted to enter the portable MP3 player market, but they wanted to make their device compatible with all the music stores out there, could they do it? No the couldn't because Apple would refuse to license Fairplay to them, as a result people interested in using iTMS won't buy anything other than the iPod, iHP, and that Motorola cell phone. Since the iTMS is essentially synonymous with "online music store" then that is just one more think their player can't do thanks to patents on obvious technology. Don't even get me started on the scroll wheel.
In the end my argument boils down to companies skittering past monopoly laws by patenting technologies that are no better or worse than existing technologies just so that they can have exclusive control over something. I may have implied that monopoly laws prevent this, but I was ACTUALLY showing how they DON'T. Once again, I will try to be less subtle in the future.
Slashdot Mirror
on Opera Mobile on my Asus Transformer because the stock Honeycomb browser is way way too buggy and crashes frequently.
When is it coming out?
A: We're not saying.
How much will it cost?
A: We're not saying.
Those are the only things I care about so fuck you, Blizzard, fuck you.
If once you jailbreak you could download a patch from Cydia that fixed the security hole?
The irony would be delicious.
Just make the early termination fee $1 billion and change the contract length from 2 years to 100 years. Then shut down all the towers and fire all employees so that the CEO and a few other high ups are the only ones collecting money. It isn't like they will need to worry about anyone ever leaving ever so who cares if they don't actually provide service since they have a "service not guaranteed" clause in the contract anyway.
Any use that doesn't result in me getting obsene amounts of money is NOT FAIR!
</RIAA>
St. Anger was SO bad that it wasn't even worth downloding for free. So no, I'm not interested. No other factors come into consideration for me.
Traffic shaping is ALSO bad because they will just "shape" your traffic to near-zero. They call it Quality of Service but the only thing it will be used for is to REDUCE the quality of your service.
Subscription Model
Until TV shows are offered in this way instead of pay-per-view bullshit I will continue not to buy any TV shows. A good DVR and cable is the best way to watch TV and it looks like no one out there has the guts to provide a cheaper AND better model.
Around $70/yr for on-demand content to their library of COMPLETE seasons of TV shows from ALL the major networks and you will have your revolution.
What you are describing already exists and as of this writing costs $0 to its end users. The downside is that it isn't an on-demand service like the paid for services and is more like a dynamic radio.
but I'm still going to keep buying music on CD only.
That is corporate speek for playing the arms race between DRM and DRM crackers.
The problem I am having with these companies and government representatives is that Net Neutrality isn't some new thing that some anti-something special interests group is trying to get. It is something that for the most part we internet users already have and all we want is to keep it.
Why aren't they using Ada like every other IMPORTANT goverment project?!
At least Ada actually IS a proven technology.
say do you know of a good way to preview the whole cd?
Yes I do, unfortunuantely you could be sued for doing it. I suppose you could (ab)use iTMS's preview feature and then not buy anything. Too bad you still need to sign up to use that.
In ANY case, I rarely need to preview a CD before I buy it since I typically buy stuff either recomended by friends or from bands that I already know and like. Combine that with internet radio and I really don't need preview.
I realize this won't work for everyone, but this is how I do things.
For myself, I'm torn between loyalties to Apple (grow, Apple, grow!) and hating DRMs.. In case, loyalty wins.
Congrats on having zero integrity.
Why don't you just buy CDs and rip then to your iPod? You ever think of that? You don't HAVE to use iTMS.
If you had any integrity that is what you would be doing. EXCLUSIVELY.
And don't go bitching about cost, buy used, I gurantee you will beat the price of iTMS every time.
The WHOLE point of the internet (or at least so I've read) was to create a communication infrastructure that could withstand a NUCLEAR attack. "Terrorists" are like mosquitoes compared to that.
Just one more problem that would need to be solved. Your comment doesn't change anything, except it adds one more thing that would have to be addresed.
This isn't a law book, it's a comment on slashdot. Obviously the actual laws would be written in much more than 2 minutes, which is about how long it took me to write that comment. I used vague terms to speed up this comment which wouldn't even be considered as a rough draft for actual law. It was purely meant to give you the basic idea beheind it, and nothing more.
Furthermore, sure you can sue corporations, but since corporations aren't people... no one really gets PUNISHED when that happens. The CEOs still recieve the same outrageous salary unless you somehow managed to drain the companies bank account with your lawsuit.
No, people need to be PUNISHED for being assholes not barely annoyed.
This is the problem with corporations that so few are able to grasp, the bullshit they pull isn't because they are composed of people, it is because it isn't a person and thus can't be held responsible like people can. Thus whatever people are inside the company feel they can do whatever they want via the company and screw everyone else without fear of real punishment.
but hey, if you want the Wild West, good for you... I guess.
don't put words in my mouth, it is becomming an extremely annoying practice amongst slashdotters, and just about everyone else for that matter.
What I really want is for people to be the masters and corporations to be the slaves. The exact opposite of what we have now. Obviously this is not meant to be taken literally but what it basically boils down to is that coproprations will only be alowed to do whatever is best for the customer. Also obviously only reasonable/possible requests would be allowed, for example a person couldn't ask for a toaster that will last forever since that is impossible, etc.
On the other hand, bullshit like NDAs, monoplies, trade secrets, and such will NOT be allowed. Only people will be allowed to have patents, and copyrights which they may choose to rent to corporations for a fee. Trademarks will only be enforced if a company in the same industry uses the same name, and in such a case the younger company will be forced to change it.
Warranties and other such contracts will also be allowed since they benefit the customer.
Basically corporations will be kept on a very short leash at all times. It's the kind of "tyranny" I would support in a heartbeat. Because after all, Corporations aren't people in any sense of the word.
Which carries more weight: the right of Apple to protect their trade secrets or the rights of journalists to protect their sources
...and I'm not talking about the fruit.
I would like to express my view on this question.
Journalists meet my definition of "person", albeit just barely.
Apple does NOT.
Apple doesn't even meet the definion of "living"
You can debate semantics of how corporations and such are "people" simply becuase they are composed of many entities that DO meet the definition of "person" but the company, Apple, is NOT a person.
As a result, I conclude that Apple not only doesn't deserve rights, it doesn't deserve anything at all. This does not meet up with many existing laws, I believe these laws should be abolished.
The conclusion is simple, the journalist not only carries more weight, he/she carries all the weight.
goto http://www.rantradio.com, they have a few old show archives that you could mirror for them. It's all open stuff and if you need permissions just use the contact link to talk to the admin. I bet they will be happy for your help. The links for the show archives are in the right column near the bottom, or you could just wander around looking for something interesting.
Be sure to mention that your host will seed the file.
Who provides the vast majority of broadband? Cable companies.
Who don't like it when you use your expensive broadband for anything more than web surfing and checking email? All ISPs, many of which are Cable Companies.
Major conflict of intrest and they could kill two birds with one stone by outright blocking sites like this.
The question is: will they and can anyone or anything stop them?
So... say I go out and buy a Philips Brand DVD Player. Plays DivX, WMA files, mp3's, VCD. On my PC, I have tons of songs I've bought from Apple's ITMS that I'd like to be able to play on this DVD player. But I can't. So the solution to my problem is to sue Apple because the device I bought can't play Apple's AAC files (Regardless of Apple's licensing Fairplay or not)?
/ cd/documents869.html
Did I ever say that? No, I didn't.
Let's ask a better question. Is there any legitimate technical reason that this DVD player can't play iTMS songs? No.
Is there a legal reason? YES! Apple refused to license the ability to play iTMS songs unless it fits their greater agenda.
Let's look at another company that licenses its technology. Fraunhofer offers a per decoder/encoder license to anyone willing to pay their fees. You don't have to ask permission to license, just pay them and they are happy. They even have clauses for broadcasting licenses excluding non-profit uses from having to pay.
http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/software.html
How about an even more ambiguous technology, ordinary CDs. Every CD bearing the Compact Disc logo has to be licensed from Philips. Now have you EVER seen any optical drive that couldn't read ordinary CDs? Unless it was some kind of magneto-optical drive, or a GameCube, I doubt it.
http://www.licensing.philips.com/licensees/patent
There is a fundamental difference between these two technologies and Fairplay, however. Both CDs and MP3s are actual technologies and not just some arbitrary code to scramble data so that only people Apple wants to can use it. The point however, is that these companies for the most part are willing to license to any company who wants to use their technology in a product. The fact that countless devices and applications can play CDs and MP3s is proof of that. THIS is what Apple should be doing, not artificially restricting developers based solely on their whims.
To address the rest of your qualms, you may not realize just how confusing DRM is to non technical people, sure it's obvious to us that songs bough from music stores pretty much won't work anywhere that the music store doesn't approve of, but I doubt normal people realize this. Think about it, only very recently have companies started artificially restricting how consumers use the products they buy. Cassette tapes could be played in ANY cassette player, Vinyl could be played on ANY turntable, CDs could be played in ANY CD player and even in things that aren't exclusively a CD player. These technologies were all incompatible between each other for OBVIOUS physical reasons, but where all STANDARDS amongst themselves. There were no special cassettes that would only play in a special player that I was aware of. You may even be aware of the RIAA EQ curve for turntables that cuts high end and boosts bass since when mastering vinyl they reduce the bass to prevent the needle from jumping off the record. This EQ curve was consistent from amplifier to amplifier because there was a STANDARD.
Sure, not knowing what the license agreement says isn't much of an excuse, but who REALLY reads those things? I know for a fact that very very few do. No company advertises "ONLY WORKS WHERE WE TELL YOU IT WORKS" or "NOT COMPATIABLE WITH ANYTHING" people just assume that it will work in obvious places because that is how it has ALWAYS been. This lawsuit is a result of this assumption, hopefully people will start realizing how much of a hassle DRM can be for them and start rejecting it. Unfortunuanly, Apple is legally coverd by that license (and I NEVER said otherwise), HOWEVER I still hope that he wins this case so that companies are forced to stop bullshitting people.
As for de-facto standards, I hardly believe that Real or MS are unbiased enough to comment on such things. You said it yourself, people are flocking to iTunes.
Oh where oh where to start.
1. I was aware of the iHP thing, I mentioned it in my analogy, they are just iPods that Apple is the sole supplier of. Apple retains complete control.
2. Cell Phones are not part of the MP3 player market, they are part of the CELL PHONE market. Apple probably wanted to get in on this market too but didn't feel like making an iCell so they cut a deal with Motorola. I doubt it will hurt their iPod sales.
3. If apple does something stupid or holds back on techniques to make money for shareholders then they are LIABLE to the shareholders and the shareholders can sue. I don't claim to be an expert on business law, but I understand this liability is one of the down sides of being a publicly traded company.
4. Apple is NOT the sole provider of music in general, and I never said such a thing. You ASSUMED I was talking about the music industry in general when in reality I was referring specifically to online music sales. I will try to be more specific in the future. Furthermore yes there are other online music stores but most of them use their own incompatible form of DRM, to extend my analogy they release their music on their own patented special cassette. THE WHOLE POINT of this is that incompatibility is BAD FOR THE CONSUMER! For some reason, EVERYONE chooses iTMS over everyone else which makes it a defacto standard, this is what happens when you have many incompatible formats all doing the same thing. People choose one and ignore the others, they tell their friends to make the same choice and so on and so on. This is in effect a monopoly but it does not meet the legal definition due to the semantics of the situations. THIS is what I want to change.
5. I now realize that my initial comment simply wasn't clear enough: "In the case of Apple, NO ONE can license their DRM for ANY PRICE" what I should have said was "In the case of Apple, NO ONE can license their DRM for ANY PRICE if they are building a competing product". The whole point of the iTMS was to increase sales of the iPod. To clarify if a company like Panasonic wanted to enter the portable MP3 player market, but they wanted to make their device compatible with all the music stores out there, could they do it? No the couldn't because Apple would refuse to license Fairplay to them, as a result people interested in using iTMS won't buy anything other than the iPod, iHP, and that Motorola cell phone. Since the iTMS is essentially synonymous with "online music store" then that is just one more think their player can't do thanks to patents on obvious technology. Don't even get me started on the scroll wheel.
In the end my argument boils down to companies skittering past monopoly laws by patenting technologies that are no better or worse than existing technologies just so that they can have exclusive control over something. I may have implied that monopoly laws prevent this, but I was ACTUALLY showing how they DON'T. Once again, I will try to be less subtle in the future.
Let me know if I missed anything.
Wow, you're talented.
/. comment history, I think you will find that I am not a troll.
I love how you jump to conclusions based purely on what sites I post to.
I was just venting on K5 since the people on this site... LIKE YOU suck so much.
Look at my
Oh and don't bother telling me to stop comming to slashdot, just because I complain doesn't mean I'm going to leave.