"Okay. And then try to explain it to Joe Sixpack, who (maybe) has a Windows 98 computer with AOL in which he send-receives his mail and a bunch of simple Windows games. He is a republican/democrat (he knows only that two parties because they are advertised in his TV)."
Explain to him that when he gets digital TV, which is mandated by law and the FCC, he will be getting (possibly) better picture and sound, but will be giving up the ability to record anything to watch over.
And that his computer may become illegal, just as analog TV is set to become useless, and that his new one will by law REFUSE to play any game he's "copied" or not bought, registered, activated (including giving away email address and other personal info to SPAM lists).
All brought to you by the Demopublican Party.
The only alternative is to vote for Libertarians. Libertarian=Liberty, Liberty=Freedom, get it?
"(On a side note, I think if a performer can be paid for a recorded performance for the next 100 years that ditch-diggers should earn residual income as long as their ditch is in use. After all, they should get paid for their work.)"
A BRILLIANT observation!
Here's another example that applies to most of us:
A network engineer should get paid for as long as the network he designed is in use...
If the RIAA's model were imposed though, the employer of the network engineer would receive that royalty, as well as royalties on every job the engineer ever did, for perpetruity. If the network engineer left the company he'd not have the right to ever design another network again in exactly that way.
Makes no sense, doesn't it? The touchstone of any fair deal is to reverse it and see if it seems just as fair. Or to apply it to another similar circumstance.
Here is the copyright provision from the Constitution:
"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries..." U.S. Constitution, Article I, section 8, clause 8."
"My Senator, Jean Carnahan (D-MO), dodged the question with some flowery language about how she wanted "to encourage the adoption of broadband," which tells me she'd vote for it. (My letter was obviously opposed.)
I just sent an email asking the question point blank to Sen. Carnahan, and also to her Republican challeneger, Jim Talent."
AFAIK, the only guy who has publically come out against what the RIAA is doing is Rick Boucher, a Republican from Virginia.
Other than him I'm not aware of a SINGLE Congressman who is on our side.
This is an issue where Democrats (who ARE the party of Hollywood), and Republicans (the party of corporations) will march in lock step.
The only alternative is to get the Libertarians into some power. Geeks number large enough to do so. The Libertarian party is the SOLE party that stands for reducing the government to it's Constitutionally defined responsibility.
Passing laws allowing people to invade property on a whim seems to me to be a clear violation of the Constitution. For one, there IS a right to property expressed in the Bill of Rights. Also, the power to authorize some to violate property of others is not an ENUMERATED power of the Federal Government.
Remember, the 10th Amendment forbids the Feds from excersing ANY POWER NOT SPECIFICALLY GIVEN them by the Constitution!
We've allowed the Demopublicans to violate this for so long, it's become taken for granted that Congress can pass any law it wants to. It can't.
IMO, the ultimate solution that will bring balance back into our system is criminal penalties for legislators/executives who vote for, impose/enforce illegal law (laws that are Unconstitutional).
Why shouldn't they be held personally to account for the laws they pass? After all, ignorance is not a defense for the 300 million of us who are subject to many thousands of thousands of laws that it'd be impossible to know.
He's the one who is apathetic. But he has just as much to lose as we do.
As recently demonstrated by "accident" in New York, the next generation of TV, Digital TV, which has DRM mandated into it by the FCC, itself is to be forced down everyone's throats before the end of this decade, WILL have the ability to forbid recording off TV.
Recording shows off TV has been a right taken for granted by analog VCR owners since the early 80's. Virtually EVERYONE has recorded a show on a VCR, even if they are recording inane crap like "Bassmasters" or "Friends" instead of "Star Trek" like we geeks do;)
That soon will end. Given their blatantly stated attitudes, I cannot for one second believe that Hillary Rosen and Jack Valenti won't order cable companies and broadcasters to "throw the switch" shutting off virtually all recording once DTV has been forced into homes.
Furthermore, P2P sharing is definately NOT just for geeks. Plenty of Joe and Jane Averages have been buying computers and internet JUST FOR THIS for the past 3 years. There are millions more file sharers than there are geeks.
Filesharing is no more a crime than taping songs off the radio (likely to be impossible when radio goes digital, also something mandated by the FCC by the end of the decade). Who DIDN'T trade dubbed casettes with people back in high school?
I did so quite alot. It never stopped me from buying albums whenever I had the money to. Just as my collection of over 10,000 MP3 song files doesn't stop me from buying albums of artits I like (such as Avril Lagigne, the "Anti-Britney" who's album is most definately worth buying). I don't download Britney. I download mostly pre-1990 stuff, a LOT of it being out of print.
The RIAA/MPAA "Hack Act" would create mass chaos on the Internet. ANYONE can whistle, play a kazoo, hum, etc random noise into a casette recorder, make a MP3 of it and have a "copyrighted" song (and it would be at about the artistic level of Britney/BSB/NSync, et all), place it on your computer and then have cause to hack the RIAA "just to check".
The RIAA/MPAA have no idea what they are asking for... Because for the law to be written only to apply to THEM would cause it to be tossed out as discriminatory. So it must apply to everyone who owns ANY copyright. Their technical expertise and resources are also vastly inferior to those of the geek community.
They'd be starting a war with a nuclear power when all they are armed with is rocks and pointed sticks.
The result would be total chaos on the net. And, you know, I'm not so sure they aren't aware of that... CBDTPA DRM computing, using MS Palladium would take control of our hardware and software from US, making it impossible (theoretically) for us to resond in kind to RIAA hack attacks.
But, I digress... What will it take to get Joe and Jane Average to realize what is being done to THEM? Will it be the first time they can't record "Oprah"? Will it be when they discover their PC has been "accidently" erased by some amateur RIAA hacker? Will it be when they buy a new PC with Palladium and it won't play their MP3's?
Sooner or later, I believe it will happen. There is a LOT of hostility in the general public towards corporations. For some reason, Hollywood and the Record Industry have escaped general wrath, despite the fact that what they rake in makes overpaid athletes (whom the public often bitch about) look like Wal-Mart greeters.
"Can we cut the crap here and start calling them Digital Restriction Mechanisms or something. If the whole of slashdot starts doing it, then maybe other sites/media will take it up. If anyone asks you what it stands for its not Rights Management, this is a cheap marketing tactic, dont let then get away with it."
THAT is one of the best comments on this I've ever seen... You are right. By calling DRM "Digital Rights MANAGEMENT" instead of "Digital Restrictions Mechanisms" we are OURSELVES aiding their marketing!
Wish I had mod points. And I will be using your name for DRM from now on.
Isn't that this happened. IT's that "digital" technology as it's been implimented has been done in such a way as to KEEP any control from the consumer.
With an analog cable TV, an analog VCR can be used to record anything from it you want.
Not so with digital. I believe it's unethical to sell something to someone and then tell them how they can use it AFTER the sale...
Frankly, if we ever have a chance to wake up rageing hordes to burn down the offices of Jack Valenti and Hillary Rosen, the two individuals we have to thank for the fact that DTV has been implimented in this way, it will be the day that Joe Blow can't record a show or movie from TV.
This is a "right" that most people have enjoyed since the 1980's. It's something nearly everyone has done, even the most nontechnical. Once taken away, they WILL react.
"I still wouldn't use an HP printer. Who wants to give them $25 for every cartridge? That is where they make their money."
True... The main reason I've hung on to the old 672 is because I can find refills and 3rd party carts for it at Wal-Mart for $20 or less. And I average one per year.
I know if I got a newer HP this would be FAR more expensive...
I have two printers... A dinosaur of a HP DeskJet 672 for color, one that I can easily get cheap 3rd party carts and refills for, and an Okidata OL4W LED/laser printer. I got the Oki used, and I now use it for virtually ALL my printing (which isn't all that much, actually). It also gives me the advantage of being able to print anything that I have that needs it (ie, resume) in sharp, professional type.
Toner for the Oki is cheap, and I've not replaced it even once. Both print fine from Linux.
The HP Deskjet is slowly dying, which is to be expected given it's age (6 years). Given what I've read about HP's tricks with their low end deskjets (and their firing of Bruce Perens) I would have another one only if GIVEN to me...
I am in the market for a new color printer... Which manufacturer sticks it to you LESS than the others? I'm considering Epson, Lexmark, and Canon (I owned Canon prior to the HP, and was less than impressed with the durability of their printers).
"b) what do you expect from HP? A company that has been sliding into corporate mediocrity for years, now run by an idiot with a degree in medieval studies who preserves her private jet complete with hair stylist while laying off thousands. Are you really that amazed that someone was fired for stepping out of his box?"
An idiot with quite a record of wrecking companies she's ran. Honest to God, I don't know WHY people keep recycling people like Carly... But then, I guess HP likes the PR of being run by a woman more than their shareholders care about having competent leadership.
The merger with Compaq was asinine. Compaq brings little to HP that HP didn't already have except some of the Compaq line was a little better (ProLiants, notebooks, etc). That which Compaq had that HP didn't (Alpha, OpenVMS) HP had already decided to kill off before the merger was complete...
All HP gets out of it is the elimination of a competitor. That's it...
Basically, HpaQ is the AOL-Time Warner merger of IT. Sensless. And it will be HP's undoing... Already they combined are less than the two were seperate. And this will only get worse. Firing Perens was asinine in the extreme, as they've now pissed off a LOT of people in the only really GROWING sector of the server market...
HP's problem is that Carly can't decide what they want to be, and it changes weekly... They want to be IBM... Then they want to be Dell. They can't be both.
"I think the implicit meaning here is that consumers think the internet is theirs. when in fact it is not. What will happen when corporate america convinces the world that it owns the internet?"
This brings up something that I've been thinking about for some time...
What is to stop OTHER networks from being created? Much in the way FidoNet was created by BBS Sysops.
I understand that FreeNet is somewhat like this. Frankly, if the ethically bankrupt corporate world takes total control of the internet, it will die.
It will become another one way "broadcast" medium. In case no one has noticed, viewership in broadcast TV networks, AND listenership in broadcast radio continue to decline...
It would not surprise me at all if you CAN turn it off in 1.0, with some technical know how.
But like with XP's activation, which at first sent nothing to MS, that now sends the whole key and product code, uniquely identifying each PC, I suspect SP1 (which will no doubt fix many serious security and stability bugs), will lock people in AFTER the purchase...
"You can have not only the situation where a police officer commiting a crime is treated less seriously (which IMHO should be considered a "high crime" attract a higher sentence and not be subject to any statute of limitations) but a crime is treated more seriously if a police officer is a victim. e.g. if someone being killed through being knocked down by a car is described as "murder" then odds on the dead person is a cop."
It's even worse than that... If you kill a police *DOG* it's tried as a homicide most places! They are considered police "officers".
You are likely to get more time for killing the police dog that is ripping apart your wife than you would if you killed your wife because you found her in bed with another man...
Or more time than someone who abandons and kills a baby... I could go on and on...
I totally agree. YES, someone who kills a peace officer, fireman, etc who are LAWFULLY doing their jobs *SHOULD* be more greatly punished. Those people in LAWFUL execution of duty should be sacrosanct.
But so too, their crimes should be considered GREATER crimes, because they aren't common citizens. Cops have it both ways, their OWN crimes are LESS LIKELY to be punished, yet slugging an off duty cop who said something rude to you in a bar is a major felony.
Frankly, I wonder WHAT system could be designed that would be better though... We give law enforcement so much power today, and too little oversight, that the job (which sucks, BTW, other THAN their little power trips, which is why I think so many eventually are corrupted) almost requires a SAINT...
They have too much power and too little restraint.
The best solution, IMO, is to strike laws. If we ended the already lost "Drug War" right there would be half or more of the need for cops and prisons. Which would mean PLENTY of manpower to crack down on violent crime.
Dirty little secret: Despite how it's most often portrayed, drug "crimes" are NOT violent. MOST people arrested are low level street "pushers" and users. The "big guys" (ie, the ones who produce and distribute in bulk) seldom are touched. Why, someone might get hurt (or not get paid) that way!
Decriminalizing drugs will get rid of what crime problem DOES exist with drug distrobution as magically as the bootleg alchohol profit fueled Capone gangs were vanquished by the striking of Prohibition...
Indeed, the GREATEST , most illustrative example of how lawmakers and law enforcement's respect for the law (Constitution) is the difference between how Prohibition and the "Drug War" were enacted...
Prohibition became Federal Law by CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT... Drugs were made illegal post-World War II by what amounted to Federal "fiat".
"Now, if they could weed out the (very few) bad apples that manage to get into policing, maybe people would start trusting them again. More trust of police -> more co-operation with police -> more bad guys caught -> less crime. Or something like that."
I do believe the majority of cops are good people. But that the bad ones are a SIGNIFICANT minority, and that the majority are JUST AS GUILTY by their silence...
Fact is, there IS no one to "police the police". And in the last quarter century, police powers in this country have increased DRASTICALLY. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Cops have near absolute power in some respects. THEY get to finger "the suspect". Or not.
Another major problem with our justice system is that juries are largely made up of a NONREPRESENTITIVE sample... There aren't nearly as many younger people, or working people, as there are older retirees. Why? Because everyone ELSE seeks to avoid jury duty. Not that it matters, as both prosecution and defenst counsel quickly seek to eliminate anyone in the pool with any cognition between the ears.
Remember, we are a country of TOO MANY LAWS... Many such laws that are actually illegal, especially on the federal level, as the feds are supposed to not have ANY POWER not SPECIFICALLY ENUMERATED in the Constitution. More laws are passed each year. EVERY new law creates a new crime. There are literally thousands and thousands of laws that apply to anyone in any given place.
AND, there are very few of us not guilty of breaking SOME arcane law, though mostly tiny.
Including the police. Police officers are typically the worst at disobeying traffic laws. It's rare to see them under the speed limit, or not driving what they would consider recklessly in a way they would pull over someone else. Everyone sees it. It's one thing that creates disrespect for them. Especially when speed limits are usually too low, sometimes DELIBERATELY too low, for revenue generation.
Same thing with crime. Most police crime is never known about. Only when it is captured on camera. Recently, in my area, city police officers beat a suspect to death, while he was IN CUFFS, and in the JAIL of all places...
Not much in the way of press on that, except locally. 6 months later I've not heard of ONE cop being dismissed, much less tried for murder.
And my town is one where there is very little crime!
"Holy shit. That only happened a week ago...why wasn't it covered on mainstream TV? That's a big story, and a legitimate news item as well. I'd have expected media outlets nationwide to cover that, if only in expectation of the police chief going to prison over it. I'm not sure what pisses me off more...that it happened in the first place, or that it wasn't covered at all."
Want to know why this hasn't received media attention? Racism. The media doesn't have a problem with people being jacked around by cops unless they are non whites.
The local media in Houston have been pretty active on it. A friend of mine sent me the links, and I've been OUTRAGED... Enough of that shit, and it's open season time on cops in Houston....WITH JUSTIFICATION!
It's like I said... I WANT to be on the cops side. After all, their job is to protect US. But I see them slipping more and more over to the dark side. Stuff like this is inexcusable. The cops who are using this database should be imprisoned for abuse of civil rights. They should also be sued civilly for libel and/or slander.
"how long till the suspected criminals-to-be are arrested "just in case"?"
THAT is just a shockingly short step from this... Liberty and security...
You know, as a moral conservative (who is a social libertarian), I WANT to like the police. I really do. They have a job I would not want. They deal with people I do not want to deal with.
But with this sort of thing, and incidents like the Houston PD stormtrooperaid on kids at a K-Mart http://66.70.240.173/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1598 (discussed on my site, several news articles linked to there), I don't trust them...
I'm beginning to believe that there is little difference between the police AND the criminals anymore. And that is scary, when you consider how much more militarized the police become each year...
Here's some advice for the law enforcement establishement on how to deal with crime (since they seem to have forgotten how)
1. The best way to PREVENT crime is to be visible in places where crime is a possibility. This means VISIBLE patrols, not unmarked cars cowering in a blind curve on the highway that goes downhill looking for speeders.
2. Though you'd think otherwise by where you see the most cops, MOST CRIME DOES NOT HAPPEN ON HIGHWAYS! They happen down in the city.
3. Though it's preferable to deter crime (see visible patrols), when crime happens it's law enforcement's job to CATCH them. Not beforehand, but AFTER a crime has been comitted.
You also might not know it, but the crime RATES in this country have been dropping for some time. Yes, there was a slight rise recently, due to economic hard times, but violent crime today is FAR lower than it was 20 years ago, and we have more people and worse economic times.
With that said, how come there are more cops than 20 years ago? How come cities like mine, which has lost half it's population in 30 years has just as many, if not more cops? Why do cops now dress in body armor and carry weapons Rambo would have envied?
I saw this written someplace, which puts it best:
"When the cops talk about the war on crime and the war on drugs, everyone needs to understand that they view us, the civilians, as the enemy."
Clearly there needs to be limits on what information that the government (remember ALWAYS that the police are an arm of the government) can collect and keep, and for how long, on someone not convicted or charged.
") Now Joe Public starts understanding and disliking DRM
2) Techies that already hated DRM but are not listened to by Joe Public don't use silly WMP and are not hindered by this."
Exactly. I wouldn't even THINK of using WMP format for any files that I create. Why? For one thing, at work and sometimes at home I use Linux. So MP3 it is, as it's portable and universal. And I control it. Joe Bob is going to quickly get tired of paying for media he can't back up and isn't provided on physical media...
If I didn't have so many files to convert, I'd consider the technically better Ogg Vorbis format. Anyone know of a batch MP3>OGG converter?
"First we get it to the kids so they don't get lost or abducted... Pretty and nice toy that kids love to carry. Then we keep track of teenagers and where they get lost by night and if they go to school... We stick a superminiature device to their shoes... Later your boss keeps track of your wanderings and why you get late to work... All under a new fresh product "Window to worker(TM)" sold by another politically correct privacy corp..."
By desnsitizing us to the idea of being monitored, we will eventually lose any notion of privacy.
Indeed, it's astounding how far this has gone already. As a Network Administrator, I'm not part of the "great unwashed", and thus, don't have my e-mail monitored, web browsing habits recorded, etc, because I AM THE ONE WHO HAS TO DO IT...
These things go too far though. Any kid too young to go out unsupervised is STILL too young to do so even with this thing strapped on.
"is there any real internet business model from the standpoint of a website that offers a service but not cult membership?"
The bigger question is that if the Internet isn't a profitable place for business (other than to provide access to it), WHY should everyone else have to change to make it so?
Why does the Internet have to be made "safe" for business, when clearly the public rejects that which they want to change to make it safe?
"I don't know why people think laws against spammers would be ineffective. Even a threat of legal/finacial action against them would be a huge deterrent in sending spam. Heck, if it reduced it 10% wouldn't it be worth it? Of course, intelligent filters and the like are the best way to treat the symptoms, but they don't treat the problem"
Why not make the ADVERTISER liable for the spam? Since most of the time spammers forge headers, etc to cover themselves, it's hard to find them to "turn in", but why shouldn't the COMPANY that has BOUGHT the spam be just as liable as the spammer?
After all, you can't sell something without giving out some sort of contact info...
That is the Achillies Heel of spamming, and how it COULD be stopped by a law.
Well written, and done so that the most nontechnical (ie, the types of managers who make decisions regarding IT purchasing) can EASILY understand it.
This article is DEVASTATING to MS... It's main point basically was:
Linux: Better, faster, less restrictive, and you can't beat the price!
I noted that the usual MS FUDddie-duddy response was in there, the fear of "importing your app to Linux means that you jeopardize your IP" crap.
What shit, deliberatly aimed at implying that the GPL means that the FSF owns all programs that will execute on a GPL'ed OS...
I believe that MS's licensing system (which leaves you open to BSA audits and ANY future condition they care to slip into the EULA for the priviledge of downloading a fix for a product defect) is FAR more "viral" than a license that simply says that "if you make use of our code to make an application you have to let the next guy build off your code"...
The opening example of the bank that saved so much money and got a faster system as a bonus is a killer one...
And everyone ripped MS's cost of licenses... MS can't be happy that this is running.
Hillary and Jacko's personal Congressmen would stand for such a thing? About as likely as we are to see the principles in Enron and Global Crossing (too many high political ties to both parties) to get the ride in the police car the Adalphia and WorldCom people got.
It's not just how much money you give, it's WHO you make rich (Clinton SecTreas Robert Rubin in Enron/Citigroup, and DNC chair Terry McAuliffe in Global Crossing).
Remember the 21st Century theroy of American Law: Law applies merely to we consumers (called peasants in earlier times)...
Who's to say that the Australian arm of the RIAA/MPAA won't just buy their own version of the Berman bill...
Given how much stupid legislation has passed concerning the `Net in Australia already (they seem to be going for Comstock Laws), I'm not that sure that such a thing WONT happen...
"Would you still run your site for the love of it if it had 200,000 users, required $50,000 worth of hardware and ate $25,000 in monthly bandwidth? Major sites need a revenue stream, and ads are going to be part of it. Get used to them. Hopefully, findings like this one will result in advertising moving towards a compromise between unobtrusive and noticable."
My site has 200 registered users, probably about 1,000 lurkers, and consumes 5GB of transfer a month (2,500 daily page views average, 75-80K monthly).
Small potatos, sure, but large enough to be very interesting and lively, given that it's a highly SPECIALIZED discussion site (radio/broadcasting) for a relatively small region (West Virginia and parts of surrounding states).
I don't forsee it ever growing beyond the ability of myself and my partner to maintain. We do not sell any ads (there is one static banner at the BOTTOM of the pages, for my partner's web hosting service).
The web would be a LOT better off with a lot of small sites like mine taking care of specilized interests, rather than commercialized sites that hit you with the X10 pop under and the ORBITZ pop overs...
Indeed, that is where it's headed. Internet advertising is ignored, even more as it becomes more obtrusive. Almost everyone who has TRIED to make money off the `net has instead lost money.
Which means that, pop ups or not, the commercial sites will be forced to go subscrption or fold. And what is the likelyhood that people will subscribe when they are getting hit with obnoxious ads?
If my site ever grew to the level of having 50,000 users and needing lots of expensive stuff to run, either my users will find it valueable enough to donate to keep it up (which I suspect would happen), or else I'll make it more specialized so that traffic remains at manageable levels. Which will leave the door open for others to cover other specifics.
Not that this is likely given the specialty WVRADIO.NET is in. And I'm very lucky, as it keeps my radio site completely independant of ANY radio company (which would be the only place I could go for sponsors), which keeps our region from losing it's forum, like others are, who are being swallowed by the likes of Clear Channel (which has bought several formerly independant and useful radio sites lately).
I'd rather shut my site down for good than sell my soul to the pop up scams.
Slashdot Mirror
"Okay. And then try to explain it to Joe Sixpack, who (maybe)
has a Windows 98 computer with AOL in which he send-receives
his mail and a bunch of simple Windows games. He is a republican/democrat (he knows only that two parties because they are advertised in his TV)."
Explain to him that when he gets digital TV, which is mandated by law and the FCC, he will be getting (possibly) better picture and sound, but will be giving up the ability to record anything to watch over.
And that his computer may become illegal, just as analog TV is set to become useless, and that his new one will by law REFUSE to play any game he's "copied" or not bought, registered, activated (including giving away email address and other personal info to SPAM lists).
All brought to you by the Demopublican Party.
The only alternative is to vote for Libertarians. Libertarian=Liberty, Liberty=Freedom, get it?
Or was that too complicated?
Part of the Betamax case was the ruling that taping and time shifting was legal.
What wasn't legal was distrobution of said tapes.
"(On a side note, I think if a performer can be paid for a recorded performance for the next 100 years that ditch-diggers should earn residual income as long as their ditch is in use. After all, they should get paid for their work.)"
A BRILLIANT observation!
Here's another example that applies to most of us:
A network engineer should get paid for as long as the network he designed is in use...
If the RIAA's model were imposed though, the employer of the network engineer would receive that royalty, as well as royalties on every job the engineer ever did, for perpetruity. If the network engineer left the company he'd not have the right to ever design another network again in exactly that way.
Makes no sense, doesn't it? The touchstone of any fair deal is to reverse it and see if it seems just as fair. Or to apply it to another similar circumstance.
Here is the copyright provision from the Constitution:
"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries..." U.S. Constitution, Article I, section 8, clause 8."
"My Senator, Jean Carnahan (D-MO), dodged the question with some flowery language about how she wanted "to encourage the adoption of broadband," which tells me she'd vote for it. (My letter was obviously opposed.)
I just sent an email asking the question point blank to Sen. Carnahan, and also to her Republican challeneger, Jim Talent."
AFAIK, the only guy who has publically come out against what the RIAA is doing is Rick Boucher, a Republican from Virginia.
Other than him I'm not aware of a SINGLE Congressman who is on our side.
This is an issue where Democrats (who ARE the party of Hollywood), and Republicans (the party of corporations) will march in lock step.
The only alternative is to get the Libertarians into some power. Geeks number large enough to do so. The Libertarian party is the SOLE party that stands for reducing the government to it's Constitutionally defined responsibility.
Passing laws allowing people to invade property on a whim seems to me to be a clear violation of the Constitution. For one, there IS a right to property expressed in the Bill of Rights. Also, the power to authorize some to violate property of others is not an ENUMERATED power of the Federal Government.
Remember, the 10th Amendment forbids the Feds from excersing ANY POWER NOT SPECIFICALLY GIVEN them by the Constitution!
We've allowed the Demopublicans to violate this for so long, it's become taken for granted that Congress can pass any law it wants to. It can't.
IMO, the ultimate solution that will bring balance back into our system is criminal penalties for legislators/executives who vote for, impose/enforce illegal law (laws that are Unconstitutional).
Why shouldn't they be held personally to account for the laws they pass? After all, ignorance is not a defense for the 300 million of us who are subject to many thousands of thousands of laws that it'd be impossible to know.
http://www.lpnc.org/events/calendar.html
Anyone checked this out yet? An unorthodox but likely sucessful way to raise money... I've never seen Demopublicans look that good.
And they are for freedom to boot!
This is raising money for the NC libertarians.
WHAT can we do to wake up "Joe 6 Pack"?
;)
He's the one who is apathetic. But he has just as much to lose as we do.
As recently demonstrated by "accident" in New York, the next generation of TV, Digital TV, which has DRM mandated into it by the FCC, itself is to be forced down everyone's throats before the end of this decade, WILL have the ability to forbid recording off TV.
Recording shows off TV has been a right taken for granted by analog VCR owners since the early 80's. Virtually EVERYONE has recorded a show on a VCR, even if they are recording inane crap like "Bassmasters" or "Friends" instead of "Star Trek" like we geeks do
That soon will end. Given their blatantly stated attitudes, I cannot for one second believe that Hillary Rosen and Jack Valenti won't order cable companies and broadcasters to "throw the switch" shutting off virtually all recording once DTV has been forced into homes.
Furthermore, P2P sharing is definately NOT just for geeks. Plenty of Joe and Jane Averages have been buying computers and internet JUST FOR THIS for the past 3 years. There are millions more file sharers than there are geeks.
Filesharing is no more a crime than taping songs off the radio (likely to be impossible when radio goes digital, also something mandated by the FCC by the end of the decade). Who DIDN'T trade dubbed casettes with people back in high school?
I did so quite alot. It never stopped me from buying albums whenever I had the money to. Just as my collection of over 10,000 MP3 song files doesn't stop me from buying albums of artits I like (such as Avril Lagigne, the "Anti-Britney" who's album is most definately worth buying). I don't download Britney. I download mostly pre-1990 stuff, a LOT of it being out of print.
The RIAA/MPAA "Hack Act" would create mass chaos on the Internet. ANYONE can whistle, play a kazoo, hum, etc random noise into a casette recorder, make a MP3 of it and have a "copyrighted" song (and it would be at about the artistic level of Britney/BSB/NSync, et all), place it on your computer and then have cause to hack the RIAA "just to check".
The RIAA/MPAA have no idea what they are asking for... Because for the law to be written only to apply to THEM would cause it to be tossed out as discriminatory. So it must apply to everyone who owns ANY copyright. Their technical expertise and resources are also vastly inferior to those of the geek community.
They'd be starting a war with a nuclear power when all they are armed with is rocks and pointed sticks.
The result would be total chaos on the net. And, you know, I'm not so sure they aren't aware of that... CBDTPA DRM computing, using MS Palladium would take control of our hardware and software from US, making it impossible (theoretically) for us to resond in kind to RIAA hack attacks.
But, I digress... What will it take to get Joe and Jane Average to realize what is being done to THEM? Will it be the first time they can't record "Oprah"? Will it be when they discover their PC has been "accidently" erased by some amateur RIAA hacker? Will it be when they buy a new PC with Palladium and it won't play their MP3's?
Sooner or later, I believe it will happen. There is a LOT of hostility in the general public towards corporations. For some reason, Hollywood and the Record Industry have escaped general wrath, despite the fact that what they rake in makes overpaid athletes (whom the public often bitch about) look like Wal-Mart greeters.
"Can we cut the crap here and start calling them Digital Restriction Mechanisms or something. If the whole of slashdot starts doing it, then maybe other sites/media will take it up. If anyone asks you what it stands for its not Rights Management, this is a cheap marketing tactic, dont let then get away with it."
THAT is one of the best comments on this I've ever seen... You are right. By calling DRM "Digital Rights MANAGEMENT" instead of "Digital Restrictions Mechanisms" we are OURSELVES aiding their marketing!
Wish I had mod points. And I will be using your name for DRM from now on.
Isn't that this happened. IT's that "digital" technology as it's been implimented has been done in such a way as to KEEP any control from the consumer.
With an analog cable TV, an analog VCR can be used to record anything from it you want.
Not so with digital. I believe it's unethical to sell something to someone and then tell them how they can use it AFTER the sale...
Frankly, if we ever have a chance to wake up rageing hordes to burn down the offices of Jack Valenti and Hillary Rosen, the two individuals we have to thank for the fact that DTV has been implimented in this way, it will be the day that Joe Blow can't record a show or movie from TV.
This is a "right" that most people have enjoyed since the 1980's. It's something nearly everyone has done, even the most nontechnical. Once taken away, they WILL react.
"I still wouldn't use an HP printer. Who wants to give them $25 for every cartridge? That is where they make their money."
True... The main reason I've hung on to the old 672 is because I can find refills and 3rd party carts for it at Wal-Mart for $20 or less. And I average one per year.
I know if I got a newer HP this would be FAR more expensive...
I have two printers... A dinosaur of a HP DeskJet 672 for color, one that I can easily get cheap 3rd party carts and refills for, and an Okidata OL4W LED/laser printer. I got the Oki used, and I now use it for virtually ALL my printing (which isn't all that much, actually). It also gives me the advantage of being able to print anything that I have that needs it (ie, resume) in sharp, professional type.
Toner for the Oki is cheap, and I've not replaced it even once. Both print fine from Linux.
The HP Deskjet is slowly dying, which is to be expected given it's age (6 years). Given what I've read about HP's tricks with their low end deskjets (and their firing of Bruce Perens) I would have another one only if GIVEN to me...
I am in the market for a new color printer... Which manufacturer sticks it to you LESS than the others? I'm considering Epson, Lexmark, and Canon (I owned Canon prior to the HP, and was less than impressed with the durability of their printers).
Found this earlier today:
/ SP /SP1/WXP/en-us/xpsp1_en_x86.exe
http://www.trwxp.kit.net/xp_sp1.html
Also, a download for SP1:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/whistler
This thing is a fucking pig... 137MB.. Woah! Lots of bugs...er..features fixed here.
"b) what do you expect from HP? A company that has been sliding into corporate mediocrity for years, now run by an idiot with a degree in medieval studies who preserves her private jet complete with hair stylist while laying off thousands. Are you really that amazed that someone was fired for stepping out of his box?"
An idiot with quite a record of wrecking companies she's ran. Honest to God, I don't know WHY people keep recycling people like Carly... But then, I guess HP likes the PR of being run by a woman more than their shareholders care about having competent leadership.
The merger with Compaq was asinine. Compaq brings little to HP that HP didn't already have except some of the Compaq line was a little better (ProLiants, notebooks, etc). That which Compaq had that HP didn't (Alpha, OpenVMS) HP had already decided to kill off before the merger was complete...
All HP gets out of it is the elimination of a competitor. That's it...
Basically, HpaQ is the AOL-Time Warner merger of IT. Sensless. And it will be HP's undoing... Already they combined are less than the two were seperate. And this will only get worse. Firing Perens was asinine in the extreme, as they've now pissed off a LOT of people in the only really GROWING sector of the server market...
HP's problem is that Carly can't decide what they want to be, and it changes weekly... They want to be IBM... Then they want to be Dell. They can't be both.
"I think the implicit meaning here is that consumers think the internet is theirs. when in fact it is not.
What will happen when corporate america convinces the world that it owns the internet?"
This brings up something that I've been thinking about for some time...
What is to stop OTHER networks from being created? Much in the way FidoNet was created by BBS Sysops.
I understand that FreeNet is somewhat like this. Frankly, if the ethically bankrupt corporate world takes total control of the internet, it will die.
It will become another one way "broadcast" medium. In case no one has noticed, viewership in broadcast TV networks, AND listenership in broadcast radio continue to decline...
"DRM is useless if the user can turn it off."
It would not surprise me at all if you CAN turn it off in 1.0, with some technical know how.
But like with XP's activation, which at first sent nothing to MS, that now sends the whole key and product code, uniquely identifying each PC, I suspect SP1 (which will no doubt fix many serious security and stability bugs), will lock people in AFTER the purchase...
"You can have not only the situation where a police officer commiting a crime is treated less seriously (which IMHO should be considered a "high crime" attract a higher sentence and not be subject to any statute of limitations) but a crime is treated more seriously if a police officer is a victim. e.g. if someone being killed through being knocked down by a car is described as "murder" then odds on the dead person is a cop."
It's even worse than that... If you kill a police *DOG* it's tried as a homicide most places! They are considered police "officers".
You are likely to get more time for killing the police dog that is ripping apart your wife than you would if you killed your wife because you found her in bed with another man...
Or more time than someone who abandons and kills a baby... I could go on and on...
I totally agree. YES, someone who kills a peace officer, fireman, etc who are LAWFULLY doing their jobs *SHOULD* be more greatly punished. Those people in LAWFUL execution of duty should be sacrosanct.
But so too, their crimes should be considered GREATER crimes, because they aren't common citizens. Cops have it both ways, their OWN crimes are LESS LIKELY to be punished, yet slugging an off duty cop who said something rude to you in a bar is a major felony.
Frankly, I wonder WHAT system could be designed that would be better though... We give law enforcement so much power today, and too little oversight, that the job (which sucks, BTW, other THAN their little power trips, which is why I think so many eventually are corrupted) almost requires a SAINT...
They have too much power and too little restraint.
The best solution, IMO, is to strike laws. If we ended the already lost "Drug War" right there would be half or more of the need for cops and prisons. Which would mean PLENTY of manpower to crack down on violent crime.
Dirty little secret: Despite how it's most often portrayed, drug "crimes" are NOT violent. MOST people arrested are low level street "pushers" and users. The "big guys" (ie, the ones who produce and distribute in bulk) seldom are touched. Why, someone might get hurt (or not get paid) that way!
Decriminalizing drugs will get rid of what crime problem DOES exist with drug distrobution as magically as the bootleg alchohol profit fueled Capone gangs were vanquished by the striking of Prohibition...
Indeed, the GREATEST , most illustrative example of how lawmakers and law enforcement's respect for the law (Constitution) is the difference between how Prohibition and the "Drug War" were enacted...
Prohibition became Federal Law by CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT... Drugs were made illegal post-World War II by what amounted to Federal "fiat".
"Now, if they could weed out the (very few) bad apples that manage to get into policing, maybe people would start trusting them again.
More trust of police -> more co-operation with police -> more bad guys caught -> less crime. Or something like that."
I do believe the majority of cops are good people. But that the bad ones are a SIGNIFICANT minority, and that the majority are JUST AS GUILTY by their silence...
Fact is, there IS no one to "police the police". And in the last quarter century, police powers in this country have increased DRASTICALLY. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Cops have near absolute power in some respects. THEY get to finger "the suspect". Or not.
Another major problem with our justice system is that juries are largely made up of a NONREPRESENTITIVE sample... There aren't nearly as many younger people, or working people, as there are older retirees. Why? Because everyone ELSE seeks to avoid jury duty. Not that it matters, as both prosecution and defenst counsel quickly seek to eliminate anyone in the pool with any cognition between the ears.
Remember, we are a country of TOO MANY LAWS... Many such laws that are actually illegal, especially on the federal level, as the feds are supposed to not have ANY POWER not SPECIFICALLY ENUMERATED in the Constitution. More laws are passed each year. EVERY new law creates a new crime. There are literally thousands and thousands of laws that apply to anyone in any given place.
AND, there are very few of us not guilty of breaking SOME arcane law, though mostly tiny.
Including the police. Police officers are typically the worst at disobeying traffic laws. It's rare to see them under the speed limit, or not driving what they would consider recklessly in a way they would pull over someone else. Everyone sees it. It's one thing that creates disrespect for them. Especially when speed limits are usually too low, sometimes DELIBERATELY too low, for revenue generation.
Same thing with crime. Most police crime is never known about. Only when it is captured on camera. Recently, in my area, city police officers beat a suspect to death, while he was IN CUFFS, and in the JAIL of all places...
Not much in the way of press on that, except locally. 6 months later I've not heard of ONE cop being dismissed, much less tried for murder.
And my town is one where there is very little crime!
"Holy shit. That only happened a week ago...why wasn't it covered on mainstream TV? That's a big story, and a legitimate news item as well. I'd have expected media outlets nationwide to cover that, if only in expectation of the police chief going to prison over it. I'm not sure what pisses me off more...that it happened in the first place, or that it wasn't covered at all."
Want to know why this hasn't received media attention? Racism. The media doesn't have a problem with people being jacked around by cops unless they are non whites.
The local media in Houston have been pretty active on it. A friend of mine sent me the links, and I've been OUTRAGED... Enough of that shit, and it's open season time on cops in Houston....WITH JUSTIFICATION!
It's like I said... I WANT to be on the cops side. After all, their job is to protect US. But I see them slipping more and more over to the dark side. Stuff like this is inexcusable. The cops who are using this database should be imprisoned for abuse of civil rights. They should also be sued civilly for libel and/or slander.
"how long till the suspected criminals-to-be are arrested "just in case"?"
THAT is just a shockingly short step from this... Liberty and security...
You know, as a moral conservative (who is a social libertarian), I WANT to like the police. I really do. They have a job I would not want. They deal with people I do not want to deal with.
But with this sort of thing, and incidents like the Houston PD stormtrooperaid on kids at a K-Mart http://66.70.240.173/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1598 (discussed on my site, several news articles linked to there), I don't trust them...
I'm beginning to believe that there is little difference between the police AND the criminals anymore. And that is scary, when you consider how much more militarized the police become each year...
Here's some advice for the law enforcement establishement on how to deal with crime (since they seem to have forgotten how)
1. The best way to PREVENT crime is to be visible in places where crime is a possibility. This means VISIBLE patrols, not unmarked cars cowering in a blind curve on the highway that goes downhill looking for speeders.
2. Though you'd think otherwise by where you see the most cops, MOST CRIME DOES NOT HAPPEN ON HIGHWAYS! They happen down in the city.
3. Though it's preferable to deter crime (see visible patrols), when crime happens it's law enforcement's job to CATCH them. Not beforehand, but AFTER a crime has been comitted.
You also might not know it, but the crime RATES in this country have been dropping for some time. Yes, there was a slight rise recently, due to economic hard times, but violent crime today is FAR lower than it was 20 years ago, and we have more people and worse economic times.
With that said, how come there are more cops than 20 years ago? How come cities like mine, which has lost half it's population in 30 years has just as many, if not more cops? Why do cops now dress in body armor and carry weapons Rambo would have envied?
I saw this written someplace, which puts it best:
"When the cops talk about the war on crime and the war on drugs, everyone needs to understand that they view us, the civilians, as the enemy."
Clearly there needs to be limits on what information that the government (remember ALWAYS that the police are an arm of the government) can collect and keep, and for how long, on someone not convicted or charged.
") Now Joe Public starts understanding and disliking DRM
2) Techies that already hated DRM but are not listened to by Joe Public don't use silly WMP and are not hindered by this."
Exactly. I wouldn't even THINK of using WMP format for any files that I create. Why? For one thing, at work and sometimes at home I use Linux. So MP3 it is, as it's portable and universal. And I control it. Joe Bob is going to quickly get tired of paying for media he can't back up and isn't provided on physical media...
If I didn't have so many files to convert, I'd consider the technically better Ogg Vorbis format. Anyone know of a batch MP3>OGG converter?
"First we get it to the kids so they don't get lost or abducted... Pretty and nice toy that kids love to carry.
Then we keep track of teenagers and where they get lost by night and if they go to school... We stick a superminiature device to their shoes...
Later your boss keeps track of your wanderings and why you get late to work... All under a new fresh product "Window to worker(TM)" sold by another politically correct privacy corp..."
By desnsitizing us to the idea of being monitored, we will eventually lose any notion of privacy.
Indeed, it's astounding how far this has gone already. As a Network Administrator, I'm not part of the "great unwashed", and thus, don't have my e-mail monitored, web browsing habits recorded, etc, because I AM THE ONE WHO HAS TO DO IT...
These things go too far though. Any kid too young to go out unsupervised is STILL too young to do so even with this thing strapped on.
"is there any real internet business model from the standpoint of a website that offers a service but not cult membership?"
The bigger question is that if the Internet isn't a profitable place for business (other than to provide access to it), WHY should everyone else have to change to make it so?
Why does the Internet have to be made "safe" for business, when clearly the public rejects that which they want to change to make it safe?
"I don't know why people think laws against spammers would be ineffective. Even a threat of legal/finacial action against them would be a huge deterrent in sending spam. Heck, if it reduced it 10% wouldn't it be worth it?
Of course, intelligent filters and the like are the best way to treat the symptoms, but they don't treat the problem"
Why not make the ADVERTISER liable for the spam? Since most of the time spammers forge headers, etc to cover themselves, it's hard to find them to "turn in", but why shouldn't the COMPANY that has BOUGHT the spam be just as liable as the spammer?
After all, you can't sell something without giving out some sort of contact info...
That is the Achillies Heel of spamming, and how it COULD be stopped by a law.
Well written, and done so that the most nontechnical (ie, the types of managers who make decisions regarding IT purchasing) can EASILY understand it.
This article is DEVASTATING to MS... It's main point basically was:
Linux: Better, faster, less restrictive, and you can't beat the price!
I noted that the usual MS FUDddie-duddy response was in there, the fear of "importing your app to Linux means that you jeopardize your IP" crap.
What shit, deliberatly aimed at implying that the GPL means that the FSF owns all programs that will execute on a GPL'ed OS...
I believe that MS's licensing system (which leaves you open to BSA audits and ANY future condition they care to slip into the EULA for the priviledge of downloading a fix for a product defect) is FAR more "viral" than a license that simply says that "if you make use of our code to make an application you have to let the next guy build off your code"...
The opening example of the bank that saved so much money and got a faster system as a bonus is a killer one...
And everyone ripped MS's cost of licenses... MS can't be happy that this is running.
Hillary and Jacko's personal Congressmen would stand for such a thing? About as likely as we are to see the principles in Enron and Global Crossing (too many high political ties to both parties) to get the ride in the police car the Adalphia and WorldCom people got.
It's not just how much money you give, it's WHO you make rich (Clinton SecTreas Robert Rubin in Enron/Citigroup, and DNC chair Terry McAuliffe in Global Crossing).
Remember the 21st Century theroy of American Law: Law applies merely to we consumers (called peasants in earlier times)...
Who's to say that the Australian arm of the RIAA/MPAA won't just buy their own version of the Berman bill...
Given how much stupid legislation has passed concerning the `Net in Australia already (they seem to be going for Comstock Laws), I'm not that sure that such a thing WONT happen...
"Would you still run your site for the love of it if it had 200,000 users, required $50,000 worth of hardware and ate $25,000 in monthly bandwidth? Major sites need a revenue stream, and ads are going to be part of it. Get used to them. Hopefully, findings like this one will result in advertising moving towards a compromise between unobtrusive and noticable."
My site has 200 registered users, probably about 1,000 lurkers, and consumes 5GB of transfer a month (2,500 daily page views average, 75-80K monthly).
Small potatos, sure, but large enough to be very interesting and lively, given that it's a highly SPECIALIZED discussion site (radio/broadcasting) for a relatively small region (West Virginia and parts of surrounding states).
I don't forsee it ever growing beyond the ability of myself and my partner to maintain. We do not sell any ads (there is one static banner at the BOTTOM of the pages, for my partner's web hosting service).
The web would be a LOT better off with a lot of small sites like mine taking care of specilized interests, rather than commercialized sites that hit you with the X10 pop under and the ORBITZ pop overs...
Indeed, that is where it's headed. Internet advertising is ignored, even more as it becomes more obtrusive. Almost everyone who has TRIED to make money off the `net has instead lost money.
Which means that, pop ups or not, the commercial sites will be forced to go subscrption or fold. And what is the likelyhood that people will subscribe when they are getting hit with obnoxious ads?
If my site ever grew to the level of having 50,000 users and needing lots of expensive stuff to run, either my users will find it valueable enough to donate to keep it up (which I suspect would happen), or else I'll make it more specialized so that traffic remains at manageable levels. Which will leave the door open for others to cover other specifics.
Not that this is likely given the specialty WVRADIO.NET is in. And I'm very lucky, as it keeps my radio site completely independant of ANY radio company (which would be the only place I could go for sponsors), which keeps our region from losing it's forum, like others are, who are being swallowed by the likes of Clear Channel (which has bought several formerly independant and useful radio sites lately).
I'd rather shut my site down for good than sell my soul to the pop up scams.