I'm more concerned with denying use of my work (whatever merit it may or may not have) for the benefit of a "journalist", whose ends I mistrust, whose pedestrian talents I scorn, and whose presumption I resent.
My selfishness, if it is that, may be summarized as this: JonKatz may not profit from a single keypress of mine. He didn't have the courtesy to ask, and if he had I would have said no.
Knowing that the law is basically useless for small matters like this and that lawsuits only profit lawyers, if I cared enough about it I would find JonKatz and break his nose. However, realizing that this would cause a series of whining articles with his injury presented as proof of his victimized geek status, I won't. And to be honest I don't care enough about it either.
On the subject of renumeration, I don't see it as just receiving money - there's the prestige of having a book published. Worse is allowing JonKatz to assume the role of "geek" spokesman. I am so damn sick of seeing this tosser imply that he's one of us - in the process, defining "us" as somehow akin to the two nutsacks who killed lots of kids in Colorado.
As for nationality, I'm Australian. The complexities of any legal action don't bear thinking about, but it's a safe bet that the U.S. constitution doesn't apply to me.
>Out of curiousity, from whence do you derive a "right" to own your comments?
Shouldn't you have said "the comments in question"? Oh, that's right - they are MY comments. Your lack of respect for an author's rights is clear anyway - I don't see any attributions on your stories page. Or joy, am I corresponding with the original author of the AI koans?
I don't give a Geo Metro about your interpretation of the law. Mine is mine. Doubtless someone with nothing better to do has already talked to a lawyer, and maybe will even do something about this book. Unfortunately it will probably involve a prig like you on both sides of the argument.
Your sarcasm indicates you're less than happy with my tone. So sorry. I guess pomposity from undergraduates brings out the worst in me.
Dear correspondent, without further prognostication kindly remove the plum from your oral orifice, to followed expeditiously by the emergence of your cranium from your anus.
The right is to not have my comments used by the wanker - I wouldn't stoop to accepting cash from him. Republics don't enter into it, me old cock.
"be prepared for some crashes" says Cnet! Looks just like CE all over again. For market watchers, the fact that Palm went UP while MSFT went DOWN might tell you how the investment world took the news.
>I don't really know what to say about it: what I know, and in fact my interest in the Stock Market can fill a shotglass
At the end of the day it's your site. As evidenced by the presence of JonKatz. But if you ignore this you may want to change the "stuff that matters" part under your headline. (Especially if you keep JonKatz.) It's relevant to all of us - for a start, in the next few months there will be much less money available for startups. Not just the IPO level but the first million that lets you get the prototype half done. Cash reserves of many companies may reach dangerous levels. We might see advertising withdrawn (fancy that, a bus without a dotcom poster on the side). Some projects could be cancelled and some could even close. I would imagine there are lots of readers working in high tech who could be affected by this kind of thing.
Of course it's mostly a complete fantasy. The real worth of any of those rollercoaster stocks is the same. The effect on individuals may be dramatic - there will be lots of people who have gone from being wealthy enough to retire, to just OK, about on par with what they would have if they had chosen the insurance business. The lesson is never put all your eggs in one basket. People with half their savings in money market accounts instead of all in the market didn't suffer as much.
Everyone knows how it works, right? Valuations go up because people put more money into the pool. When they take it out, valuations go down. Of course there has to be a buyer and a seller at all times, but the pool is so big that there almost always is. At the end of the day it will go up again because people WANT it to go up. They will buy, expecting a rise, and that act CAUSES a rise. Just as a sell, expecting a fall, causes the fall. But people LIKE rises, so they tend to buy more than they sell, until the panic takes them and they lose sense of what they like for a week or two. Then they feel all silly and start cautiously buying again, and up we go.
What could the Fed do to help avoid this kind of thing? Stop people borrowing money to buy stock. Or lenders could use common sense, and restrict lending to purposes which involve concrete assets. Apart from the panic, a lot of this was caused by people having to sell their stocks to pay loans taken out for other stocks. Just as the cycle is all sweetness and light on the way up, it is an ever-narrowing circle towards bankruptcy on the way down. There's not much to be done about the herd mentality.
For anyone curious about the market and money in general I enjoyed the book "You Have More Than You Think" by the people at fool.com. My favorite part - where they talk about the "great crashes" of 1931 and 1987, making the point that the market crashed to a level about where it was the previous year, and that it recovered to the same heights very quickly.
Personally I've been waiting for this. Was wanting to invest, wanted my money in things I understand, but didn't want to buy overvalued stocks. To all the sheep who panicked and sold - thanks! I'll sell your stock back to you when it has tripled in price.
Breathlessly awaiting JonKatz' next article, "How does the stock market crash affect the sad, lonely, but non-violent geek who is victimized by WAVE and oppressed by the World Bank? Mmmkay?"
Re:Oh Fucking Please! Just give it a rest!
on
Battlefield Earth
·
· Score: 1
>Religion, like software and OS's, is a personal choice.
And if you knew anything about the way a cult works, you'd realize that it's not always a personal choice. You see, that's why they call it "programming" or sometimes "brainwashing".
>And hey, my Mom and Dad give 15% of thier annual income to the Catholic Church - they must be brainwashed!!! OhMyGod - call the deprogrammers!!!
You're right, it may not be too late for them.
Re:don't overplay the scientology angle
on
Battlefield Earth
·
· Score: 1
scrutty sez: Ask yourself if such a major company as Warner Brothers would pour huge budgets and promotional costs into such a film, if its content was guuranteed to cause controversy and drive away such potentially large audience areas?
Jesus of Montreal Last Temptation of Christ South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut
Just three films which performed way out of proportion to their content. Because, not in spite of, controversial content. Not that LRon's books have anything like that, only lame pedestrian SF.
You may be right about the controversy, but you're wrong about the effect. Anyone with a financial stake in the film (including the Cult of Scientology, in the form of cuts of the fees of various actors) will be absolutely praying for some anti-CoS protests. You can't buy publicity like that!
While it's sad to see an Anonymous Coward get a hard-on reciting gun details (did you ever stop to think such comments get used as arguments FOR gun control?), it's thought provoking.
Has there ever been a case of violence against spammers because of spam? The infamous Spamford Wallace is said to have feared attack, but I don't know of any actual harm done to spammers.
Can you put anything on Slashdot as long as you have a tenuous link to what JonKatz likes to label "geeks"?
Please, isn't Slashdot about technology? If it's trying to turn into Suck or Salon or any of a million other lame sites, please just say so and _I'll_ go away.
Actually I don't particularly care about Free Software, Open Source, GNU, RMS or any of those other holy icons. What I want is Working Software. Free software is great, but who is going to pay for the support desk and all those other things that consumers like? A lot of Linux users are not "dedicated" to free software at all, just to getting software that works.
This announcement is important because it further increases the choice we have. Windows DVD players are for the most part pretty bad. A great Linux DVD player would be an important factor for some people in choice of platform.
Will the Linux community feel pleased at having more choice, or will it whine because someone is trying to make money? Will developers successfuly step into a new market or will they decide the Linux community (and by extension the platform) is not yet mature enough? Reality time: Linux will NEVER overcome the Windows hegemony until it makes economic sense for companies to support it. That means financial reward for those developers who currently make their financial rewards with Windows.
Fortunately, I believe the Linux community will speak, and will buy the product. For most people relaxing in front of a movie is not the time to be thinking about political ideals.
As for your boycott, do the MPAA care? Does it hurt them even a little bit? mmmm.... nope! If you want to make a difference you might need to take other action.
I'll be in Japan next week. Specifically, in Shinjuku, Tokyo, just eight or so train stops from the great toyshop that is Akihabara Electric Street. While I don't see myself copying many DVDs (don't have a VCR) I might want to get one.
Does anyone have a jp-model PS2 and can describe some of the things that work and some of the things that don't? Specifically, have you been able to get around region encoding on the DVD side? What are your display options? I'd like to run it through the monitor - don't have a TV.
homeless? More like can't afford their precios little live/work spaces in desirable areas any more. God forbid they should have to live in South SF or somewhere without an art scene. Let's not have a high tech industry at all - it upsets sensitive types, and dismays those who don't feel that they benefit by it.
No doubt brought to you by the same sad, jealous losers that brought you the "yuppie eradication project". If me and my money force people like that down onto the peninsula, well, err... hooray.
Obviously the world has changed a lot since the Apple II - one (exceptional) mind could grasp the whole system, and create an entire personal computer. That person was in control of the whole box. Now the expectation of a useful system is such that it is impossible for one person to do the whole thing (do you agree?). With this change comes transfer of creative direction from an individual to a group. One example of this effect might be the differences between the languages C and Ada. How do you feel this changes the results, and had this been the case at the time of the Apple II, would it have ever been so good?
(I never had one - used to book time in 30 minute blocks on the IIe at my local library, and be sneered at by the warez kids because I only had an Atari 400. But I wanted one...)
Why does everyone persist in calling this "hacking". Sure, it was hacking in the traditional (computer) sense of the word, but surely, now days, that word has bad overtones.
- Yes, that's right. When misinformed people choose the redefine the language, we should all immediately change our ways in order to make them correct. Public opinion is so important...
Music, film, television is PRODUCT or at best ART.
If you apply what you wrote to something like OLGA, where anyone can get the IP that defines how to play a song, fine. However, an individual recording of a song is more than just knowledge.
Now, Jubal Harshaw (via Robert Heinlen) said that a government-funded artist is an unprincipled whore! I'm inclined to agree. But do you REALLY think you'll see anything like The Matrix again if there is no money in it for the studio? Wake up!
A man walks into a silicon valley pet shop and sees 3 monkeys on the shelf. He's shocked at the prices, and so calls over the assistant.
Man: "Hey, how come this monkey is $20,000!"
Assistant: "Well, he's a code monkey. Brilliant C programmer, never forgets to free(), lots of great experience and references. A real bargain!"
Man: "And what about the one next to him - that monkey is $50,000!"
Assistant: "He's even better! He's an object-oriented monkey, knows UML, can model as well as code. Word has it he was once owned by Stroustrup himself. This guy can even make C++ work in embedded. Worth his weight in gold."
Man: "Wow, the last one is $200,000 - what does he do?"
Assistant: "I'm not sure, but he says he's a contractor."
The bay area is the only place I know you will actually make lots of cash, quickly. If you leave the USA, you may be disappointed. As an Australian I can tell you that salaries there allow you to live comfortably, but only because the cost of living is much lower - and you won't be much better off than say, a plumber or a successful shopkeeper. If you see a Porsche boxster in Australia, I'd put my money on the driver being in real estate or finance. I think in the bay area the cost of living is about double, but my salary is about triple - and if you're prepared to live out of the city you can save a lot of money fast, and of course we all know what stock and options can do. In Germany I understand from talking to engineers there that the situation is similar.
Benefits offered will be different. In some countries there is a real health system, and instead of offering HBO/PPO plans you will get a car + fuel provided. While there may be tax benefits to joining a private health scheme, most people don't as it's not really necessary. Australia has compulsory employer-funded superannuation, so don't worry about 401k deductions either. Four weeks is the standard vacation per year.
Finally, I don't think you will get options in many countries. I have never heard of anyone getting options as an engineer in Australia, and the Germans tell me it is also unheard of.
One possibility I have heard of is to contract in the UK. Figures of around 80 pounds per hour (BTW, this '#' means HASH, not POUND - I want to slap anyone who says "pound define") were mentioned to me when I looked into it. That's a lot of money, but living in London will cost you a packet too. No benefits as a contractor of course, and no holidays either.
The biggest thing you have to worry about is your visa/passport situation. I assume you have already looked into that and have a short list of countries that you can move to/work in? If you haven't then do that first, the USA isn't the only country with restrictions.
AND make sure you know what is like to work in some other place. I'm sitting at my bay area desk in tracksuit pants, with free brewed coffee and a free bagel. I have a 21" monitor and a nice fast laptop. Free cell phone. Card access to the building, any time. FAST internet! Freedom to manage my own computing resources. Flexible hours. Work from home. My current project is something I suggested, and I like it.
Contrast this with the Australian experience... tailored pants & shirt at all times. 15" monitor and Pentium 66. No phone, no expenses, no after hours access, strictly 9-5. Adversarial management. SLOW internet - possibly with some kind of net nanny installed. NO software other than that approved by the half-educated empire-building IT manager allowed! And they wonder why all the programmers are leaving.
Right! And this is precisely why we used to laugh at people leaving trsidoom2.zip, 18 meg, in their 5-meg-soft-quota world-readable accounts.
If anyone leaves copyrighted stuff out in the open they're going to get in trouble. It's as smart as tailgating a cop. To most people it's obvious... But once the sysadmin, or worse, the sysadmin's boss knows, they have to take some action, or as others have pointed out, be liable as well. What the MP3 owners got seems like a mild slap on the wrist, could it have been just a stunt to make RIAA happy?.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm more concerned with denying use of my work (whatever merit it may or may not have) for the benefit of a "journalist", whose ends I mistrust, whose pedestrian talents I scorn, and whose presumption I resent.
My selfishness, if it is that, may be summarized as this: JonKatz may not profit from a single keypress of mine. He didn't have the courtesy to ask, and if he had I would have said no.
Knowing that the law is basically useless for small matters like this and that lawsuits only profit lawyers, if I cared enough about it I would find JonKatz and break his nose. However, realizing that this would cause a series of whining articles with his injury presented as proof of his victimized geek status, I won't. And to be honest I don't care enough about it either.
On the subject of renumeration, I don't see it as just receiving money - there's the prestige of having a book published. Worse is allowing JonKatz to assume the role of "geek" spokesman. I am so damn sick of seeing this tosser imply that he's one of us - in the process, defining "us" as somehow akin to the two nutsacks who killed lots of kids in Colorado.
As for nationality, I'm Australian. The complexities of any legal action don't bear thinking about, but it's a safe bet that the U.S. constitution doesn't apply to me.
>Out of curiousity, from whence do you derive a "right" to own your comments?
Shouldn't you have said "the comments in question"? Oh, that's right - they are MY comments. Your lack of respect for an author's rights is clear anyway - I don't see any attributions on your stories page. Or joy, am I corresponding with the original author of the AI koans?
Then there's this line at the bottom of the page.
>All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2000 Andover.Net.
I don't give a Geo Metro about your interpretation of the law. Mine is mine. Doubtless someone with nothing better to do has already talked to a lawyer, and maybe will even do something about this book. Unfortunately it will probably involve a prig like you on both sides of the argument.
Your sarcasm indicates you're less than happy with my tone. So sorry. I guess pomposity from undergraduates brings out the worst in me.
If all it takes is an infinite number of monkeys, how come AOL hasn't produced any Shakespeare yet?
Dear correspondent, without further prognostication kindly remove the plum from your oral orifice, to followed expeditiously by the emergence of your cranium from your anus.
The right is to not have my comments used by the wanker - I wouldn't stoop to accepting cash from him. Republics don't enter into it, me old cock.
"be prepared for some crashes" says Cnet! Looks just like CE all over again. For market watchers, the fact that Palm went UP while MSFT went DOWN might tell you how the investment world took the news.
At the end of the day it's your site. As evidenced by the presence of JonKatz. But if you ignore this you may want to change the "stuff that matters" part under your headline. (Especially if you keep JonKatz.) It's relevant to all of us - for a start, in the next few months there will be much less money available for startups. Not just the IPO level but the first million that lets you get the prototype half done. Cash reserves of many companies may reach dangerous levels. We might see advertising withdrawn (fancy that, a bus without a dotcom poster on the side). Some projects could be cancelled and some could even close. I would imagine there are lots of readers working in high tech who could be affected by this kind of thing.
Of course it's mostly a complete fantasy. The real worth of any of those rollercoaster stocks is the same. The effect on individuals may be dramatic - there will be lots of people who have gone from being wealthy enough to retire, to just OK, about on par with what they would have if they had chosen the insurance business. The lesson is never put all your eggs in one basket. People with half their savings in money market accounts instead of all in the market didn't suffer as much.
Everyone knows how it works, right? Valuations go up because people put more money into the pool. When they take it out, valuations go down. Of course there has to be a buyer and a seller at all times, but the pool is so big that there almost always is. At the end of the day it will go up again because people WANT it to go up. They will buy, expecting a rise, and that act CAUSES a rise. Just as a sell, expecting a fall, causes the fall. But people LIKE rises, so they tend to buy more than they sell, until the panic takes them and they lose sense of what they like for a week or two. Then they feel all silly and start cautiously buying again, and up we go.
What could the Fed do to help avoid this kind of thing? Stop people borrowing money to buy stock. Or lenders could use common sense, and restrict lending to purposes which involve concrete assets. Apart from the panic, a lot of this was caused by people having to sell their stocks to pay loans taken out for other stocks. Just as the cycle is all sweetness and light on the way up, it is an ever-narrowing circle towards bankruptcy on the way down. There's not much to be done about the herd mentality.
For anyone curious about the market and money in general I enjoyed the book "You Have More Than You Think" by the people at fool.com. My favorite part - where they talk about the "great crashes" of 1931 and 1987, making the point that the market crashed to a level about where it was the previous year, and that it recovered to the same heights very quickly.
Personally I've been waiting for this. Was wanting to invest, wanted my money in things I understand, but didn't want to buy overvalued stocks. To all the sheep who panicked and sold - thanks! I'll sell your stock back to you when it has tripled in price.
Breathlessly awaiting JonKatz' next article, "How does the stock market crash affect the sad, lonely, but non-violent geek who is victimized by WAVE and oppressed by the World Bank? Mmmkay?"
>Religion, like software and OS's, is a personal choice.
And if you knew anything about the way a cult works, you'd realize that it's not always a personal choice. You see, that's why they call it "programming" or sometimes "brainwashing".
>And hey, my Mom and Dad give 15% of thier annual income to the Catholic Church - they must be brainwashed!!! OhMyGod - call the deprogrammers!!!
You're right, it may not be too late for them.
Ask yourself if such a major company as Warner Brothers would pour huge budgets and promotional costs into such a film, if its content was guuranteed to cause controversy and drive away such potentially large audience areas?
Jesus of Montreal
Last Temptation of Christ
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut
Just three films which performed way out of proportion to their content. Because, not in spite of, controversial content. Not that LRon's books have anything like that, only lame pedestrian SF.
You may be right about the controversy, but you're wrong about the effect. Anyone with a financial stake in the film (including the Cult of Scientology, in the form of cuts of the fees of various actors) will be absolutely praying for some anti-CoS protests. You can't buy publicity like that!
Has there ever been a case of violence against spammers because of spam? The infamous Spamford Wallace is said to have feared attack, but I don't know of any actual harm done to spammers.
Pour l'encourager les autres
Call-in programs are bayd, mmmkay?
Can you put anything on Slashdot as long as you have a tenuous link to what JonKatz likes to label "geeks"?
Please, isn't Slashdot about technology? If it's trying to turn into Suck or Salon or any of a million other lame sites, please just say so and _I'll_ go away.
This announcement is important because it further increases the choice we have. Windows DVD players are for the most part pretty bad. A great Linux DVD player would be an important factor for some people in choice of platform.
Will the Linux community feel pleased at having more choice, or will it whine because someone is trying to make money? Will developers successfuly step into a new market or will they decide the Linux community (and by extension the platform) is not yet mature enough? Reality time: Linux will NEVER overcome the Windows hegemony until it makes economic sense for companies to support it. That means financial reward for those developers who currently make their financial rewards with Windows.
Fortunately, I believe the Linux community will speak, and will buy the product. For most people relaxing in front of a movie is not the time to be thinking about political ideals.
As for your boycott, do the MPAA care? Does it hurt them even a little bit? mmmm.... nope! If you want to make a difference you might need to take other action.
Why would they do that? The company paid buckets of money for a CSS license, and you want them to give it away in a library?
I'll be in Japan next week. Specifically, in Shinjuku, Tokyo, just eight or so train stops from the great toyshop that is Akihabara Electric Street. While I don't see myself copying many DVDs (don't have a VCR) I might want to get one.
Does anyone have a jp-model PS2 and can describe some of the things that work and some of the things that don't? Specifically, have you been able to get around region encoding on the DVD side? What are your display options? I'd like to run it through the monitor - don't have a TV.
homeless? More like can't afford their precios little live/work spaces in desirable areas any more. God forbid they should have to live in South SF or somewhere without an art scene.
Let's not have a high tech industry at all - it upsets sensitive types, and dismays those who don't feel that they benefit by it.
No doubt brought to you by the same sad, jealous losers that brought you the "yuppie eradication project". If me and my money force people like that down onto the peninsula, well, err... hooray.
How many languages do YOU speak?
Spelling flame, you can't get lamer than that.
An excellent test under real-world conditions. Who hasn't been distracted by Slashdot while "working from home"?
Obviously the world has changed a lot since the Apple II - one (exceptional) mind could grasp the whole system, and create an entire personal computer. That person was in control of the whole box. Now the expectation of a useful system is such that it is impossible for one person to do the whole thing (do you agree?). With this change comes transfer of creative direction from an individual to a group. One example of this effect might be the differences between the languages C and Ada.
How do you feel this changes the results, and had this been the case at the time of the Apple II, would it have ever been so good?
(I never had one - used to book time in 30 minute blocks on the IIe at my local library, and be sneered at by the warez kids because I only had an Atari 400. But I wanted one...)
Why does everyone persist in calling this "hacking". Sure, it was hacking in the traditional (computer) sense of the word, but surely, now days, that word has bad overtones.
- Yes, that's right. When misinformed people choose the redefine the language, we should all immediately change our ways in order to make them correct. Public opinion is so important...
The only thing wrong with your argument is that
art != IP
product != IP
Music, film, television is PRODUCT or at best ART.
If you apply what you wrote to something like OLGA, where anyone can get the IP that defines how to play a song, fine. However, an individual recording of a song is more than just knowledge.
Now, Jubal Harshaw (via Robert Heinlen) said that a government-funded artist is an unprincipled whore! I'm inclined to agree. But do you REALLY think you'll see anything like The Matrix again if there is no money in it for the studio? Wake up!
A man walks into a silicon valley pet shop and sees 3 monkeys on the shelf. He's shocked at the prices, and so calls over the assistant.
Man: "Hey, how come this monkey is $20,000!"
Assistant: "Well, he's a code monkey. Brilliant C programmer, never forgets to free(), lots of great experience and references. A real bargain!"
Man: "And what about the one next to him - that monkey is $50,000!"
Assistant: "He's even better! He's an object-oriented monkey, knows UML, can model as well as code. Word has it he was once owned by Stroustrup himself. This guy can even make C++ work in embedded. Worth his weight in gold."
Man: "Wow, the last one is $200,000 - what does he do?"
Assistant: "I'm not sure, but he says he's a contractor."
The bay area is the only place I know you will actually make lots of cash, quickly. If you leave the USA, you may be disappointed. As an Australian I can tell you that salaries there allow you to live comfortably, but only because the cost of living is much lower - and you won't be much better off than say, a plumber or a successful shopkeeper. If you see a Porsche boxster in Australia, I'd put my money on the driver being in real estate or finance. I think in the bay area the cost of living is about double, but my salary is about triple - and if you're prepared to live out of the city you can save a lot of money fast, and of course we all know what stock and options can do. In Germany I understand from talking to engineers there that the situation is similar.
Benefits offered will be different. In some countries there is a real health system, and instead of offering HBO/PPO plans you will get a car + fuel provided. While there may be tax benefits to joining a private health scheme, most people don't as it's not really necessary. Australia has compulsory employer-funded superannuation, so don't worry about 401k deductions either. Four weeks is the standard vacation per year.
Finally, I don't think you will get options in many countries. I have never heard of anyone getting options as an engineer in Australia, and the Germans tell me it is also unheard of.
One possibility I have heard of is to contract in the UK. Figures of around 80 pounds per hour (BTW, this '#' means HASH, not POUND - I want to slap anyone who says "pound define") were mentioned to me when I looked into it. That's a lot of money, but living in London will cost you a packet too. No benefits as a contractor of course, and no holidays either.
The biggest thing you have to worry about is your visa/passport situation. I assume you have already looked into that and have a short list of countries that you can move to/work in? If you haven't then do that first, the USA isn't the only country with restrictions.
AND make sure you know what is like to work in some other place. I'm sitting at my bay area desk in tracksuit pants, with free brewed coffee and a free bagel. I have a 21" monitor and a nice fast laptop. Free cell phone. Card access to the building, any time. FAST internet! Freedom to manage my own computing resources. Flexible hours. Work from home. My current project is something I suggested, and I like it.
Contrast this with the Australian experience... tailored pants & shirt at all times. 15" monitor and Pentium 66. No phone, no expenses, no after hours access, strictly 9-5. Adversarial management. SLOW internet - possibly with some kind of net nanny installed. NO software other than that approved by the half-educated empire-building IT manager allowed! And they wonder why all the programmers are leaving.
Right! And this is precisely why we used to laugh at people leaving trsidoom2.zip, 18 meg, in their 5-meg-soft-quota world-readable accounts.
If anyone leaves copyrighted stuff out in the open they're going to get in trouble. It's as smart as tailgating a cop. To most people it's obvious... But once the sysadmin, or worse, the sysadmin's boss knows, they have to take some action, or as others have pointed out, be liable as well. What the MP3 owners got seems like a mild slap on the wrist, could it have been just a stunt to make RIAA happy?.
>Methinks those students that DID have passwords, non-public accounts, etc., should contact a lawyer and file a suit.
Breathtaking in its naivete, but unsurprising I suppose.