I actually am exchanging mp3's with my boss. It's great to work for a company with 50 people and having been there when there were only 15 - that was only a little more than a year ago.
Reminds me that I need to borrow some DVD's from him soon..:)
deCss allows you to rip movies off of DVD's, but the resulting movie file is way too large to be useful to anyone for transportation. And they get sued for making a utility that allows for piracy.
I'd say that DivX's ability to make the movie size small enough for transfer (at least more reasonable than before) makes me curious why MPAA isn't going for them. I mean, RIAA is going after mp3 and all.
Interesting.. they should really reform copyright law into distribution law.
I'm sure that would create new problems but at least it allow you to do whatever you want with a product for your own uses.
I disagree with what the MPAA is trying to accomplish, but some DVD's are just worth the money.
Without even going into the piracy issue, it's simply a plain fact that a DVD can be marvellous. When you really are a movie fanatic, DivX doesn't cut it:
no extra features such as behind-the-scenes, trailers, etc
no Dolby Digital 5.1 track (let alone DTS) but crappy mp3 sound
no subtitles, alternative audio tracks, commentaries
Actually, BetaMax was from JVC. Philips had the Video2000 system which was far superior to VHS but unfortunately the lack of titles (and yes, pr0n) caused a quick death.
A mistake Philips made again with CD-i(nteractive) and DCC (digital cassette).
Here in Europe even well-established and respected manufacturers such as Philips (Magnavox for you Americans) have released a region free DVD player. Not as a hidden feature, but with a big label on the box. More proof that silly and stupid ideas such as region codes do not work and are not accepted by the consumer.
Within a few years it will probably be hard to find any players that only support a single region code.
If you really want to, you will always be able to find the right information sources. Therefore the smarter folks will find the smaller sites and get smarter. The general public will get stuck with the large propaganda channels and get only as smart as they big corporations want them to be.
Nothing new, really. There is a tremenodous amount of information and news available on the Net, in libraries, in newspapers, everywhere. Yet there is a large amount of people who depend on TV for their "information" and in some cases (even sadder) for their "eduction".
The real question we should ask ourselves isn't whether independant sources of information will dissapear but whether the gap between well-informed human beings and brain-dead popcorn morons will grow big enough to create (even more) social (economical, environmental, political) problems.
My mail client (mutt) works great for me, especially when sorting on threads. I have not seen a news client or web forum that gives me the same "I'm a happy user" feeling.
I like the push technology of mail. Everything is delivered to me automatically, no need to pick up the information anywhere.
The most relevant list I am asking this for is a rather small but busy one called it-friends. Half of my IT friends are Linux users, the other half use Windows. Every post is off-topic and that's really fine with all of us, that's exactly why the list is fun.
I cannot enforce policies on my friends by moderating manually: too much work. And I'd like to keep my friends so unsubscribing them for their lack of Netiquette cannot be done. They all know I have a policy to send decent replies and I inform them to use it often - which always results into nice discussions and mockery.
At the moment I am thinking of writing a simple filter that will bounce a mail when it sees regular lines before "> Original message".
Who is to say that there can't be life based on pure enery, or a crystal of some type that has no carbon or is based of any elements we even know of.
There might very well be.
But the conditions on the moon, Mars et al are not completely different from Earth. Most if not all objects within our solar system were formed from the same glue. Therefore it is very logical to look for carbon based life forms that require water and thus to look for water.
Looking for water on the moon and Mars makes even more sense, because we are not just looking for Et but also for a possible habitat for ourselves.
Of course there migh be crystal based lifeform. But since we haven't encountered anything like it right here on Earth we wouldn't even know what to look for out there, would we?
This sort of behavior can only stifle innovation. If we allow it, then valuable companies like Microsoft will stop inventing useful technology, and America will fall behind countries with sensible prohibitions on reverse engineering.
I'll take the bait.
What kind of innovation? Microsoft has done a reasonable job at _implementing_ technology (with a little help by stealing or if you prefer buying it from others) and a great job at delivering their goods to the market.
When I think of innovation I think of the guys who originally wrote ICQ, or Napster. And for example, bringing us back on topic: Jabber.
For reasons unknown to me, there are at least two major instant messaging systems owned by AOL: ICQ and AIM. Microsoft has something like that as well IIRC. Instead of those technologies working together, they try to make sure they don't.
Jabber allows people to install *one* IM client and communicate with users of all these other systems, making instant messaging a useful product again. Now that's innovation. And it does require reverse engineering the AIM/ICQ protocols.
Besides, suppose a company is actually good at innovation. Anyone reverse engineering a product will _always_ lag behind.
Of course the answer to the original question would be that the company should be held liable for delivering sloppy work. The Pig Lating example is a bit over the top but illustrates nicely. Any encryption method that doesn't scale with DES,MD5 and the likes should not be allowed to walk around freely in software that is being advertise as secure.
If the DMCA changes that then very soon I will send an e-mail encrypted into 1's and 0's and sue the reader (or maker of his/her mail client or OS) for everse engineering.
That's ironic, considering that the whole idea of splitting MS is for supposed anti-competitive practices in the first place.
True enough, but there is a slight difference between integrating a web browser and simply providing a zip utility. IMHO a simple compression tool is really something that should come with the OS.
They can include Notepad, not Office. They can include a simple zip/unzip tool, not Archiver 2000 (or whatever neat backup and compression suite there is).
I never got the two-part split up. If apps gets everything but the OS then there's still a big company that will integrate Office, IE, DirectX, MS-Java^H^H^H^H^H^H^HC#, IIS, ASP, services, MSN and paperclips. I believe Apps will be a lot stronger than OS.
On the other hand - bare OS might have to deliver some good stuff to stay alive. And finally include a zip/unzip utility by default for example.
Seems like this MS break-up debate will probably be endless, but so will the procedure be. Don't expect any change the next few years.
Wait until you've found a few sites which catch your right mouse button click with some Javascript to make sure you cannot use it for browser functions anymore.
Unfortunately for IE users some functions such as "Open in new window" are _only_ available from the RMB popup. I'm glad all major browsers on Un*x use the third mouse button for this.
A file is no more than data stored on a computer. There is no way to totally block file transfers. it would undermine the very principle of free speech.
We need to keep an eye on this, though. I am positive it will not be the end of the Internet because of the huge negative feedback and resistance - but that's why we need to keep an eye on it: we *are* the Internet. Not those silly computers that are connected. No, us, who have been around here a while and share ideals and principles. It is our job to make sure we protect those interests.. and because we will, this will not be the end of the Internet.
You should start by submitting your game to the various software repositories. Most of them also list commercial software and I have found such places a great medium for people to find your software. Worked for me.
Re:Spread the message, brothers
on
Copyrant
·
· Score: 1
The UCITA might not propose hell in so many exact words, but look at the implications.
The UCITA could allow clauses in licenses that will make Samba and Wine truly impossible. It might even make it impossible to create drivers for Linux. DeCSS already is under tons of fire.
I must admit that when I made implications that I should have labeled them as such and I will not dispute your understanding of the UCITA. If you feel accused, please accept my apologies and consider what I said retracted.
I just fear that free software is not really the solution because the corporate control these companies are reaching for has impacts on a wider terrain than software alone: your uplink provider, your news feed, your hardware.
Re:Spread the message, brothers
on
Copyrant
·
· Score: 2
Nonsense. There's no magic in cellophane.
You don't seem to understand the impact of the UCITA. It is a law proposal that will exactly do that: put the magic in cellophane.
Short version of UCITA: The developer has FULL liability unless waivered by a shrink-wrapped license.
You're right, at the moment. But with the UCITA in action, your no warranty clause in the GPL would be overruled by law. Underestimating this is exactly the danger we're facing!
Re:Spread the message, brothers
on
Copyrant
·
· Score: 2
Well, I'm Dutch, so I am not (yet) directly affected either. But I trust European politicians will screw up with the same elegancy as USA ones do.
Besides, politicians don't have any power. They are just the medium, the power is with the huge companies with big money. Or at least it is moving towards them at an incredible rate.
The basic problem is that law isn't keeping up with reality. I think every society or culture has had this problem and I also think they always will. At the certain point a border is crossed and there's a civil war or revolution, new declarations of rights.. which will slowly become out-of-date resulting in new conflicts.
It's nothing new, it has been happening to civilizations for ages. But it still sucks to be living at a point where it seems like we're nearing the point where freedom is in danger.
Re:Spread the message, brothers
on
Copyrant
·
· Score: 3
OSS can be the answer to all of these problems of course.
Not so naieve, please. If you look at the big picture, you'll see the OSS movement will be screwed by the UCITA.
No shrink-wrapped license? Too bad, all liability is for the programmer. Unless we fight the UCITA (among other problems), we might be in serious legal trouble for every little bug. After all, we cannot waiver liability like shrink-wrapped software can.
You think there is something wrong with current licensing models? There is a lot more wrong with a law that will legally recognize these and at the same time make all others such as the GPL void.
And you won't even be able to complain about it because they can forbid that in their license and the UCITA would actually grant them that right.
Now all we need to do is bring them all together, and shout about it.
I'll suport you 100% on that. This is getting far beyond software licenses though. Democracy, freedom.. we're living in a "pecuniacracy", where money seems to be in control and not the people.
I wonder if we could sue our government for malpractice if they actually allow all this. They are here to represent _our_ needs, right?
Or at least not by an independent group or even a collaboration of various parties or an organization standing up for consumer rights.
Office file formats have become the de facto standard, not any of the well documented open text/data formatting standards. The HTML specifications are not the standard, the way MSIE renders HTML is. MP4 was embraced and extended/altered by Microsoft even before it was a standard.
There are probably even better examples, and non-Microsoft ones as well. They deserve to be bullied but their are a symptom, not the disease. The real disease are the huge companies:
Five years ago there was a lot of rumble about mega-fusions resulting in mega-corporations. I shrugged. Now, I see AOL/Time Warner, Microsoft, Viacom, UPC etcetera and start to get scared, because these big corporations do not only control the standards, they make them.
They have no or little interest in consumer benefits. Money is their primary (only?) motivation. Communism was a good idea in theory, but failed in practice. And perhaps capitalism is being driven too far and this might eventually make an end to it as we know it as well.
Think about it: the UCITA, the whole Napster/Gnutella affair, deCSS, human beings even _considering_ a hyperlink could be copyright infringement..
My apologies for this possible piece of flamebait. But the big buck is already starting to undermine certain principles of the democracy and freedom we enjoy and I am worried it will only get worse and worse.
This might have had a chance before the.com rush and big Internet hype, but not anymore. As much as I'd like it to happen, you cannot just move.com to.co.us (or wherever) and do the same for.gov.mil.edu.org.net etcetera. There would be way too much pressure from current.com domain owners. "I paid for two years, didn't I!"
The only solution might be to stop new registrations for theses TLD's and let the TLD expire in two years while giving a nice offer to those who need a transfer.
Slashdot Mirror
Reminds me that I need to borrow some DVD's from him soon.. :)
And what about The Simpsons?
Southpark anyone?
I'd say that DivX's ability to make the movie size small enough for transfer (at least more reasonable than before) makes me curious why MPAA isn't going for them. I mean, RIAA is going after mp3 and all.
Interesting.. they should really reform copyright law into distribution law.
I'm sure that would create new problems but at least it allow you to do whatever you want with a product for your own uses.
I disagree with what the MPAA is trying to accomplish, but some DVD's are just worth the money.
Without even going into the piracy issue, it's simply a plain fact that a DVD can be marvellous. When you really are a movie fanatic, DivX doesn't cut it:
Sorry, but I won't settle for DivX.
A mistake Philips made again with CD-i(nteractive) and DCC (digital cassette).
Within a few years it will probably be hard to find any players that only support a single region code.
Nothing new, really. There is a tremenodous amount of information and news available on the Net, in libraries, in newspapers, everywhere. Yet there is a large amount of people who depend on TV for their "information" and in some cases (even sadder) for their "eduction".
The real question we should ask ourselves isn't whether independant sources of information will dissapear but whether the gap between well-informed human beings and brain-dead popcorn morons will grow big enough to create (even more) social (economical, environmental, political) problems.
Not for me:
I cannot enforce policies on my friends by moderating manually: too much work. And I'd like to keep my friends so unsubscribing them for their lack of Netiquette cannot be done. They all know I have a policy to send decent replies and I inform them to use it often - which always results into nice discussions and mockery.
At the moment I am thinking of writing a simple filter that will bounce a mail when it sees regular lines before "> Original message".
There might very well be.
But the conditions on the moon, Mars et al are not completely different from Earth. Most if not all objects within our solar system were formed from the same glue. Therefore it is very logical to look for carbon based life forms that require water and thus to look for water.
Looking for water on the moon and Mars makes even more sense, because we are not just looking for Et but also for a possible habitat for ourselves.
Of course there migh be crystal based lifeform. But since we haven't encountered anything like it right here on Earth we wouldn't even know what to look for out there, would we?
I'll take the bait.
What kind of innovation? Microsoft has done a reasonable job at _implementing_ technology (with a little help by stealing or if you prefer buying it from others) and a great job at delivering their goods to the market.
When I think of innovation I think of the guys who originally wrote ICQ, or Napster. And for example, bringing us back on topic: Jabber.
For reasons unknown to me, there are at least two major instant messaging systems owned by AOL: ICQ and AIM. Microsoft has something like that as well IIRC. Instead of those technologies working together, they try to make sure they don't.
Jabber allows people to install *one* IM client and communicate with users of all these other systems, making instant messaging a useful product again. Now that's innovation. And it does require reverse engineering the AIM/ICQ protocols.
Besides, suppose a company is actually good at innovation. Anyone reverse engineering a product will _always_ lag behind.
Of course the answer to the original question would be that the company should be held liable for delivering sloppy work. The Pig Lating example is a bit over the top but illustrates nicely. Any encryption method that doesn't scale with DES,MD5 and the likes should not be allowed to walk around freely in software that is being advertise as secure.
If the DMCA changes that then very soon I will send an e-mail encrypted into 1's and 0's and sue the reader (or maker of his/her mail client or OS) for everse engineering.
True enough, but there is a slight difference between integrating a web browser and simply providing a zip utility. IMHO a simple compression tool is really something that should come with the OS.
They can include Notepad, not Office. They can include a simple zip/unzip tool, not Archiver 2000 (or whatever neat backup and compression suite there is).
I never got the two-part split up. If apps gets everything but the OS then there's still a big company that will integrate Office, IE, DirectX, MS-Java^H^H^H^H^H^H^HC#, IIS, ASP, services, MSN and paperclips. I believe Apps will be a lot stronger than OS.
On the other hand - bare OS might have to deliver some good stuff to stay alive. And finally include a zip/unzip utility by default for example.
Seems like this MS break-up debate will probably be endless, but so will the procedure be. Don't expect any change the next few years.
I usually use joe, it updates the screen every minute because it has a clock in the title. Besides, having an editor open never hurts, right?
Since I do most of my work in screen, ^Ac joe has become a rather standard procedure for me.
Unfortunately for IE users some functions such as "Open in new window" are _only_ available from the RMB popup. I'm glad all major browsers on Un*x use the third mouse button for this.
A file is no more than data stored on a computer. There is no way to totally block file transfers. it would undermine the very principle of free speech.
We need to keep an eye on this, though. I am positive it will not be the end of the Internet because of the huge negative feedback and resistance - but that's why we need to keep an eye on it: we *are* the Internet. Not those silly computers that are connected. No, us, who have been around here a while and share ideals and principles. It is our job to make sure we protect those interests.. and because we will, this will not be the end of the Internet.
I wouldn't allow it to be. Would you?
You should start by submitting your game to the various software repositories. Most of them also list commercial software and I have found such places a great medium for people to find your software. Worked for me.
The UCITA could allow clauses in licenses that will make Samba and Wine truly impossible. It might even make it impossible to create drivers for Linux. DeCSS already is under tons of fire.
I must admit that when I made implications that I should have labeled them as such and I will not dispute your understanding of the UCITA. If you feel accused, please accept my apologies and consider what I said retracted.
I just fear that free software is not really the solution because the corporate control these companies are reaching for has impacts on a wider terrain than software alone: your uplink provider, your news feed, your hardware.
You don't seem to understand the impact of the UCITA. It is a law proposal that will exactly do that: put the magic in cellophane.
Short version of UCITA: The developer has FULL liability unless waivered by a shrink-wrapped license.
You're right, at the moment. But with the UCITA in action, your no warranty clause in the GPL would be overruled by law. Underestimating this is exactly the danger we're facing!
Besides, politicians don't have any power. They are just the medium, the power is with the huge companies with big money. Or at least it is moving towards them at an incredible rate.
The basic problem is that law isn't keeping up with reality. I think every society or culture has had this problem and I also think they always will. At the certain point a border is crossed and there's a civil war or revolution, new declarations of rights.. which will slowly become out-of-date resulting in new conflicts.
It's nothing new, it has been happening to civilizations for ages. But it still sucks to be living at a point where it seems like we're nearing the point where freedom is in danger.
Not so naieve, please. If you look at the big picture, you'll see the OSS movement will be screwed by the UCITA.
No shrink-wrapped license? Too bad, all liability is for the programmer. Unless we fight the UCITA (among other problems), we might be in serious legal trouble for every little bug. After all, we cannot waiver liability like shrink-wrapped software can.
You think there is something wrong with current licensing models? There is a lot more wrong with a law that will legally recognize these and at the same time make all others such as the GPL void.
And you won't even be able to complain about it because they can forbid that in their license and the UCITA would actually grant them that right.
Now all we need to do is bring them all together, and shout about it.
I'll suport you 100% on that. This is getting far beyond software licenses though. Democracy, freedom.. we're living in a "pecuniacracy", where money seems to be in control and not the people.
I wonder if we could sue our government for malpractice if they actually allow all this. They are here to represent _our_ needs, right?
Not.
Or at least not by an independent group or even a collaboration of various parties or an organization standing up for consumer rights.
Office file formats have become the de facto standard, not any of the well documented open text/data formatting standards. The HTML specifications are not the standard, the way MSIE renders HTML is. MP4 was embraced and extended/altered by Microsoft even before it was a standard.
There are probably even better examples, and non-Microsoft ones as well. They deserve to be bullied but their are a symptom, not the disease. The real disease are the huge companies:
Five years ago there was a lot of rumble about mega-fusions resulting in mega-corporations. I shrugged. Now, I see AOL/Time Warner, Microsoft, Viacom, UPC etcetera and start to get scared, because these big corporations do not only control the standards, they make them.
They have no or little interest in consumer benefits. Money is their primary (only?) motivation. Communism was a good idea in theory, but failed in practice. And perhaps capitalism is being driven too far and this might eventually make an end to it as we know it as well.
Think about it: the UCITA, the whole Napster/Gnutella affair, deCSS, human beings even _considering_ a hyperlink could be copyright infringement..
My apologies for this possible piece of flamebait. But the big buck is already starting to undermine certain principles of the democracy and freedom we enjoy and I am worried it will only get worse and worse.
End of rant..
Watching Southpark and 'Blame Canada' would never be the same anymore. ;-)
The only solution might be to stop new registrations for theses TLD's and let the TLD expire in two years while giving a nice offer to those who need a transfer.