I've avoided illegal sites only slightly more than I've avoided paying the RIAA. Before I joined over a year ago, I did research on AllOfMp3. All the data I could find (including the lack of data, unlike the Spanish sites) suggested very strongly that they had exploited international copyright law but had done so legally. So I loved it. As for their market of distribution, that's a little pointless nowdays. If I travel to Moscow, buy a (legal) CD, and come back to the states with it, have I violated copyright law? I am as uptight as it gets when it comes to copyright violation, but until I see that this is illegal (and not just shut down because the RIAA pays the Moscow police off), I'm loving it.
While I agree that this is classic doublespeak, I also think that the most egregious error is that the memo doesn't address the issue that most concerned the EA spouse and which most alarmed me as a member of the IT community: The intentional permanent crunch status. In the memo, this VP - much like every other knowledgable software professional, makes implicit assumptions that crunch mode qualifies for exceptions. For example,
...and lessen the number of late in the process changes, firedrills, and crunches. We will be rolling these changes out over the next year.
In addition, the memo describes time saving approaches, implicitly suggesting that the overtime reqs are caused by technical issues. However, the truly horrifying part about the EA Spouse letter was not that crunch times happen, but that "crunch time" had come to characterize the entire development lifecycle and was part of the normal schedule. This is not a tech problem; this means that sales, product management, and engineering management are assuming a full-time crunch mode. (Heaven forbid something unexpected actually come up, but I guess when all you're doing is writing sequal #15, the risks of the unknown are somewhat diminished.)
So, the real problem is that EA has normalized its requirements and sizing process to expect an 80 hour week. All the technology improvements and "crunch time" improvements in the world will not make life better for the employees, since under this assumption, time savings gained through technology will be accounted for and "spent" to add more features. Fixing this problem requires a reset & an explicit commitment to change from the e-staff, or else the successful PM/PM tandems will be those who successfully extract sweatshop-type of attendance. Since this memo refused to include even an oblique reference to attempting to address this core problem, it just doesn't seem realistic to believe any true change will occur.
One more thing - I wonder just how many employees are thrilled at working for the biggest entertainment behemoth the industry has ever known?
While they are a private entity, the broadcast spectrum is a scarce resource that belongs to the public. We lease this scarce resource to the broadcaster (or, unfortunately, in some cases give it away). As a result, we have some expectations that we require. For instance, CBS is disallowed from exercising some forms of free speech (Carlin's 7 dirty words). It is also barred from showing sexually graphic material during some hours. Furthermore, CBS is limited in the amount of the national media it can control, as well as the authority it can have over local programming affiliates (although Michael Powell certainly has something to say about this).
In other words, much like a movie theater can oust an unruly citizen even after the citizen has paid for a ticket, the public has the right to expect some standards of behavior from leasors of the scarce broadcast spectrum. It is our property. One of the standards of behavior that seems reasonable to expect is support for the Bill of Rights; that is, the leasor should not be able to use the lease of the scarce resources to suppress a political view that the owners do not agree with. Should this be allowed to happen, it would only be natural that the corporations would support whichever political group is most likely to maximize their profits. This would be an abuse of the public trust. This abuse would quickly move past tyranny of the majority to tyranny of the very wealthy minority.
Unfortunately, CBS/Viacom has abused the trust in this manner. This is what they were being called on, rightfully.
When they no longer use scarce public resources - for instance, when they start putting out pamphlets rather than tv programs - they will no longer bear the burden of the responsibility of public accountability. Then, they can be as one-sided as they wish.
However, the article suggested that these kids are foster kids, which means that at a minimum they were victims of neglect to the extent that the state stepped in and removed them from their birth parents.
It's likely that a number of these kids were victims of sexual abuse. Needless to say, many of them have views on sexual issues that are warped by their experience. A predator would likely know how to take advantage of their experience.
Also, typically, the goal is to re-unite them with their parents. Obviously, some of these parents are not worth anything. But a number of them are genuinely trying to do whatever they can to make their family right. This doesn't help.
My wife works with kids in this situation, and I don't know any names ever. I don't want to know, and she takes her commitment to their confidentiality very seriously.
I hope we get to hear what becomes of Mr. Mark Dennis, the fine bleeding-edge developer who had to ask RentACoder for database formatting help. It would only be fitting if we all got to experience his worst or most vulnerable moment. I'll turn it into HTML for $15.
I did not perceive that Spolsky's goal was to advocate windows, as most of the hyper-sensitive folks on/. would immediately think.
I think his point was that the two cultures started out with two very different goals, and the easiest & most concrete way to sum it up is by describing the expected end-user: programmer vs. unskilled novice.
I did not perceive from his article that he advocated one over the other; rather, I thought he was describing what he considered to be the essential pressure dividing the two cultures. This was a pretty neat point, I thought, and explains some of the frustrations I've experienced working with folks from both cultures.
Of course, I had to actually read the article all the way through to get the point, so that probably just shows how far behind I am in terms of/. indoctrination.
But aren't Sun and IBM doing that to make that happen? And IBM and Sun are investing a lot of money to make sure their software works with their respective utility computing programs. What are you doing besides saying we'll sit down with you and work on it? It's interesting. We've spent $2.5 billion in Adaptive Enterprise. That's a pretty healthy R&D investment, so I disagree that we're not investing in technology.
What??? What exactly are you doing? heck, forget "exactly" - can you give us one glimpse into what, other than a standard consulting gig - is involved in AE? You've made a "tech investment" of 2.5 billion, but you can't even approach describing what that 2.5 billion worth of technology is? Does SCO own the intellectual property rights? Unbelievable. Fun & sad to read. Wrong person to sit for the wrong interview.
You do not get the point of eMusic. The catalog is such that you have to invest time in it by downloading a lot of stuff you're not sure about (and:30s samples are not enough to judge). Quick - name 10 bands you really like. Unless you're already an indie freak, I'm willing to bet you will not find 2 of them on eMusic, and certainly not their new stuff.
The reward, though, is getting turned onto bands that you would have never found out about otherwise. You download 20 CD's in a month, and out of those you find 2 new bands that you think are really cool. You can then check the "you might like" links and branch out from there. Over a couple of years, you wind up with a pretty good education in indie music. It had the potential to really elevate indie music to a new level of acceptance (like IFC & Sundance try to do for indie film).
but not anymore. That's what people are complaining about. I'd be willing to pay more per month, but I won't pay to lose the joys of exploration. The reason eMusic will hurt from this is that their catalog is really not strong enough in mainstream music selections to provide a compelling value proposition other than the joy of exploration.
Of the 400-500 CD's (not tracks) I've downloaded, there are probably 100 that I think are really good. That's 20%. At 40 tracks a month, that means I'll average out 8 really good songs a month; if I'm lucky, those will be on one CD & I'll discover - when I'm lucky - 1 new band I like a month.
It's not about the cost per song I like. It's somewhat about the cost of songs I don't like, but moreso about the loss of exploration. It's the same reason people want to hold onto Kazaa, but we were exploring legally & in a socially responsible manner. It's the loss of discovery that's killing me, not the price per song.
Before eMusic, I was not even familiar with Mogwai(!), much less bands like Wheat, South San Gabriel, Mark Eitzel, or Claire Voyant. I'm not in college anymore - eMusic was my connection to new, non-corporate album-oriented music. And now that connection is lost.
Amen. If I could mod you up, I would. They are pushing out those of us that were using eMusic as a music discovery service. Please let me know if you find any alternative.
I feel like an idiot for turning folks onto eMusic. I had a number of friends subscribe on my recommendation, and I've given out several 3-month subs as Christmas gifts.
The catalog has never lent itself to easily finding great music. However, I disagree with the absolutism of "for months where there was no good music to get". If someone is looking for Madonna, then no, there was no "good music". For someone trying to explore the best that indie music has to offer, it's all there. The big problem is that indie music - even Matador - is hit & miss.
I've found a lot of music I wasn't crazy about, but I found a lot of music I really enjoyed that I would have never found otherwise. The big deal was that for $10 I could download 50 CD's to find 5-10 that were just killer. I've found easily 30 bands that I consider great that I would not have found otherwise. (And quite a few more good ones.)
Basically, what made eMusic great were the same reasons that many say they use P2P, but it was socially responsible.
Now, though, I have to agree with you. With only 3 CD's to grab, I have to know what I like before I get it. And as for stuff that I _know_ I'm going to like beforehand, eMusic's catalog is pretty thin.
Before this, if you had the time to invest in exploring stuff you didn't already know, it was great. I'd pay $20 - $25 a month just to keep it like it was. But $50 a month for limited downloads is crap.
But yes, most religions are not nearly as bad as Christainity and Scientology
What?
You're looking for the keys under the lamppost, I think. Scientology and Christianity are quite different in many ways, but disregarding that (which it sounds like you are), anytime there are people willing to demonstrate faith, there are unscrupulous bastards willing to take advantage of them.
So these two are worse than Confucianism was at times? They're worse than the way the invading Aryans manipulated Hinduism? Or maybe - just maybe - you don't like Christianity because of some issues in your past. You've read about the abuses that were committed as part of different organized versions of Christianity-based religions (or maybe watched a documentary about Jim Bakker), and you've decided that Christianity has been the worst abused religion - ever! And oh, since someone said something about Scientology, I'll use this as an opporunity to rant about Christianity, because talking about the abuses of the Catholic Church is so - gasp - shocking.
Wow. Wish my world were that simple. You have blinding issues, dude.
Yep - think so. Their claim is essentially that some of their IP was included in the product, and that therefore distridution of the IP infringes on their rights. Very similar to sampling in music - you can't just record a Bootsy Collins lick & throw it into a song; you have to get permission.
However, the end-user licensing (with no specific allegations of what is & what is not infringing) is ridiculous. Another post dealt with that very well.
So, if there are infringements (which I doubt - else they would have made their case public by now), then their compensation would be from the distributors - I'd personally go after Red Hat, but I guess IBM's got more legs in terms of press coverage.
The bad news is that it's working for now. The stock is going up, and I'll bet that at least one of two major holders are going to take advantage of this to the extent they can. So, SCO will die, but the folks who tried to screw everyone (and who finished off SCO with this nonsense) will walk away even richer than they were before.
Amen. I'm completely uninterested in listening to bands who have "filler" songs. Of course, what I consider to be an integral piece of the overall work may be considered "filler" by some if it is not immediately accessible.
In most of my favorite discs, the songs I liked the least on first listen tend to be the ones I treasure the most over time. It seems a shame that so many folks miss out on this by being so "single"-minded.
P.S. As for features, check out eMusic. Take away the new 45-song queuing limit & you have the perfect music service. $10/month is a steal.
Yep, the Renaissance happened without copyrights. However, you neglect to point out that, because of the inability to copy works, patronage was a reasonable means for an artist to make a living. A patron had something no one else had, so it was worth the luxury cash outlay. Patronage had a severe downside, since one person could affect an artist's output.
In a sense, intellectual property laws substitute a temporary monopoly for patronage. This allows the creator to reap patronage benefits through the marketplace of ideas, instead of relying on one aristocrat's misguided taste. Can you imagine what Dubya would sanction? Or Santorum?
Nightmares aside, the problem isn't with the concept of copyright, but with the way it has been institutionalized. (The abuse of copyright has been comcomitant with the overall corporate takeover of American Democracy, but that's for another rant.) A 7 year copyright with solid fair use rights is a great idea. A one hundred year limit with 50-year or total rights transfers being the norm is an abuse. The problem isn't with copyright - it's with the way copyright law has changed over the last 20 years.
Free exchange of ideas only takes place if the inventor has some reason to share the idea. Otherwise, human nature is to protect the idea and use it for your own benefit. Thus, elimination of intellectual property laws in this day & age would stifle expression of ideas, not increase it.
BTW, get arrested if you want credibility on the whole protest thing. Copying Eminem late night using campus computers isn't a protest statement unless you get caught (and don't back down). You wanna protest? Go to the front steps of the Capitol building & start clearly & publicly making & distributing CD's to which you do not have IP rights. Now that's a protest. Spend several years in jail & then you'll have a following.
The 2 Live Crew/Roy Orbison case was an instance of this. 2Live asked for permission to parody Pretty Woman, which Orbison declined. they went ahead & did it anyway, Orbison sued, and the courts upheld the right to parody. And the parody sucked, too, so quality of parody is unimportant.
For a summary of the case, check out
http://www.ladas.com/BULLETINS/1994/0694Bulletin/U S_ParodyAsFairUse.html
One problem is that the 9/11 nightmare has made us accept a pre-emptive society. As Americans, we have always recognized that there is a trade-off between security and freedom. We have consistently made the choice for freedom. That's why you can't be arrested for looking like you're about to rob someone. You can only be arrested after you rob someone. It sucks for the robbed, but it prevents this kind of power abuse.
It is illegal to conspire to murder or cause terror. In these cases, however, the govt. must still present an accusation and evidence that you have actually done something (i.e., conspired). This still accepts the notion that freedom demands that there be evidence of conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt. Someone accused of conspiracy is entitled to the same due process.
If there were evidence that this guy has done something knowingly wrong, they wouldn't have to hold him under the material witness rule. No judge in the country is going to grant bail to a suspected terrorist with significant evidence weighing against him. The fact that he is being held the way he is indicts the govt.
We need someone to help us understand that as scared as we are, we can't trade freedom for security. Pre-emptive arrests, pre-emptive war -- they are a bad, bad road.
This is the best way to attack this problem. There are two ways, I guess:
1) Civil Disobedience. It doesn't work unless you are using it to make people aware of an inequity in the system. Unfortunately, if the folks who hold IP rights choose to not make that IP available to you on the grounds you want them to (trial ownership or preferably free), this doesn't sound like inequity. It sounds like it's just not the way you want it. It is not something that can be equated with civil rights sit-ins. So, I think the folks who claim this route are pretty much just whiny crybabies who want more CD's than they an pay for. Prove me wrong - get arrested for the cause (not the act). Get others to stage public violations of copyright, and get arrested on camera. That will prove your point most effectively (whatever your point may be).
2) Since the bottom line is that you don't like their business model, don't subscribe to it. Choose not to listen to RIAA labels. Go indy all the way. Convince others to do the same. Sign up for EMusic or another full-service download medium & give trial periods to your friends. That way, you are exploiting your power as a consumer. Eventually, this approach forces the RIAA to realize that the only viable solution is a reformed business model, not piracy crackdowns. Yes, this is slow (and it also means that you don't get every song you want right when you want it), but if file sharing use dropped off, & EMusic's revenues went sky-high while PressPlay languished, and CD sales still were in the toilet, the RIAA would be forced to change to a consumer-friendly model.
Violating the law - the real one, not the "college one" (which is about as accurate as the 10-minute rule and the Suicide A's) - is guaranteed to get more restrictive legislation passed. There's clearly a problem. We know the fundamental problem is in the business model, but the illegal underground activity masks that real reason. And yes, it is illegal, whether you think it should be or not. Fair use does not cover consumer-determined trial IP violation without the IP-holder's consent.
I've bought 2-3 major label CD's in the last year. The last time I copied music was from CD-to-cassette in 1989. I download about 20 CD's a month from EMusic. It is possible.
IANAL. Unfortunately, I have done a good bit of patent crap.
The independent claims are the important part. There are 4 (#1, #10, #24, & #27). The first two are more about the producer, whereas the last two are about the consumer.
#1: Auction process of web page display space. (Since it does not presume automation, this probably has some severe prior art issues. However, an automated bid process might have some footing.)
#10: Point-based purchasing system for web page display space. (I have no idea if this has any merit or not. I would bet this has been done in non-advertising web pages before. They might be asked to make this more specific.)
#24: Targeted ad exclusion & replacement based on user responses to previous ads for products like it. (Notice that this is not specific to web pages, but to computer systems. Since your digital cable box can probably be considered a computing system, this might have some crossover effect with some of the ad targeting pursued by cable companies, although it does take into account measuring user response.)
#27: Targeted ad inclusion. (Same basic stuff as #24 except inclusion-based, not exclusion-based)
Pretty interesting. I wonder if folks are doing #24 & 27 yet. You would think so, but that requires pretty good user tracking.
"Only 9% thought that file trading was wrong. Only 21% feel that that P2P file trading hurts artists."
That means 12% said that they believed what they were doing was hurting artists, but that it wasn't wrong. Who are these people? What _would_ be wrong in their minds?
On the other hand, it seems surprising that the Republican administration made up 12% of the sample size.
Nope, not really. As I recall, the hippocampus is really responsible for solidifying the connections associated in a memory. Basically, I think it strengthens the chemical relationship between the neurons involved in a memory, at either the request of the frontal lobes (as in when you try to store a memory) or lower levels of the limbic system (as in when a traumatic emotional event happens that you remember forever). I think the only way you'd get that would be complete brain mappin on a per-individual basis (which fortunately for us tends to change over time).
From a computer perspective, I believe this is a little like associating several addresses with each other. Sure, you could keep those addresses around forever, but what do they mean? Also, what happens when the contents change over time?
Interestingly enough, implicit learning can take place without the hippocampus. (This is stuff you know but don't know that you know.) It's the ability to form memories that can be remembered explicitly & on demand that gets lost. So, it may be that the hippocampus connects frontal lobes with the associated areas (some of which may also be frontal, but some of which are definitely in other areas, such as temporal - words & figures - & occipital - vision).
It's going to be a while before this gets used in humans. Hopefully. Maybe with a wireless device, it could be part of the TIA work?
I think the one aspect the article did not sufficiently address is the customer side. I suspect that when a customer buys something, the merchant also sends the purchase info to Peppercorn (then the Peppercorn-merchant interaction happens as described). Peppercorn probably sums up the total purchases per customer and then charges the customer's credit card once a month. That's the only way it will work - consumers want a price, not a probability (especially since probability doesn't scale down very well).
In addition to the patent/vendor lock-in issues (which are very serious), there's also the risk that consumers will still buy very little stuff. If my assumptions are accurate, if a consumer only buys one or two songs a month, Peppercorn is screwed instead of the merchant.
The only ways this makes a lot of sense is if 1)Peppercorn enlists a wide, broad base of merchants providing heterogeneous services (i.e., if I don't want to pay $10 to eMusic, than I don't plan on spending $10 on song downloads, but I might spend $10 on songs, news, games, etc. combined) or 2) Peppercorn requires some minimum monthly investment, which gets you right back to the subscription model.
The part of this that bothers me is that the folks doing this profited from it. The end result of allowing this to stand is a reduced incentive to provide content. For example, if I put up a satellite and anyone else can legally decrypt the info and sell it for less while I try to recoup my investment in the satellite, why would I send the satellite up there?
Either content provision/distribution needs to be socialized, or we have to protect their investment for some period of time.
I still hate the DMCA, but this should be prevented.
Just because I can't measure the loss directly doesn't mean it doesn't occur. The truth is that we don't know, but just because we don't know does not mean loss does not occur. I agree with your argument regarding the exclusive possession differences. However, before I made the decision to stop illegally copying software several years back, I would justify copying by saying I would only copy things that I wouldn't buy anyway. Once the decision to quit was made, I ended up buying (much) more software than I did previously. While there was not a measurable loss at the time, there certainly was a loss (which could have been measured after the fact, had I thought to do so).
The real side that interests me is a bit deeper, which is the side of the acquirer. Does it change me if acquiring things illegally becomes my standard of behavior? Could it be similar to whether a person does the right thing because it's the right thing or just because someone else is looking? Stealing music moves me closer to the latter, which is not healthy for society or the individual. The exclusive sales argument really doesn't apply so much in a CD store - they have plenty more copies stacked in the back, and the loss they incur for a given CD is minimal. Why not just shoplift (and, if it makes you feel better, leave the estimated cost of goods in the bin)? My problem is that it invokes a very malleable sense of morality. If I can make myself believe there are no consequences for my illegal actions, it's ok. If you consider the law to be immoral, then do what you feel is right. But how many folks in the computer industry with initials other than RS really want to do away with copyright entirely? This all seems very hypocritical to me. In this sense, the physical world does serve as an accurate model. Do I have the right to take what I can get, just because I can? The Tubthumping statement points this out - apparently you feel entitled to some of the content off this horrid CD, but you do not feel obligated to pay for any of it (I certainly agree with that last part). You have a completely misplaced sense of entitlement which has developed through habit. If you did not download music illegally, you wouldn't feel like it's the RIAA's fault that you are forced to download music illegally.
Why not warez? Why do we have discussions like this about music, but not about warez? Turn the focus off of music and onto underground distribution of all things copyrighted, and then I'll buy the stance as sincere (as long as none of the arguer's living is derived from copyrighted materials in any way). Otherwise, it sounds like rationalization because of the ease, the scope, and the perceived lack of damage, which is pretty hypocritical.
I'm aware few on/. is going to take me seriously. That would mean paying for music or boycotting a really crappy distribution system. Strike back! Don't listen to Tubthumping, you brave soul, you. (you know, that is one way to avoid paying $15 for it...)
MP3's + broadband have fundamentally changed the scale of bootlegging, as well as reduced the incentive to go out and purchase the digital copy. As much as I like to rely on David Bowie as my insider source for computing trends, I'm not sure he understands how much easier it is to distribute an MP3 vs. a cassette tape. I know that my consumption of plasti-cased CD's has gone down drastically since I discovered eMusic (from ~1/week to ~1/quarter). You're really buying more CD's now than you used to, adjusted for your disposable income?
If you really want to put your (lack of) money where your mouth is, go to MP3.com & download from there. Oh- is it too hard to find stuff you like over there? Can't find artists & producers you love? Then the labels - as evil as they are - are providing you a service (at least A&R, if nothing else).
Or better yet, subscribe to eMusic or another MP3 distribution model that rewards artists, labels, and consumers (not the label-based ones, which are anti-consumer). Stop rationalizing your actions, please!
I don't like used car salesmen. They are greedy, evil, and not to be trusted. I still don't go on the lot and test-drive their cars for months without their knowledge (even if that will make me more likely to buy it in the future). Some might even call that theft! (Even though they deserve it, since they are evil and greedy.) I'm certainly not going to claim that I steal - er, borrow - the car on principle. I borrow it because the truth is that I'm a poor greedy bastard who doesn't choose to live without things I don't want to pay for.
But, since it's so much easier to steal music, I guess that makes it ok.
As much as I hate MPAA & RIAA (which I do), the "they deserve it" attitude is exactly the thing that will push Congress into draconian regulations that will take years to undo. Because of the fact that there is less structure in place to protect copyrights, the onus is on us to respect them (whether we like them or not). If we don't, that structure will be imposed and convenient little things like fair use will get thrown out with the bathwater.
This is not just a security breach. In their tech bulletin, MS advises users to completely eliminate downloadable ActiveX controls. If you recall, ActiveX was their strategy for dynamic web content. In other words, their suggested solution for dealing with this problem is to completely refute their own strategy. True, they have.NET as a replacement, but it is not quite cooked nor is it accepted publicly.
Were the public to follow their suggestion, this would be a big deal. They would basically have deprecated ActiveX controls as a dynamic content strategy (you can use what you have, but you won't get any more). You could argue that this has been done for them over the last year or so, but this is the first time I've seen them admit it.
However you look at it, having a bug that causes even a temporary strategy change is big news, regardless of how you feel about MS.
At least 2 ways to handle this:
1) Legally - take it to court & fight it. The companies will back off (after Black Friday), you will have spent a buttload of money, and you won't have achieved any lasting effect on the DMCA.
2) As a consumer - write to the four companies in question & tell them that you will not be doing Christmas shopping with them under any circumstances because of their blatent misuse of an already unconstitutional law. Then (and this is the important part) stick by it. Enough letters coupled with a slightly weaker-than-expected revenue stream during the Christmas season and they might get the point. If you want extra credit, e-mail their competitors and mention to them that the reason you will be shopping with them instead of BestBuy or Target is because of this issue. That might help prevent copycats. Plus, you'll have the peace of mind knowing that you're taking the only stand they will ever listen to.
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I've avoided illegal sites only slightly more than I've avoided paying the RIAA. Before I joined over a year ago, I did research on AllOfMp3. All the data I could find (including the lack of data, unlike the Spanish sites) suggested very strongly that they had exploited international copyright law but had done so legally. So I loved it. As for their market of distribution, that's a little pointless nowdays. If I travel to Moscow, buy a (legal) CD, and come back to the states with it, have I violated copyright law? I am as uptight as it gets when it comes to copyright violation, but until I see that this is illegal (and not just shut down because the RIAA pays the Moscow police off), I'm loving it.
While I agree that this is classic doublespeak, I also think that the most egregious error is that the memo doesn't address the issue that most concerned the EA spouse and which most alarmed me as a member of the IT community: The intentional permanent crunch status. In the memo, this VP - much like every other knowledgable software professional, makes implicit assumptions that crunch mode qualifies for exceptions. For example,
In addition, the memo describes time saving approaches, implicitly suggesting that the overtime reqs are caused by technical issues. However, the truly horrifying part about the EA Spouse letter was not that crunch times happen, but that "crunch time" had come to characterize the entire development lifecycle and was part of the normal schedule. This is not a tech problem; this means that sales, product management, and engineering management are assuming a full-time crunch mode. (Heaven forbid something unexpected actually come up, but I guess when all you're doing is writing sequal #15, the risks of the unknown are somewhat diminished.)
So, the real problem is that EA has normalized its requirements and sizing process to expect an 80 hour week. All the technology improvements and "crunch time" improvements in the world will not make life better for the employees, since under this assumption, time savings gained through technology will be accounted for and "spent" to add more features. Fixing this problem requires a reset & an explicit commitment to change from the e-staff, or else the successful PM/PM tandems will be those who successfully extract sweatshop-type of attendance. Since this memo refused to include even an oblique reference to attempting to address this core problem, it just doesn't seem realistic to believe any true change will occur.
One more thing - I wonder just how many employees are thrilled at working for the biggest entertainment behemoth the industry has ever known?
In other words, much like a movie theater can oust an unruly citizen even after the citizen has paid for a ticket, the public has the right to expect some standards of behavior from leasors of the scarce broadcast spectrum. It is our property. One of the standards of behavior that seems reasonable to expect is support for the Bill of Rights; that is, the leasor should not be able to use the lease of the scarce resources to suppress a political view that the owners do not agree with. Should this be allowed to happen, it would only be natural that the corporations would support whichever political group is most likely to maximize their profits. This would be an abuse of the public trust. This abuse would quickly move past tyranny of the majority to tyranny of the very wealthy minority.
Unfortunately, CBS/Viacom has abused the trust in this manner. This is what they were being called on, rightfully.
When they no longer use scarce public resources - for instance, when they start putting out pamphlets rather than tv programs - they will no longer bear the burden of the responsibility of public accountability. Then, they can be as one-sided as they wish.
However, the article suggested that these kids are foster kids, which means that at a minimum they were victims of neglect to the extent that the state stepped in and removed them from their birth parents.
It's likely that a number of these kids were victims of sexual abuse. Needless to say, many of them have views on sexual issues that are warped by their experience. A predator would likely know how to take advantage of their experience.
Also, typically, the goal is to re-unite them with their parents. Obviously, some of these parents are not worth anything. But a number of them are genuinely trying to do whatever they can to make their family right. This doesn't help.
My wife works with kids in this situation, and I don't know any names ever. I don't want to know, and she takes her commitment to their confidentiality very seriously.
I hope we get to hear what becomes of Mr. Mark Dennis, the fine bleeding-edge developer who had to ask RentACoder for database formatting help. It would only be fitting if we all got to experience his worst or most vulnerable moment. I'll turn it into HTML for $15.
I think his point was that the two cultures started out with two very different goals, and the easiest & most concrete way to sum it up is by describing the expected end-user: programmer vs. unskilled novice.
I did not perceive from his article that he advocated one over the other; rather, I thought he was describing what he considered to be the essential pressure dividing the two cultures. This was a pretty neat point, I thought, and explains some of the frustrations I've experienced working with folks from both cultures.
Of course, I had to actually read the article all the way through to get the point, so that probably just shows how far behind I am in terms of /. indoctrination.
But aren't Sun and IBM doing that to make that happen? And IBM and Sun are investing a lot of money to make sure their software works with their respective utility computing programs. What are you doing besides saying we'll sit down with you and work on it? It's interesting. We've spent $2.5 billion in Adaptive Enterprise. That's a pretty healthy R&D investment, so I disagree that we're not investing in technology.
What??? What exactly are you doing? heck, forget "exactly" - can you give us one glimpse into what, other than a standard consulting gig - is involved in AE? You've made a "tech investment" of 2.5 billion, but you can't even approach describing what that 2.5 billion worth of technology is? Does SCO own the intellectual property rights? Unbelievable. Fun & sad to read. Wrong person to sit for the wrong interview.
The reward, though, is getting turned onto bands that you would have never found out about otherwise. You download 20 CD's in a month, and out of those you find 2 new bands that you think are really cool. You can then check the "you might like" links and branch out from there. Over a couple of years, you wind up with a pretty good education in indie music. It had the potential to really elevate indie music to a new level of acceptance (like IFC & Sundance try to do for indie film).
but not anymore. That's what people are complaining about. I'd be willing to pay more per month, but I won't pay to lose the joys of exploration. The reason eMusic will hurt from this is that their catalog is really not strong enough in mainstream music selections to provide a compelling value proposition other than the joy of exploration. Of the 400-500 CD's (not tracks) I've downloaded, there are probably 100 that I think are really good. That's 20%. At 40 tracks a month, that means I'll average out 8 really good songs a month; if I'm lucky, those will be on one CD & I'll discover - when I'm lucky - 1 new band I like a month.
It's not about the cost per song I like. It's somewhat about the cost of songs I don't like, but moreso about the loss of exploration. It's the same reason people want to hold onto Kazaa, but we were exploring legally & in a socially responsible manner. It's the loss of discovery that's killing me, not the price per song.
Before eMusic, I was not even familiar with Mogwai(!), much less bands like Wheat, South San Gabriel, Mark Eitzel, or Claire Voyant. I'm not in college anymore - eMusic was my connection to new, non-corporate album-oriented music. And now that connection is lost.
I feel like an idiot for turning folks onto eMusic. I had a number of friends subscribe on my recommendation, and I've given out several 3-month subs as Christmas gifts.
I've found a lot of music I wasn't crazy about, but I found a lot of music I really enjoyed that I would have never found otherwise. The big deal was that for $10 I could download 50 CD's to find 5-10 that were just killer. I've found easily 30 bands that I consider great that I would not have found otherwise. (And quite a few more good ones.)
Basically, what made eMusic great were the same reasons that many say they use P2P, but it was socially responsible.
Now, though, I have to agree with you. With only 3 CD's to grab, I have to know what I like before I get it. And as for stuff that I _know_ I'm going to like beforehand, eMusic's catalog is pretty thin.
Before this, if you had the time to invest in exploring stuff you didn't already know, it was great. I'd pay $20 - $25 a month just to keep it like it was. But $50 a month for limited downloads is crap.
I am grieving today.
What?
You're looking for the keys under the lamppost, I think. Scientology and Christianity are quite different in many ways, but disregarding that (which it sounds like you are), anytime there are people willing to demonstrate faith, there are unscrupulous bastards willing to take advantage of them.
So these two are worse than Confucianism was at times? They're worse than the way the invading Aryans manipulated Hinduism? Or maybe - just maybe - you don't like Christianity because of some issues in your past. You've read about the abuses that were committed as part of different organized versions of Christianity-based religions (or maybe watched a documentary about Jim Bakker), and you've decided that Christianity has been the worst abused religion - ever! And oh, since someone said something about Scientology, I'll use this as an opporunity to rant about Christianity, because talking about the abuses of the Catholic Church is so - gasp - shocking.
Wow. Wish my world were that simple. You have blinding issues, dude.
However, the end-user licensing (with no specific allegations of what is & what is not infringing) is ridiculous. Another post dealt with that very well.
So, if there are infringements (which I doubt - else they would have made their case public by now), then their compensation would be from the distributors - I'd personally go after Red Hat, but I guess IBM's got more legs in terms of press coverage.
The bad news is that it's working for now. The stock is going up, and I'll bet that at least one of two major holders are going to take advantage of this to the extent they can. So, SCO will die, but the folks who tried to screw everyone (and who finished off SCO with this nonsense) will walk away even richer than they were before.
In most of my favorite discs, the songs I liked the least on first listen tend to be the ones I treasure the most over time. It seems a shame that so many folks miss out on this by being so "single"-minded.
P.S. As for features, check out eMusic. Take away the new 45-song queuing limit & you have the perfect music service. $10/month is a steal.
In a sense, intellectual property laws substitute a temporary monopoly for patronage. This allows the creator to reap patronage benefits through the marketplace of ideas, instead of relying on one aristocrat's misguided taste. Can you imagine what Dubya would sanction? Or Santorum?
Nightmares aside, the problem isn't with the concept of copyright, but with the way it has been institutionalized. (The abuse of copyright has been comcomitant with the overall corporate takeover of American Democracy, but that's for another rant.) A 7 year copyright with solid fair use rights is a great idea. A one hundred year limit with 50-year or total rights transfers being the norm is an abuse. The problem isn't with copyright - it's with the way copyright law has changed over the last 20 years.
Free exchange of ideas only takes place if the inventor has some reason to share the idea. Otherwise, human nature is to protect the idea and use it for your own benefit. Thus, elimination of intellectual property laws in this day & age would stifle expression of ideas, not increase it.
BTW, get arrested if you want credibility on the whole protest thing. Copying Eminem late night using campus computers isn't a protest statement unless you get caught (and don't back down). You wanna protest? Go to the front steps of the Capitol building & start clearly & publicly making & distributing CD's to which you do not have IP rights. Now that's a protest. Spend several years in jail & then you'll have a following.
The 2 Live Crew/Roy Orbison case was an instance of this. 2Live asked for permission to parody Pretty Woman, which Orbison declined. they went ahead & did it anyway, Orbison sued, and the courts upheld the right to parody. And the parody sucked, too, so quality of parody is unimportant.
For a summary of the case, check out http://www.ladas.com/BULLETINS/1994/0694Bulletin/U S_ParodyAsFairUse.html
It is illegal to conspire to murder or cause terror. In these cases, however, the govt. must still present an accusation and evidence that you have actually done something (i.e., conspired). This still accepts the notion that freedom demands that there be evidence of conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt. Someone accused of conspiracy is entitled to the same due process.
If there were evidence that this guy has done something knowingly wrong, they wouldn't have to hold him under the material witness rule. No judge in the country is going to grant bail to a suspected terrorist with significant evidence weighing against him. The fact that he is being held the way he is indicts the govt.
We need someone to help us understand that as scared as we are, we can't trade freedom for security. Pre-emptive arrests, pre-emptive war -- they are a bad, bad road.
1) Civil Disobedience. It doesn't work unless you are using it to make people aware of an inequity in the system. Unfortunately, if the folks who hold IP rights choose to not make that IP available to you on the grounds you want them to (trial ownership or preferably free), this doesn't sound like inequity. It sounds like it's just not the way you want it. It is not something that can be equated with civil rights sit-ins. So, I think the folks who claim this route are pretty much just whiny crybabies who want more CD's than they an pay for. Prove me wrong - get arrested for the cause (not the act). Get others to stage public violations of copyright, and get arrested on camera. That will prove your point most effectively (whatever your point may be).
2) Since the bottom line is that you don't like their business model, don't subscribe to it. Choose not to listen to RIAA labels. Go indy all the way. Convince others to do the same. Sign up for EMusic or another full-service download medium & give trial periods to your friends. That way, you are exploiting your power as a consumer. Eventually, this approach forces the RIAA to realize that the only viable solution is a reformed business model, not piracy crackdowns. Yes, this is slow (and it also means that you don't get every song you want right when you want it), but if file sharing use dropped off, & EMusic's revenues went sky-high while PressPlay languished, and CD sales still were in the toilet, the RIAA would be forced to change to a consumer-friendly model.
Violating the law - the real one, not the "college one" (which is about as accurate as the 10-minute rule and the Suicide A's) - is guaranteed to get more restrictive legislation passed. There's clearly a problem. We know the fundamental problem is in the business model, but the illegal underground activity masks that real reason. And yes, it is illegal, whether you think it should be or not. Fair use does not cover consumer-determined trial IP violation without the IP-holder's consent.
I've bought 2-3 major label CD's in the last year. The last time I copied music was from CD-to-cassette in 1989. I download about 20 CD's a month from EMusic. It is possible.
The independent claims are the important part. There are 4 (#1, #10, #24, & #27). The first two are more about the producer, whereas the last two are about the consumer.
#1: Auction process of web page display space. (Since it does not presume automation, this probably has some severe prior art issues. However, an automated bid process might have some footing.)
#10: Point-based purchasing system for web page display space. (I have no idea if this has any merit or not. I would bet this has been done in non-advertising web pages before. They might be asked to make this more specific.)
#24: Targeted ad exclusion & replacement based on user responses to previous ads for products like it. (Notice that this is not specific to web pages, but to computer systems. Since your digital cable box can probably be considered a computing system, this might have some crossover effect with some of the ad targeting pursued by cable companies, although it does take into account measuring user response.)
#27: Targeted ad inclusion. (Same basic stuff as #24 except inclusion-based, not exclusion-based)
Pretty interesting. I wonder if folks are doing #24 & 27 yet. You would think so, but that requires pretty good user tracking.
That means 12% said that they believed what they were doing was hurting artists, but that it wasn't wrong. Who are these people? What _would_ be wrong in their minds?
On the other hand, it seems surprising that the Republican administration made up 12% of the sample size.
From a computer perspective, I believe this is a little like associating several addresses with each other. Sure, you could keep those addresses around forever, but what do they mean? Also, what happens when the contents change over time?
Interestingly enough, implicit learning can take place without the hippocampus. (This is stuff you know but don't know that you know.) It's the ability to form memories that can be remembered explicitly & on demand that gets lost. So, it may be that the hippocampus connects frontal lobes with the associated areas (some of which may also be frontal, but some of which are definitely in other areas, such as temporal - words & figures - & occipital - vision).
It's going to be a while before this gets used in humans. Hopefully. Maybe with a wireless device, it could be part of the TIA work?
In addition to the patent/vendor lock-in issues (which are very serious), there's also the risk that consumers will still buy very little stuff. If my assumptions are accurate, if a consumer only buys one or two songs a month, Peppercorn is screwed instead of the merchant.
The only ways this makes a lot of sense is if 1)Peppercorn enlists a wide, broad base of merchants providing heterogeneous services (i.e., if I don't want to pay $10 to eMusic, than I don't plan on spending $10 on song downloads, but I might spend $10 on songs, news, games, etc. combined) or 2) Peppercorn requires some minimum monthly investment, which gets you right back to the subscription model.
The part of this that bothers me is that the folks doing this profited from it. The end result of allowing this to stand is a reduced incentive to provide content. For example, if I put up a satellite and anyone else can legally decrypt the info and sell it for less while I try to recoup my investment in the satellite, why would I send the satellite up there?
Either content provision/distribution needs to be socialized, or we have to protect their investment for some period of time.
I still hate the DMCA, but this should be prevented.
Just because I can't measure the loss directly doesn't mean it doesn't occur. The truth is that we don't know, but just because we don't know does not mean loss does not occur. I agree with your argument regarding the exclusive possession differences. However, before I made the decision to stop illegally copying software several years back, I would justify copying by saying I would only copy things that I wouldn't buy anyway. Once the decision to quit was made, I ended up buying (much) more software than I did previously. While there was not a measurable loss at the time, there certainly was a loss (which could have been measured after the fact, had I thought to do so).
The real side that interests me is a bit deeper, which is the side of the acquirer. Does it change me if acquiring things illegally becomes my standard of behavior? Could it be similar to whether a person does the right thing because it's the right thing or just because someone else is looking? Stealing music moves me closer to the latter, which is not healthy for society or the individual. The exclusive sales argument really doesn't apply so much in a CD store - they have plenty more copies stacked in the back, and the loss they incur for a given CD is minimal. Why not just shoplift (and, if it makes you feel better, leave the estimated cost of goods in the bin)? My problem is that it invokes a very malleable sense of morality. If I can make myself believe there are no consequences for my illegal actions, it's ok. If you consider the law to be immoral, then do what you feel is right. But how many folks in the computer industry with initials other than RS really want to do away with copyright entirely? This all seems very hypocritical to me. In this sense, the physical world does serve as an accurate model. Do I have the right to take what I can get, just because I can? The Tubthumping statement points this out - apparently you feel entitled to some of the content off this horrid CD, but you do not feel obligated to pay for any of it (I certainly agree with that last part). You have a completely misplaced sense of entitlement which has developed through habit. If you did not download music illegally, you wouldn't feel like it's the RIAA's fault that you are forced to download music illegally.
Why not warez? Why do we have discussions like this about music, but not about warez? Turn the focus off of music and onto underground distribution of all things copyrighted, and then I'll buy the stance as sincere (as long as none of the arguer's living is derived from copyrighted materials in any way). Otherwise, it sounds like rationalization because of the ease, the scope, and the perceived lack of damage, which is pretty hypocritical.
I'm aware few on /. is going to take me seriously. That would mean paying for music or boycotting a really crappy distribution system. Strike back! Don't listen to Tubthumping, you brave soul, you. (you know, that is one way to avoid paying $15 for it...)
MP3's + broadband have fundamentally changed the scale of bootlegging, as well as reduced the incentive to go out and purchase the digital copy. As much as I like to rely on David Bowie as my insider source for computing trends, I'm not sure he understands how much easier it is to distribute an MP3 vs. a cassette tape. I know that my consumption of plasti-cased CD's has gone down drastically since I discovered eMusic (from ~1/week to ~1/quarter). You're really buying more CD's now than you used to, adjusted for your disposable income?
If you really want to put your (lack of) money where your mouth is, go to MP3.com & download from there. Oh- is it too hard to find stuff you like over there? Can't find artists & producers you love? Then the labels - as evil as they are - are providing you a service (at least A&R, if nothing else).
Or better yet, subscribe to eMusic or another MP3 distribution model that rewards artists, labels, and consumers (not the label-based ones, which are anti-consumer). Stop rationalizing your actions, please!
I don't like used car salesmen. They are greedy, evil, and not to be trusted. I still don't go on the lot and test-drive their cars for months without their knowledge (even if that will make me more likely to buy it in the future). Some might even call that theft! (Even though they deserve it, since they are evil and greedy.) I'm certainly not going to claim that I steal - er, borrow - the car on principle. I borrow it because the truth is that I'm a poor greedy bastard who doesn't choose to live without things I don't want to pay for.
But, since it's so much easier to steal music, I guess that makes it ok.
As much as I hate MPAA & RIAA (which I do), the "they deserve it" attitude is exactly the thing that will push Congress into draconian regulations that will take years to undo. Because of the fact that there is less structure in place to protect copyrights, the onus is on us to respect them (whether we like them or not). If we don't, that structure will be imposed and convenient little things like fair use will get thrown out with the bathwater.
Were the public to follow their suggestion, this would be a big deal. They would basically have deprecated ActiveX controls as a dynamic content strategy (you can use what you have, but you won't get any more). You could argue that this has been done for them over the last year or so, but this is the first time I've seen them admit it.
However you look at it, having a bug that causes even a temporary strategy change is big news, regardless of how you feel about MS.
At least 2 ways to handle this: 1) Legally - take it to court & fight it. The companies will back off (after Black Friday), you will have spent a buttload of money, and you won't have achieved any lasting effect on the DMCA. 2) As a consumer - write to the four companies in question & tell them that you will not be doing Christmas shopping with them under any circumstances because of their blatent misuse of an already unconstitutional law. Then (and this is the important part) stick by it. Enough letters coupled with a slightly weaker-than-expected revenue stream during the Christmas season and they might get the point. If you want extra credit, e-mail their competitors and mention to them that the reason you will be shopping with them instead of BestBuy or Target is because of this issue. That might help prevent copycats. Plus, you'll have the peace of mind knowing that you're taking the only stand they will ever listen to.