If you want reliability and future commitment, perhaps you should pay for it?
That doesn't always work either. Just read the EULA for, well, pretty much any piece of commercial software. If the vendor disappears, decides not to support the product, if it vaporizes your computer and most of the building its in... tough. Paying for it doesn't mean anything in and of itself. Consequently, you have no assurance of anything in the software world unless you're dealing with a vendor that has a significant track record of playing square with its customers. Still no guarantee, but that's about as good as it gets, and it is true whether it's open source or not, commercial or not.
You're evil, you know that? I like the idea though.
Frankly, I'm surprised this hasn't been done already. Huh. For all we know, maybe somebody has.
From a purely technological perspective, services like MediaSentry are workable only until file transfer software reaches a certain level of sophistication... at that point they will become useless. The only hope the RIAA-types will have is if they can convince/coerce ISPs into monitoring P2P activity at the source. That would probably an easy task if you're dealing with the likes of AT&T, SBC or Comcast. They haven't exhibited the slightest backbone regarding customer privacy, and at some point they'll start piping user activity info right to the lawyers. That would be a dream come true for those people: automated "justice" at its finest.
At one point I kinda thought the RIAA's lawsuits were targeted solely at suppressing P2P usage, and I suppose initially that was true. Now I'm not so sure, since it does look like they're making a significant amount of money from their campaign, I mean, now there's a profit motive directly attached. They aren't just the paid legal arm of the studios any longer, now they're actually making money from their lawsuit machine. Does anyone know where those funds go? Is the "take" from all these settlements only enough to fund the law firms involved, are they losing money, or are they stashing some away for a rainy day? What are they doing with it?
If they are profiting by this, what it means to me is that the RIAA wouldn't be happy even if they managed to stop all file-sharing tomorrow: they'd lose a significant source of revenue.
I think he meant, "why home users would choose to move." The fact that it's all they can get on a new computer doesn't qualify as a "choice" anywhere but in Microsoft's marketing dreamscape. heck, I know people that are holding off buying a new computer for that reason: they have something that works, all they hear about is that Vista doesn't work, and have decided to wait for a while. And that, frankly, is about the wisest decision they could make, short of possibly getting away from Windows altogether.
Oh sure, Windows users will eventually all be using Vista (or whatever it mutates into... hopefully something useful. I'll give it a couple of years) but for now it's hard to make a case for someone to switch. I had the same problem with Windows XP, that is, I knew a lot of people that were using Windows 2000 and were happy with 2K's improved stability compared to 9x. I couldn't, in all honesty, recommend that they rush out and buy XP, whereas there definitely was a reason to switch to 2000 from Windows 95/98 (or, God forbid, Windows ME.) Unless you have someone that can help you iron out all the problems the current incarnation of Vista will undoubtedly cause you (like a competent corporate IT person), assuming they are ironable, upgrading doesn't make sense.
But like you said, Vista is about all you can buy nowadays. I guess we should just hunker down and get ready for the storm. It's on the horizon already.
And worse, even when they have gone to court, the only way they have of proving guilt has been to demand that the defendant turn over his or her computer for "forensic analysis", by (apparently) clueless "experts", and if there's no usable evidence we'll demand the computers of anyone associated with you. In other words, we'll sue you over evidence that we know is insufficient to win in an actual trial, and then demand that you provide us with whatever evidence we need to have you convicted and if that doesn't work, we'll use suspect expert testimony to try and fool the court anyway.
Is that how the system is supposed to work? If I were a judge, that would really torque me into a pretzel, and in fact there are a number of judges that have gotten pretty bent out of shape over those issues.
Yes, I know... "a preponderance of evidence", and it's true that the ratio of something to nothing is significant... even when the "something" is little more than nothing. However, the fact that the RIAA has invariably had major problems when they've actually been forced into court (and "forced" is the correct word: they really don't want to be there) indicates to me that their so-called evidence isn't up to even civil suit standards and they know it.
It's not illegal to offer a settlement if you do have cause.
True, but on the other hand if you're going to be suing people on the scale that the RIAA has been suing people, your evidence had better be pretty solid or you're treading on thin ice. Judges are starting to wake up to what the RIAA is doing, and I hope that trend continues.
All of these defenses rely on evidence you bring yourself, there's no official log anywhere to back you up.
Also true, but there's no "official" evidence to back up their claims either, which is the crux of the matter. And no, the information ISPs record hardly qualifies as an official log. Those are typically for provisioning, diagnostic and statistical use, and are not intended to serve as evidence against their own customers. Nor does a screenshot from Kazaa showing a list of IP addresses count as strong evidence.
The chain of evidence is pretty weak, given that they're depending upon data that was not recorded with the intent of being used in court, isn't particularly reliable anyway, and is subject to human mishandling outside any forensic chain established by the courts, and isn't guaranteed to point to the actual "criminal" in any event! The problem here is the (unfortunate) human tendency to accept information generated by a machine that you don't understand as being valid, when there's a substantial chance that it isn't.
That effect is very real... in my years as a software contractor I saw it all the time. I would imagine that judges are just as subject to it as anyone else. I had to tell my customers repeatedly that they can't trust the software until they've done end-to-end on it and know that the results are valid. Mistakes get made, people (even me!) screw up on occasion. As far as I'm concerned, log files spit out by a router or DSLAM shouldn't be admissible in court, certainly not as the primary evidence against someone. I wouldn't want my future dependent upon a few magnetic domains on a hard disk somewhere. Let the RIAA collect some actual evidence (say, a picture of me at my computer doing something illegal) and take me to court. ISP logs are a joke at best, or would be a joke if their use weren't unfairly injuring lot of people.
It's not as if there's some official Federal standard in place for ISP data monitoring that would be guaranteed to hold up in court so long as the ISP could be shown to be upholding the standard. I can guarantee that ISPs wouldn't want such a standard because it would cost them a fortune.
Oh, please, mods. Any reference to Netcraft outside of networking (and, actually, most references to Netcraft that are about networking) on Slashdot is a joke, not a troll.
they've probably been doing this "eroding" on their own, what with their having the world's most powerful national firewall and all. And I doubt they care very much whether the rest of us think their position in the Web is being eroded.
They may not be a homogenous group (no group of humans is, once you reach a certain size) but the net effect is that every damn time someone proposes to do something about producing electric power by some means that isn't fossil or nuclear-fueled there's a ready group of obstructionists waiting in the wings. They may not be "homogenous", but they are numerous, and that's all that matters when they get a court order against your project. And, as you say, frequently they get together and pool their resources.
People need to get it through their tiny little heads that there's a cost associated with what we're doing now, that they're paying that price whether they know it or not, and that maybe we should loosen up and let some smart engineers and investors try to see if they can improve matters a little. None of these alternate forms of power production are going to be able to replace our existing infrastructure, but they could certainly lighten the load. It wouldn't hurt to accept a few goddamn windmills on your horizon. You can stick a traditional powerhouse pretty much anywhere you want, but there aren't that many places where a windfarm really makes a lot of sense. Part of the problem, it seems to me, is the political climate we're in right now. Alternate energy doesn't have much of a chance, regulation-wise.
Of course not; Microsoft has nowhere to go but down, and they are fully aware of it so they are scramling to profiteer as much as they can before they collapse.
Would that were true. Oh, I agree, they're really putting the screws to their customers (changes in the past couple years to corporate pricing and forced upgrade cycles are more obvious examples of that behavior than this VM licensing issue) but Microsoft is not a company to be counted out. Absolutely, I agree, as a dominant monopoly they've achieved such a high degree of market penetration (at least in the U.S.) that they are hard-pressed to keep the growth curve pointing in the right direction and the stockholders happy.
However, what they are doing is scrambling to try and find other means of support, so that when their core markets of Windows and Office do finally succumb to the open source onslaught, they'll be firmly in charge of something else that we can't live without. What that might be I don't know: I doubt Microsoft does, either, at this point. What do you think Microsoft's continual forays into other markets are all about? Television, embedded systems, search, email, Web services, game consoles, MP3 players, you name the market... Microsoft would like to own it. Nothing they've done so far is likely to keep them in the gravy, but taken together, who knows? Never forget that that company wants to have us all by the short and curly so as to extract maximum dollars from us, and they'll do it by any means they can.
Don't let the current focus on Windows and Office distract us from what it might be doing in other areas. Microsoft has vast resources and the will to use them.
something needs to be done about these people. I don't care what country you're talking about, or which particular flavor of the RIAA you have to contend with. Something needs to be done before these assholes bring the roof down on all of us.
Indeed. I can thoroughly disagree with people and still respect them, if they aren't hypocritical about their expressed beliefs. Granted, I may think they're blind fools with room temperature IQs, but I can still acknowledge their point of view.
On the other hand, I know way too many people that bitch and moan about "da environment" (as if they even know what the term means) and about "technology" being bad (as if "technology" were some single entity that can be blamed for all the world's ills) while simultaneously doing their best to damage said environment by tooling around in a giant V8-powered SUV, and running their home's central air conditioning 24/7. Furthermore, they then avail themselves of the very technology they profess to hate by yammering on their cell phones (usually while behind the wheel of the aforementioned SUV.) Bloody hypocrites. Let those fools taste the kind of life that people in non-industrialized nations lead... we'll see how much complaining they do when they return to their comfy little subdivisions.
{sigh} and we give such mind-numbingly ignorant people the power to vote. Explains a lot, doesn't it.
I get disheartened and disillusioned with "environmentalism" when the very people clamoring for alternative energy are the ones shooting down the projects.
I feel much the same way, but then again you have to realize that many of those people don't think humans should be using any energy at all, other than that produced by "natural" means such as cows and horses and, of course, plants. They're also complete hypocrites, most of them. Sure, they will readily admit that we'll require some "adjustments" to our lifestyles in order to accommodate some "idealized" existence (ideal only in their heads), but always seem to assume that it's the other guy that will have to accept a primitive agrarian or hunter-gatherer economy, and not them. These so-called "environmentalists" (and I use the term loosely) are just as much in love with their hot-and-cold running water, electric lights, and Internet connection as the rest of us, but need a feel-good cause to rally about. I have no respect for such individuals, and once I realize that someone is in that category I immediately discount everything they're saying from that point forward. Oddly enough, I usually feel much better.
On the other hand, there are environmentalists that grasp a couple of rudimentary facts, one of which is we need power, lots of it and in different forms, and the need is growing at a probably exponential pace. The other fact is that reducing our dependence upon technology is not practical at this point: it just isn't, because we'll all die without it. A better approach is to continue to improve our industrial base until we solve most of the fundamental problems. That will take time, to be sure, but then again true environmentalism works with industry to effect change. That's better than trying to convince people that we don't need our technology, since no-one in their right mind would believe that anyway.
I had an uncle who was a professor of Egyptology up at Brandeis University for many years. Back in the seventies, during the previous manufactured "energy crisis", a bunch of students were going to have an "environmental march" and wanted him to join them. They knew that he was someone that was somewhat afraid of high technology (although not intrinsically against it) and because he was a respected figure in the community they figured he would lend credibility to their efforts.
He actually gave the organizers both barrels, and said that, when you give up your cars, your electric lights, your telephones, your manufactured goods... when you do that, when you do that, then yes, I will march with you.
The march went ahead as scheduled, but needless to say, my uncle wasn't among them.
I guess the irony is that if Google chooses to they can persecute the individual under the same law as it has provisions to punish you for doing this with material you do not own.
Persecute or prosecute? I guess in this context there'd be little difference.
No, he's pointing out (correctly) that our Constitutionally-protected right to Freedom of Speech has to do with government suppression of what we say. It says absolutely nothing about your being guaranteed to say whatever you want on a privately-owned radio transmitter, and doesn't mean you won't get fired if your employer doesn't like what you're saying. It does mean that no government organ can come in and tell Mr. Imus to shut up because the government doesn't like the subject matter. Well, I suppose that's not entirely true: the FCC has all these "decency" standards with which the media are supposed to comply. Those bother me because they're really on the borderline. Granted, if the FCC levied such a fine, odds are the station would fire the offending DJ anyway. Or maybe not: such a thing might increase his popularity. Hard to say, the listening public is a fickle beast at best.
I used to know a woman that immigrated here from Russia. When she lived there, at one point she had worked as an engineer for a radio station. She told me that there was a man (usually in an ill-fitting dark suit) who sat quietly in a small office in the basement with headphones on, day after day, listening to every word that was broadcast. He had a button he would press that would instant kill the transmission if anything was being said the he deemed was against the Party's interests, or against Party policy.
That's the sort of thing our right to free speech was designed to prevent, and really doesn't apply to a shock-jock getting his ass fired for, admittedly, just doing his job.
Slashdot Mirror
If you want reliability and future commitment, perhaps you should pay for it?
... tough. Paying for it doesn't mean anything in and of itself. Consequently, you have no assurance of anything in the software world unless you're dealing with a vendor that has a significant track record of playing square with its customers. Still no guarantee, but that's about as good as it gets, and it is true whether it's open source or not, commercial or not.
That doesn't always work either. Just read the EULA for, well, pretty much any piece of commercial software. If the vendor disappears, decides not to support the product, if it vaporizes your computer and most of the building its in
You're evil, you know that? I like the idea though.
... at that point they will become useless. The only hope the RIAA-types will have is if they can convince/coerce ISPs into monitoring P2P activity at the source. That would probably an easy task if you're dealing with the likes of AT&T, SBC or Comcast. They haven't exhibited the slightest backbone regarding customer privacy, and at some point they'll start piping user activity info right to the lawyers. That would be a dream come true for those people: automated "justice" at its finest.
Frankly, I'm surprised this hasn't been done already. Huh. For all we know, maybe somebody has.
From a purely technological perspective, services like MediaSentry are workable only until file transfer software reaches a certain level of sophistication
At one point I kinda thought the RIAA's lawsuits were targeted solely at suppressing P2P usage, and I suppose initially that was true. Now I'm not so sure, since it does look like they're making a significant amount of money from their campaign, I mean, now there's a profit motive directly attached. They aren't just the paid legal arm of the studios any longer, now they're actually making money from their lawsuit machine. Does anyone know where those funds go? Is the "take" from all these settlements only enough to fund the law firms involved, are they losing money, or are they stashing some away for a rainy day? What are they doing with it?
If they are profiting by this, what it means to me is that the RIAA wouldn't be happy even if they managed to stop all file-sharing tomorrow: they'd lose a significant source of revenue.
I think he meant, "why home users would choose to move." The fact that it's all they can get on a new computer doesn't qualify as a "choice" anywhere but in Microsoft's marketing dreamscape. heck, I know people that are holding off buying a new computer for that reason: they have something that works, all they hear about is that Vista doesn't work, and have decided to wait for a while. And that, frankly, is about the wisest decision they could make, short of possibly getting away from Windows altogether.
... hopefully something useful. I'll give it a couple of years) but for now it's hard to make a case for someone to switch. I had the same problem with Windows XP, that is, I knew a lot of people that were using Windows 2000 and were happy with 2K's improved stability compared to 9x. I couldn't, in all honesty, recommend that they rush out and buy XP, whereas there definitely was a reason to switch to 2000 from Windows 95/98 (or, God forbid, Windows ME.) Unless you have someone that can help you iron out all the problems the current incarnation of Vista will undoubtedly cause you (like a competent corporate IT person), assuming they are ironable, upgrading doesn't make sense.
Oh sure, Windows users will eventually all be using Vista (or whatever it mutates into
But like you said, Vista is about all you can buy nowadays. I guess we should just hunker down and get ready for the storm. It's on the horizon already.
And worse, even when they have gone to court, the only way they have of proving guilt has been to demand that the defendant turn over his or her computer for "forensic analysis", by (apparently) clueless "experts", and if there's no usable evidence we'll demand the computers of anyone associated with you. In other words, we'll sue you over evidence that we know is insufficient to win in an actual trial, and then demand that you provide us with whatever evidence we need to have you convicted and if that doesn't work, we'll use suspect expert testimony to try and fool the court anyway.
Is that how the system is supposed to work? If I were a judge, that would really torque me into a pretzel, and in fact there are a number of judges that have gotten pretty bent out of shape over those issues.
Yes, I know ... "a preponderance of evidence", and it's true that the ratio of something to nothing is significant ... even when the "something" is little more than nothing. However, the fact that the RIAA has invariably had major problems when they've actually been forced into court (and "forced" is the correct word: they really don't want to be there) indicates to me that their so-called evidence isn't up to even civil suit standards and they know it.
Everyone but the lawyers involved, apparently.
define "Web Dominance".
It's not illegal to offer a settlement if you do have cause.
... in my years as a software contractor I saw it all the time. I would imagine that judges are just as subject to it as anyone else. I had to tell my customers repeatedly that they can't trust the software until they've done end-to-end on it and know that the results are valid. Mistakes get made, people (even me!) screw up on occasion. As far as I'm concerned, log files spit out by a router or DSLAM shouldn't be admissible in court, certainly not as the primary evidence against someone. I wouldn't want my future dependent upon a few magnetic domains on a hard disk somewhere. Let the RIAA collect some actual evidence (say, a picture of me at my computer doing something illegal) and take me to court. ISP logs are a joke at best, or would be a joke if their use weren't unfairly injuring lot of people.
True, but on the other hand if you're going to be suing people on the scale that the RIAA has been suing people, your evidence had better be pretty solid or you're treading on thin ice. Judges are starting to wake up to what the RIAA is doing, and I hope that trend continues.
All of these defenses rely on evidence you bring yourself, there's no official log anywhere to back you up.
Also true, but there's no "official" evidence to back up their claims either, which is the crux of the matter. And no, the information ISPs record hardly qualifies as an official log. Those are typically for provisioning, diagnostic and statistical use, and are not intended to serve as evidence against their own customers. Nor does a screenshot from Kazaa showing a list of IP addresses count as strong evidence.
The chain of evidence is pretty weak, given that they're depending upon data that was not recorded with the intent of being used in court, isn't particularly reliable anyway, and is subject to human mishandling outside any forensic chain established by the courts, and isn't guaranteed to point to the actual "criminal" in any event! The problem here is the (unfortunate) human tendency to accept information generated by a machine that you don't understand as being valid, when there's a substantial chance that it isn't.
That effect is very real
It's not as if there's some official Federal standard in place for ISP data monitoring that would be guaranteed to hold up in court so long as the ISP could be shown to be upholding the standard. I can guarantee that ISPs wouldn't want such a standard because it would cost them a fortune.
I think we use the term "barratry" here, although I only think that from having read it on Slashdot, so, you know, grain of salt and all that.
Oh, please, mods. Any reference to Netcraft outside of networking (and, actually, most references to Netcraft that are about networking) on Slashdot is a joke, not a troll.
I don't understand why this is funny -- I mean, it's a play on words, sure.
There you go.
Besides, Pilsner's Urquell is a damn fine Czech beer, and just may have had something to do with the apparent lack of subtlety in my remark.
Might this be an early sign of China hitting an economic glass ceiling imposed by their social policies?
I'd say it's more an indication that their firewall works both ways.
they've probably been doing this "eroding" on their own, what with their having the world's most powerful national firewall and all. And I doubt they care very much whether the rest of us think their position in the Web is being eroded.
They may not be a homogenous group (no group of humans is, once you reach a certain size) but the net effect is that every damn time someone proposes to do something about producing electric power by some means that isn't fossil or nuclear-fueled there's a ready group of obstructionists waiting in the wings. They may not be "homogenous", but they are numerous, and that's all that matters when they get a court order against your project. And, as you say, frequently they get together and pool their resources.
People need to get it through their tiny little heads that there's a cost associated with what we're doing now, that they're paying that price whether they know it or not, and that maybe we should loosen up and let some smart engineers and investors try to see if they can improve matters a little. None of these alternate forms of power production are going to be able to replace our existing infrastructure, but they could certainly lighten the load. It wouldn't hurt to accept a few goddamn windmills on your horizon. You can stick a traditional powerhouse pretty much anywhere you want, but there aren't that many places where a windfarm really makes a lot of sense. Part of the problem, it seems to me, is the political climate we're in right now. Alternate energy doesn't have much of a chance, regulation-wise.
I think you meant "Czechmated".
Of course not; Microsoft has nowhere to go but down, and they are fully aware of it so they are scramling to profiteer as much as they can before they collapse.
... Microsoft would like to own it. Nothing they've done so far is likely to keep them in the gravy, but taken together, who knows? Never forget that that company wants to have us all by the short and curly so as to extract maximum dollars from us, and they'll do it by any means they can.
Would that were true. Oh, I agree, they're really putting the screws to their customers (changes in the past couple years to corporate pricing and forced upgrade cycles are more obvious examples of that behavior than this VM licensing issue) but Microsoft is not a company to be counted out. Absolutely, I agree, as a dominant monopoly they've achieved such a high degree of market penetration (at least in the U.S.) that they are hard-pressed to keep the growth curve pointing in the right direction and the stockholders happy.
However, what they are doing is scrambling to try and find other means of support, so that when their core markets of Windows and Office do finally succumb to the open source onslaught, they'll be firmly in charge of something else that we can't live without. What that might be I don't know: I doubt Microsoft does, either, at this point. What do you think Microsoft's continual forays into other markets are all about? Television, embedded systems, search, email, Web services, game consoles, MP3 players, you name the market
Don't let the current focus on Windows and Office distract us from what it might be doing in other areas. Microsoft has vast resources and the will to use them.
With some motherboard upgrades, Windows crashes and burns.
With pretty much all upgrades. Windows isn't particularly portable, chipset to chipset.
something needs to be done about these people. I don't care what country you're talking about, or which particular flavor of the RIAA you have to contend with. Something needs to be done before these assholes bring the roof down on all of us.
Indeed. I can thoroughly disagree with people and still respect them, if they aren't hypocritical about their expressed beliefs. Granted, I may think they're blind fools with room temperature IQs, but I can still acknowledge their point of view.
... we'll see how much complaining they do when they return to their comfy little subdivisions.
On the other hand, I know way too many people that bitch and moan about "da environment" (as if they even know what the term means) and about "technology" being bad (as if "technology" were some single entity that can be blamed for all the world's ills) while simultaneously doing their best to damage said environment by tooling around in a giant V8-powered SUV, and running their home's central air conditioning 24/7. Furthermore, they then avail themselves of the very technology they profess to hate by yammering on their cell phones (usually while behind the wheel of the aforementioned SUV.) Bloody hypocrites. Let those fools taste the kind of life that people in non-industrialized nations lead
{sigh} and we give such mind-numbingly ignorant people the power to vote. Explains a lot, doesn't it.
I get disheartened and disillusioned with "environmentalism" when the very people clamoring for alternative energy are the ones shooting down the projects.
... when you do that, when you do that, then yes, I will march with you.
I feel much the same way, but then again you have to realize that many of those people don't think humans should be using any energy at all, other than that produced by "natural" means such as cows and horses and, of course, plants. They're also complete hypocrites, most of them. Sure, they will readily admit that we'll require some "adjustments" to our lifestyles in order to accommodate some "idealized" existence (ideal only in their heads), but always seem to assume that it's the other guy that will have to accept a primitive agrarian or hunter-gatherer economy, and not them. These so-called "environmentalists" (and I use the term loosely) are just as much in love with their hot-and-cold running water, electric lights, and Internet connection as the rest of us, but need a feel-good cause to rally about. I have no respect for such individuals, and once I realize that someone is in that category I immediately discount everything they're saying from that point forward. Oddly enough, I usually feel much better.
On the other hand, there are environmentalists that grasp a couple of rudimentary facts, one of which is we need power, lots of it and in different forms, and the need is growing at a probably exponential pace. The other fact is that reducing our dependence upon technology is not practical at this point: it just isn't, because we'll all die without it. A better approach is to continue to improve our industrial base until we solve most of the fundamental problems. That will take time, to be sure, but then again true environmentalism works with industry to effect change. That's better than trying to convince people that we don't need our technology, since no-one in their right mind would believe that anyway.
I had an uncle who was a professor of Egyptology up at Brandeis University for many years. Back in the seventies, during the previous manufactured "energy crisis", a bunch of students were going to have an "environmental march" and wanted him to join them. They knew that he was someone that was somewhat afraid of high technology (although not intrinsically against it) and because he was a respected figure in the community they figured he would lend credibility to their efforts.
He actually gave the organizers both barrels, and said that, when you give up your cars, your electric lights, your telephones, your manufactured goods
The march went ahead as scheduled, but needless to say, my uncle wasn't among them.
I guess the irony is that if Google chooses to they can persecute the individual under the same law as it has provisions to punish you for doing this with material you do not own.
Persecute or prosecute? I guess in this context there'd be little difference.
No, he's pointing out (correctly) that our Constitutionally-protected right to Freedom of Speech has to do with government suppression of what we say. It says absolutely nothing about your being guaranteed to say whatever you want on a privately-owned radio transmitter, and doesn't mean you won't get fired if your employer doesn't like what you're saying. It does mean that no government organ can come in and tell Mr. Imus to shut up because the government doesn't like the subject matter. Well, I suppose that's not entirely true: the FCC has all these "decency" standards with which the media are supposed to comply. Those bother me because they're really on the borderline. Granted, if the FCC levied such a fine, odds are the station would fire the offending DJ anyway. Or maybe not: such a thing might increase his popularity. Hard to say, the listening public is a fickle beast at best.
I used to know a woman that immigrated here from Russia. When she lived there, at one point she had worked as an engineer for a radio station. She told me that there was a man (usually in an ill-fitting dark suit) who sat quietly in a small office in the basement with headphones on, day after day, listening to every word that was broadcast. He had a button he would press that would instant kill the transmission if anything was being said the he deemed was against the Party's interests, or against Party policy.
That's the sort of thing our right to free speech was designed to prevent, and really doesn't apply to a shock-jock getting his ass fired for, admittedly, just doing his job.
How long before the same fate befalls the folks who make a living working the Massively Multiplayer secondary markets?
Not long at all, I'd say. When money changes hands the IRS is always interested in a piece of the action.
Not only is it brilliant, but in essence it is a form of automated civil disobedience.
Interesting idea. Illegal as hell, but very interesting.
for Microsoft, and is in the process of working for Intel. So why not the President.