I know you're a troll, but there are several serious flaws in your argument:
The word "witchcraft", composed of two complete words ("witch" and "craft") cannot be trademarked or copyrighted, since its a common word. This is, of course, why you wont ever see a game called "Witchcraft" without a subtitle. Thats why the game is called "Sid Meyer's Civilization" instead of just "Civilization".
The word "warcraft" was NOT a word in the english language (or any language on the planet) at the time that Blizzard thought it up for their first game in the series. Nor, frankly, where there many if any significant strategy games of this format. They wisely did all the proper steps to get a trademark/copyright. They did the same for "warcraft 2", "starcraft" and the internal names involved.
Now, the series of these names clearly established a pattern. When people see "*craft" they think Blizzard, if its a video game. The makers of Freecraft understood this completely: how do I know? Because (1)They built the game off Warcraft 2 (including needing the CD or a rip to play it), (2)They used the name pattern to intentionally make people connect their game and Blizzards' games at first glance.
Legally, the whole issue of trademark and copyright infringment is that you cannot create or use a product that could be "confused for the original by a reasonable person". Not only could someone reasonably confuse "Freecraft" as being a Blizzard product, but the makers of Freecraft intended such confusion to happen.
They were idiots, and now they're getting punished. You want to know the lesson here? If you're making a free game, GREAT! Just dont intentionally try and rip someone else - someone who makes their living making a not-free game. Instead, make up your own name, your own graphics, and stand on your own two feet.
Actually, since there are no cases where capital punishment [the death penalty] is given out for drug offenses, "the marijuana case in America" doesn't show anything about how "capital punishment [isn't] a deterrent to activities most people have a difficult time finding the harm in."
The presence of so many drug-criminals in our jails shows that a significant portion of the population either doesn't care that drug usage is illegal.
The presence of so many people who commit crimes which ARE potentially "capital crimes" are what demonstrate that capital crime isn't a deterrant.
As a disclaimer, I neither support the death penalty, nor the treatment of drug issues as criminal affairs: all mind altering chemicals, including caffeine, nicotine, marijuana, opium, et. al. should be taxed heavily by the government, and have strong penalties for public intoxication by any such chemical.
This sort of physics is relevant to nanotechnology (and the subsequent issues of high-volume micromanufacture, etc.), as well as possibly energy resources (i.e. ZPF if that bears out, etc.).
You're an idiot. The very post you just made (including a quote of the article) confirms that "education is the way to eliminate terrorism". Read your own fucking article.
I wonder if you can appreicate the irony of this phrase. Heroin, as a derivitate of opium, is the "opiate of the masses" to which religion is so oft compared. This is because the cost of heroin is dramatically less than opium for a dramatically more intense experience, and thus it is far more readily available for large consumption than opium itself.
That you then say "TV is like heroin for the masses" is comical, because besides being redundant, it ironically also seems to imply there is some cultural item like TV but more pure and more expensive which would be less destructive for those masses. Movies, perhaps? Video games? Opera?
Off the top of my head, read "Ideology" by Mike Cormack, "The Communist Manifesto" by Marx, or "The Cyberpunk Manifesto" by Haroway. Alternately, have a glance at anything Engels or Heidigger.
ALL of those texts and/or authors discussed the inter-operative (alternately called "intersubjective", "reflexive" and other terms by various authors) nature of culture: the act of creation of expression/media is no more or less an act of creation of values, than the consumption of that expression/media. Basically, the creation/consumption of expression/media is a two-way street, wherein everything effects everything else.
Think the uncertainty principle: you cant observe something without changing it.
"Terrorists have above average educations. (it's well documented, so let's not argue)."
Quick point: terrorists such as Osama Bin Laden (and most American terrorists, i.e. WTC bombing, etc.) are typically well educated.
The homocide bombers who attack Israel (and the individual hijackers on the 11th) are typically extremely uneducated with narrow exception (i.e. they'll have been educated on how to build a bomb or fly a plane, respectively).
The basic point is that the organizers of terrorist activity are typically educated; the actual footsoldiers, like most footsoldiers, are usually ignorant and uneducated.
You're an idiot and a troll. Distinguishing types of danger by their degree of severity is just normal practice. It has nothing to do with cultural relativism. Moreover, cultural relativism is about refusing to establish a comparison between cultures which is clearly contradictory with establishing a comparison between dangers.
A) There's no such thing as a "pure blooded" anything any more, and there's no indication that there ever was.
B) I was too broad in calling arab/persian "redundant." To be more clear, I meant that insofar as the current discussion [of oppression of women] the use of both cultures is redundant. Both the Arab and Persian nations have histories going back centuries of systematic abuse and oppression of women [as well as all foreign cultures who attempt to enter their countries].
C) Its funny that you use the word "Caucasian" since despite my having pale skin and clearly being of recent European descent, neither I nor my ancestors for approximately 6 or 7 generations minimum have ever been near the Caucasus mountains. Next time you're complaining about people using innapropriately vague racial terms, try and and not do the same thing.
D) Yes, an apple is different from an orange, but its also true that both are fruits. That means if you're comparing fruits (in this case sexist and bigotted societies) against meats (in this case, the enlightened countries where women are equal), the relevant characteristics are that which distinguish the class "fruit" from the class "meat", not those which distinguish one fruit from another.
This just demonstrates that you failed to read the parent posts. I clearly stated that in the real world, where actual danger creates actual fear for people speaking out, anonymity is important. In fact, in my first post on this here, I explicitly discussed the example of feminist women in the Arab world.
Slashdot is not the real world, and there is no danger in posting under an ID name. Read the parents before you post please, since all you've done is waste space on the screen (since you didn't contribute any new info that was not yet covered).
It doesn't need to be: its a name which is consistent (I've had it here for over a year, I believe), and which enables you or anyone else who wants to criticize me or what I say to do so either by sending me a message or posting a response while knowing who said it.
I dont keep my email public, because there are a billion trolls on Slashdot who would mailbomb me or otherwise cause problems. On the other hand, why would you need to email me if you can message me through Slashdot?
You mention that Arab/Persian (redunant) traditions and gender roles might differ enough from the West that they think we have problems. This is called "cultural reletavism", and refers to the believe that cultures cannot be comparatively judged as "right" or "wrong" against one another. It was the common philosophical perspective of anthropologists/sociologists throughout the 70s and 80s, but fell out of popularity in the 90s (with the advent of social postmodern theory in anthropology.
It fell out of popularity because you can also state (using the same argument) that we shouldn't judge Hitler since Nazi race roles were such that they thought we were insane to not kill our Jews, Gypsies and Dissidents. Alternately, you couldn't judge the Hutus for slaughtering the Tutsis in Rwanda for the same reason.
Frankly, I'm sorry if I sound bigotted in some way, but I have nothing but disdain for any culture that includes as a core precept the idea that women are inferior or naturally subservient to men (or vice versa), just as I would disdain a culture that had similar beliefs about race or age.
You're entirely correct that Saudi Arabia is the worst of the lot, and I'm annoyed at myself for having forgotten to put it up front.
Egypt in particular bothers me though, for one simple reason: throughout the 70s and 80s, many brave Egyptian women fought to remove the legal demand that all women be veiled in public. Several were assaulted horribly (esp. the oh-so-common acid attack of the men in this region against women). Now, young women who are for whatever reason more concerned with religion than the systematic abuse of a gender are actually fighting to reinstate the legal enforcement of veils. It disturbs me how well you can brainwash people, that they'll ask to be treated like this.
As for your disagreement with my comment about anonymous speech, I see precisely ONE reason you should need the AC option on slashdot: you're posting some information that you have obtained legally or illegally but would be definately illegal (or prohibited by your job) to post here. Frankly, I dont want that posting on Slashdot: we cannot trust your information, since its anonymous, so why waste our time posting it?
"Yeah, cause the government really was going to track him down and send him to a camp in siberia."
The reprisal I was speaking of is the same one you fear: people responding to you personally and holding you personally accountable for your words. People like you [both online and in the real world] who are afraid to be known as the source of their own speech are the abusers of free speech. They cripple the worth of it, making a mockery of those who have honest things to fear for their speech.
If you're a woman in Egypt or Iran, and you're speaking out against sexism, then you need anonymity, or you may be scalded with acid, assaulted otherwise or murdered. If you're some petulant brat who wants to make some false-pithy comment about the degradation of American society, then the only purpose in your Anonymity is that which Slashdot already makes clear: that you are a coward.
Stand up for your words and be an adult, or shut the fuck up and sit down at the kiddy table.
That quote ("Trustworthy...reverent") is the full scout law. Remember, the BSA was founded as (and remains largely today) a Christian organization. While it decided to permit other religions to join (specifically Jews...the other religions have just piggy-backed in without any explicit declaration), the Methodist Church accounts for about %30 of the Boy Scouts in the BSA (since it is the official youth group of the Methodist church in most regions), with the Mormons (i.e. the the Church of Latter Day Saints) accounting for another %35-50 for the same reason.
To provide context, the scout oath proceeds as follows:
"I promise to do my best, to do my duty, to God and my Country and to obey the scout law. To help other people at all times, to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight."
Of course, many people have employed the "morally straight" portion as the key to being bigotted against homosexuals, but thats a pretty specious argument.
Thats just false in so many ways. The company is housed, according to its records with the Business Bureuos of many of the western countries, in the USA. Its owners pay taxes on income derived from the company in the US. The company is traded publicly on the US stock exchanges. Its incorporated, legally, in the US hence its ability to hide behind US law even as it is protected by US law (which means foreign governments cannot punish Microsoft for actions which are illegal in that country but legal in the US, unless those actions actually OCCUR in that foriegn country. You're full of shit, dont post here.
You're incorrect. You simply cannot breed "dog agressive" as a trait, since the physical characteristics which identify you as "dog" to another dog are extremely variable. Think of the difference between a pug and a malamut.
Pit bulls are bred to be aggressive, period. This doesn't mean they're monsters, but it means that they're dangerous, plain and simple. There are hundreds of case examples in my home state [Florida] alone of them turning on thier owners or strangers, despite never having been mistreated or "trained" to attack. Thats why they're illegal throughout the state to own. Just this past week, one [which was illegally owned] attacked and killed a woman walking by.
You can put your kids next to your pit bull; I cant stop you. But I'll have zero mercy for you when sentencing time comes after your animal savagely devours a chuck of that child's body.
You're incorrect. ADVERTISING a product with X features, and selling it only with some quantity or degree of those features missing is "bait and switch". This is the universal definition of the phrase in all Western cultures, according to my dictionaries.
Once a sale is completed, the negotiation is complete.
Okay, I'm not a lawyer yet, and my eduction in law is primarily that which is tied into my study of the philosophy of law, so I've had to ask other people about these limitations. From the commercial lawyers I've spoken to, this is what it comes down to:
If you buy a product knowing that its entire functionality derives from the active service provided by a company, you implicitly understand that at some point in the future that service may be terminated either because of bankruptcy or any other termination of the company itself or the product line. Now, for ReplayTV, they make no claim about how long their company will exist, or how long they will provide the existing services for (beyond the implication that it will continue as long as the product line exists). Therefore, its not false-advertising to kill services.
Supposing they did in fact kill off some or all of the features you found useful in your ReplayTV unit retroactively, the best you'd be able to get (if they were nice) is a refund for the product, and supposing you paid for a lifetime subscription, you may be able to get a portion of that cost refunded.
As to your specific example - the single playback of the recorded file - beyond the improbability of that (since it nearly completely eliminates the functionality of the device), it would still only constitute a change of service. Again, the key is that they never advertised a claim of how long they would provide the given service.
In fact, this is the whole point for ReplayTV of offering lifetime subscriptions: obviously, if you pay for 60 years of monthly subscriptions you'll give them more money than if you just pay the few hundred dollars for the lifetime subscription. However, they benefit in the short run from your lifetime subscription because they get more money at the moment. Basically, you determine to do one of the following: make a high-cost initial investment (subscription fee) with a payout only if you have a membership long enough to recoup the cost, or a low-cost initial and ongoing investment (monthly fee) with no "payout" but no risk over time.
Again, I am not a lawyer, but this is the summary of my conversations with several lawyers in the feild.
Its my understanding that its the future hardware that wont have the features. If your unit, that you already have at your house, has that feature, i'm not sure they're planning on removing it.
That said, I'm not at all positive. ReplayTV has in the past removed features via firmware updates (which are forced on the user without their notice), so they could do a firmware-update that removes these features. Of course, at that point, it sounds like there'll be hacks out rather quickly.
As for suing, you'd have to be careful: the advertising materials likely make no claim that these features will exist through the lifetime of the product. If the features were there when you bought it, and you ran the hardware (including the end user agreement, which includes the statement that ReplayTV can update your hardware on their own), its not contradictory.
Slashdot Mirror
Besides your poor spelling and grammar, what reasons do you have that we should believe anything you say? Oh, thats right, none.
I know you're a troll, but there are several serious flaws in your argument:
The word "witchcraft", composed of two complete words ("witch" and "craft") cannot be trademarked or copyrighted, since its a common word. This is, of course, why you wont ever see a game called "Witchcraft" without a subtitle. Thats why the game is called "Sid Meyer's Civilization" instead of just "Civilization".
The word "warcraft" was NOT a word in the english language (or any language on the planet) at the time that Blizzard thought it up for their first game in the series. Nor, frankly, where there many if any significant strategy games of this format. They wisely did all the proper steps to get a trademark/copyright. They did the same for "warcraft 2", "starcraft" and the internal names involved.
Now, the series of these names clearly established a pattern. When people see "*craft" they think Blizzard, if its a video game. The makers of Freecraft understood this completely: how do I know? Because (1)They built the game off Warcraft 2 (including needing the CD or a rip to play it), (2)They used the name pattern to intentionally make people connect their game and Blizzards' games at first glance.
Legally, the whole issue of trademark and copyright infringment is that you cannot create or use a product that could be "confused for the original by a reasonable person". Not only could someone reasonably confuse "Freecraft" as being a Blizzard product, but the makers of Freecraft intended such confusion to happen.
They were idiots, and now they're getting punished. You want to know the lesson here? If you're making a free game, GREAT! Just dont intentionally try and rip someone else - someone who makes their living making a not-free game. Instead, make up your own name, your own graphics, and stand on your own two feet.
Actually, since there are no cases where capital punishment [the death penalty] is given out for drug offenses, "the marijuana case in America" doesn't show anything about how "capital punishment [isn't] a deterrent to activities most people have a difficult time finding the harm in."
The presence of so many drug-criminals in our jails shows that a significant portion of the population either doesn't care that drug usage is illegal.
The presence of so many people who commit crimes which ARE potentially "capital crimes" are what demonstrate that capital crime isn't a deterrant.
As a disclaimer, I neither support the death penalty, nor the treatment of drug issues as criminal affairs: all mind altering chemicals, including caffeine, nicotine, marijuana, opium, et. al. should be taxed heavily by the government, and have strong penalties for public intoxication by any such chemical.
Offhand-
This sort of physics is relevant to nanotechnology (and the subsequent issues of high-volume micromanufacture, etc.), as well as possibly energy resources (i.e. ZPF if that bears out, etc.).
You're an idiot. The very post you just made (including a quote of the article) confirms that "education is the way to eliminate terrorism". Read your own fucking article.
"Numerous studies have shown that most terrorisits, even "footsoldiers" are highly educated ideologs."
SHow me one single example of these "studies", since I've neither heard of these studies nor seen their information.
Don't have one? What a shock, since you're lying.
"TV is like herion for the masses"
I wonder if you can appreicate the irony of this phrase. Heroin, as a derivitate of opium, is the "opiate of the masses" to which religion is so oft compared. This is because the cost of heroin is dramatically less than opium for a dramatically more intense experience, and thus it is far more readily available for large consumption than opium itself.
That you then say "TV is like heroin for the masses" is comical, because besides being redundant, it ironically also seems to imply there is some cultural item like TV but more pure and more expensive which would be less destructive for those masses. Movies, perhaps? Video games? Opera?
Off the top of my head, read "Ideology" by Mike Cormack, "The Communist Manifesto" by Marx, or "The Cyberpunk Manifesto" by Haroway. Alternately, have a glance at anything Engels or Heidigger.
ALL of those texts and/or authors discussed the inter-operative (alternately called "intersubjective", "reflexive" and other terms by various authors) nature of culture: the act of creation of expression/media is no more or less an act of creation of values, than the consumption of that expression/media. Basically, the creation/consumption of expression/media is a two-way street, wherein everything effects everything else.
Think the uncertainty principle: you cant observe something without changing it.
"Terrorists have above average educations. (it's well documented, so let's not argue)."
Quick point: terrorists such as Osama Bin Laden (and most American terrorists, i.e. WTC bombing, etc.) are typically well educated.
The homocide bombers who attack Israel (and the individual hijackers on the 11th) are typically extremely uneducated with narrow exception (i.e. they'll have been educated on how to build a bomb or fly a plane, respectively).
The basic point is that the organizers of terrorist activity are typically educated; the actual footsoldiers, like most footsoldiers, are usually ignorant and uneducated.
You're an idiot and a troll. Distinguishing types of danger by their degree of severity is just normal practice. It has nothing to do with cultural relativism. Moreover, cultural relativism is about refusing to establish a comparison between cultures which is clearly contradictory with establishing a comparison between dangers.
Idiot.
A) There's no such thing as a "pure blooded" anything any more, and there's no indication that there ever was.
B) I was too broad in calling arab/persian "redundant." To be more clear, I meant that insofar as the current discussion [of oppression of women] the use of both cultures is redundant. Both the Arab and Persian nations have histories going back centuries of systematic abuse and oppression of women [as well as all foreign cultures who attempt to enter their countries].
C) Its funny that you use the word "Caucasian" since despite my having pale skin and clearly being of recent European descent, neither I nor my ancestors for approximately 6 or 7 generations minimum have ever been near the Caucasus mountains. Next time you're complaining about people using innapropriately vague racial terms, try and and not do the same thing.
D) Yes, an apple is different from an orange, but its also true that both are fruits. That means if you're comparing fruits (in this case sexist and bigotted societies) against meats (in this case, the enlightened countries where women are equal), the relevant characteristics are that which distinguish the class "fruit" from the class "meat", not those which distinguish one fruit from another.
This just demonstrates that you failed to read the parent posts. I clearly stated that in the real world, where actual danger creates actual fear for people speaking out, anonymity is important. In fact, in my first post on this here, I explicitly discussed the example of feminist women in the Arab world.
Slashdot is not the real world, and there is no danger in posting under an ID name. Read the parents before you post please, since all you've done is waste space on the screen (since you didn't contribute any new info that was not yet covered).
It doesn't need to be: its a name which is consistent (I've had it here for over a year, I believe), and which enables you or anyone else who wants to criticize me or what I say to do so either by sending me a message or posting a response while knowing who said it.
I dont keep my email public, because there are a billion trolls on Slashdot who would mailbomb me or otherwise cause problems. On the other hand, why would you need to email me if you can message me through Slashdot?
Two points:
You mention that Arab/Persian (redunant) traditions and gender roles might differ enough from the West that they think we have problems. This is called "cultural reletavism", and refers to the believe that cultures cannot be comparatively judged as "right" or "wrong" against one another. It was the common philosophical perspective of anthropologists/sociologists throughout the 70s and 80s, but fell out of popularity in the 90s (with the advent of social postmodern theory in anthropology.
It fell out of popularity because you can also state (using the same argument) that we shouldn't judge Hitler since Nazi race roles were such that they thought we were insane to not kill our Jews, Gypsies and Dissidents. Alternately, you couldn't judge the Hutus for slaughtering the Tutsis in Rwanda for the same reason.
Frankly, I'm sorry if I sound bigotted in some way, but I have nothing but disdain for any culture that includes as a core precept the idea that women are inferior or naturally subservient to men (or vice versa), just as I would disdain a culture that had similar beliefs about race or age.
You're entirely correct that Saudi Arabia is the worst of the lot, and I'm annoyed at myself for having forgotten to put it up front.
Egypt in particular bothers me though, for one simple reason: throughout the 70s and 80s, many brave Egyptian women fought to remove the legal demand that all women be veiled in public. Several were assaulted horribly (esp. the oh-so-common acid attack of the men in this region against women). Now, young women who are for whatever reason more concerned with religion than the systematic abuse of a gender are actually fighting to reinstate the legal enforcement of veils. It disturbs me how well you can brainwash people, that they'll ask to be treated like this.
As for your disagreement with my comment about anonymous speech, I see precisely ONE reason you should need the AC option on slashdot: you're posting some information that you have obtained legally or illegally but would be definately illegal (or prohibited by your job) to post here. Frankly, I dont want that posting on Slashdot: we cannot trust your information, since its anonymous, so why waste our time posting it?
"Yeah, cause the government really was going to track him down and send him to a camp in siberia."
The reprisal I was speaking of is the same one you fear: people responding to you personally and holding you personally accountable for your words. People like you [both online and in the real world] who are afraid to be known as the source of their own speech are the abusers of free speech. They cripple the worth of it, making a mockery of those who have honest things to fear for their speech.
If you're a woman in Egypt or Iran, and you're speaking out against sexism, then you need anonymity, or you may be scalded with acid, assaulted otherwise or murdered. If you're some petulant brat who wants to make some false-pithy comment about the degradation of American society, then the only purpose in your Anonymity is that which Slashdot already makes clear: that you are a coward.
Stand up for your words and be an adult, or shut the fuck up and sit down at the kiddy table.
That quote ("Trustworthy...reverent") is the full scout law. Remember, the BSA was founded as (and remains largely today) a Christian organization. While it decided to permit other religions to join (specifically Jews...the other religions have just piggy-backed in without any explicit declaration), the Methodist Church accounts for about %30 of the Boy Scouts in the BSA (since it is the official youth group of the Methodist church in most regions), with the Mormons (i.e. the the Church of Latter Day Saints) accounting for another %35-50 for the same reason.
To provide context, the scout oath proceeds as follows:
"I promise to do my best, to do my duty, to God and my Country and to obey the scout law. To help other people at all times, to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight."
Of course, many people have employed the "morally straight" portion as the key to being bigotted against homosexuals, but thats a pretty specious argument.
Thats just false in so many ways. The company is housed, according to its records with the Business Bureuos of many of the western countries, in the USA. Its owners pay taxes on income derived from the company in the US. The company is traded publicly on the US stock exchanges. Its incorporated, legally, in the US hence its ability to hide behind US law even as it is protected by US law (which means foreign governments cannot punish Microsoft for actions which are illegal in that country but legal in the US, unless those actions actually OCCUR in that foriegn country. You're full of shit, dont post here.
Brave words from someone who, pardon the pun, is too cowardly to even identify himself.
Its easy to criticize, when you needn't fear reprisal.
You're incorrect. You simply cannot breed "dog agressive" as a trait, since the physical characteristics which identify you as "dog" to another dog are extremely variable. Think of the difference between a pug and a malamut.
Pit bulls are bred to be aggressive, period. This doesn't mean they're monsters, but it means that they're dangerous, plain and simple. There are hundreds of case examples in my home state [Florida] alone of them turning on thier owners or strangers, despite never having been mistreated or "trained" to attack. Thats why they're illegal throughout the state to own. Just this past week, one [which was illegally owned] attacked and killed a woman walking by.
You can put your kids next to your pit bull; I cant stop you. But I'll have zero mercy for you when sentencing time comes after your animal savagely devours a chuck of that child's body.
You're incorrect. ADVERTISING a product with X features, and selling it only with some quantity or degree of those features missing is "bait and switch". This is the universal definition of the phrase in all Western cultures, according to my dictionaries.
Once a sale is completed, the negotiation is complete.
Okay, I'm not a lawyer yet, and my eduction in law is primarily that which is tied into my study of the philosophy of law, so I've had to ask other people about these limitations. From the commercial lawyers I've spoken to, this is what it comes down to:
If you buy a product knowing that its entire functionality derives from the active service provided by a company, you implicitly understand that at some point in the future that service may be terminated either because of bankruptcy or any other termination of the company itself or the product line. Now, for ReplayTV, they make no claim about how long their company will exist, or how long they will provide the existing services for (beyond the implication that it will continue as long as the product line exists). Therefore, its not false-advertising to kill services.
Supposing they did in fact kill off some or all of the features you found useful in your ReplayTV unit retroactively, the best you'd be able to get (if they were nice) is a refund for the product, and supposing you paid for a lifetime subscription, you may be able to get a portion of that cost refunded.
As to your specific example - the single playback of the recorded file - beyond the improbability of that (since it nearly completely eliminates the functionality of the device), it would still only constitute a change of service. Again, the key is that they never advertised a claim of how long they would provide the given service.
In fact, this is the whole point for ReplayTV of offering lifetime subscriptions: obviously, if you pay for 60 years of monthly subscriptions you'll give them more money than if you just pay the few hundred dollars for the lifetime subscription. However, they benefit in the short run from your lifetime subscription because they get more money at the moment. Basically, you determine to do one of the following: make a high-cost initial investment (subscription fee) with a payout only if you have a membership long enough to recoup the cost, or a low-cost initial and ongoing investment (monthly fee) with no "payout" but no risk over time.
Again, I am not a lawyer, but this is the summary of my conversations with several lawyers in the feild.
Its pretty simple: in that season of 24, all good guys used Macs, and all the bad guys used PCs.
Its my understanding that its the future hardware that wont have the features. If your unit, that you already have at your house, has that feature, i'm not sure they're planning on removing it.
That said, I'm not at all positive. ReplayTV has in the past removed features via firmware updates (which are forced on the user without their notice), so they could do a firmware-update that removes these features. Of course, at that point, it sounds like there'll be hacks out rather quickly.
As for suing, you'd have to be careful: the advertising materials likely make no claim that these features will exist through the lifetime of the product. If the features were there when you bought it, and you ran the hardware (including the end user agreement, which includes the statement that ReplayTV can update your hardware on their own), its not contradictory.
Actually, many schools would refuse to defer, in order to limit their association with a [possible] criminal.