Re:Geeks do- everyone else doesn't.
on
The DRM Scorecard
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· Score: 0, Troll
Of course not. That's why the MAFIAA and similar parties use the legal system to fill the holes that technology can't. If you can't actually stop everyone from doing it, simply make it illegal, and sue anyone who gets past the initial hurdles.
It has never been legal in your lifetime. Your parents. Your grandparents.
Anything less than perfect control is, after all, simply an unexploited opportunity for profit.
Profit drives production and production is the side of the equation that the geek never quite seems to grasp.
The Iron Giant. The Incredibles. Ratatouille.
It takes $150 million to produce animation at this level. Projects can be five to ten years in development. Brad Bird is 50.
the MAFIAA
Spare me this adolescent prattling.
The rights agencies are trade associations representing companies that - in a capitalist society - are accustomed to being paid for the products and services they deliver. Nothing more. Free downloads for the geek with a DVD burner were never part of the deal.
Please, people crack, copy, and distribute. Joe and Jane Average don't have to lift a finger beyond clicking their mouse!
Until he gets caught.
Joe Average leaves a trail. Joe Average isn't judgment proof. Joe Average doesn't get free legal help. He doesn't become the next poster child for the EFF.
Joe is the guy who settles out of court, structures his new debts and begins writing checks.
You will excuse me, I trust, if I part company with the geek who lays traps for the unwary - and is vain enough to think that he is doing them a service.
As noted in our first article about the ban, the VAC overturned the BBFC's ban of Carmageddon back in 1997, giving Rockstar a glimmer of hope in its current situation."
Carmageddon was staged as a cartoon.
The pedestrian targets and obstacles never allowed to become too real.
Manhunt 2 is unmistakably derived from the sadistic and malign torture porn flicks - exploitation films - like Saw and Hostel.
If you can't see that distinction - if you can't make that distinction - then the critics of video game violence have won their point.
Lets put it this way... if Dell found a bug that was overcharging customers do you honestly think they'd pay back all the money to the customers they rightfully owed? Probably not.
Interesting argument. Use what someone might do to justify what you have done - profit from another's innocent mistake, a misprint, a typo. Why not take it into a court of equity and see how well it flies?
Re:Any consensus?
on
Blue Blu-ray
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· Score: 3, Interesting
most people still don't have HD.
That is changing very rapidly.
30% of American households have HDTV.
44% of these households receive HD programming.
The "home theater" movie and gaming experience can be more important to buyers than HD programming
>it's easy to forget that this will often be a buyer's first experience with large screen, wide screen, projection, flat panel displays,etc.
>which is good news in the long run for Sony and Blu-Ray.
2/3 get their HD programming by cable TV. 1/4-1/3 by satellite.
I was under the impression that the price at which a product was advertised was the price at which it must be sold? Otherwise the low price expectation being met with a higher-price reality leads to the problems of the 'bait-and-switch.'
Or am I being somewhat naive?
WordStar anyone? Surely you remember Word Perfect!
MS is looking forwards to having one billion users on the desktop. The PC/XT is looking back over twenty-five years.
the more they remove MSWord from the virtually free Works package
MS Office Home and Student 2007. Three-seat license. Retail boxed. No academic ID required. $122 at Amazon.com. #1 in software sales at Amazon. Microsoft Works 2006 #455 in software sales from Amazon.
The Word and Works bundle listed for about $125 in its prime.
the more OEM's cut costs by preloading OO so that you have it right out of the box, the more MS has to worry about.
Want to cut costs? Pre-load trial versions of MS Office Home.
the Computerworld site quotes polling results from a potentially-divisive PatchLink survey.
Before breaking out the champagne, I would like to know how this poll or survey was conducted. PatchLink, after all, has a vested interest in operating systems and apps that need third-party patch solutions.
And since they are making the comparison... just how reliable are fingerprints, really?
The Newman link is from 2001.
The judge who decided the original Llera-Plaza motion, which is discussed and critiqued in the following article, reversed himself on March 13, 2002, holding that expert evidence of a "match" was admissible. Judge Pollak had granted the Government's motion for a reconsideration that is mentioned above, and he also reopened the record to hear additional testimony for the prosecution as well as for the defense. In reversing himself in a 60-page opinion, Judge Pollak stated, in part, "In short, I have changed my mind.'The Reliability of Fingerprint Evidence: A Case Report
This paragraph is more disturbing to me - language like that can be used to rope in just about anyone.
The paragraph is the standard legal definition of participation in a criminal conspiracy and has been around more or less forever. You were part of the plan. Your or your partner(s) acted on the plan. You all share in the consequences.
The felony murder rule has a similar logic. You and your brothers rob a bank. When a teller is shot, when a teller lies dead, it doesn't much matter that you weren't the one who pulled the trigger. You were part of the crime, you helped make this happen.
People need automotive transportation. There are plenty of good economic reasons for a car like this, especially these days
I need a car that can climb the Niagara Escarpment on a switchback country road and make the long trudge into Buffalo and back in the dead of Winter. I need a car that is equally adept in heavy expressway traffic with short ramps, high speeds, quick and dangerous merges.
The American commute is a punishing environment for the featherwieght electric.
What's particularly irritating about QDOS/MS-DOS is that it's success was pure blind luck.
IBM had a launch date set for the PC.
The clock was running out for Kildall. He hadn't nailed down the deal or pushed his OS to completion.
Gates was there waiting and Gates took a chance, promising to deliver something serviceable on a very tight schedule and at a very attractive price - without licensing it exclusively to IBM.
Anyone willing to watch a camcorder bootleg of a movie is not going to shell out for the product anyhow.
What the camcorder audience wants is their free first-run media fix, quality be damned. What they want is to sound convincing when their friends begin talking about the new must-see Spiderman or Transformers.
As some said over at the Michael Geist site, who wants to go to a theater and be subjected to huge lines, searches, unsanitary conditions, and unassigned seating (aka huge waits while being beat in the head with ads) to see a movie they can purchase for life for $20.00 in 4 months?
From IMDb:
USA Gross Through July 22
Transformers $262,978,000
Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix $207,866,865
Ratatouille $165,519,955
Live Free or Die Hard $116,267,860
Which translates crudely to about 20 million admissions for a summer box office hit.
And its better to be rich with connections than either. Most small companies that have no track record and haven't produced anything couldn't even get a meeting to pitch their product to IBM in the first place.
Don't rewrite history. Microsoft in 1980 was a known quantity, dominant in programming languages for the eight-bit micro, and had the licensed XENIX OS ready for the sixteen-bit micro. Microsoft Timeline
The Cornell link has a small but dangerously misleading typographical error:
506. Criminal offenses
(a) Criminal Infringement. - Any person who infringes a copyright willfully either -
(1) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, - OR -
(2) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000 Copyright Law of the United States of America
ILLINOIS MAN PLEADS GUILTY TO POSTING '24' TELEVISION SHOW
ON INTERNET PRIOR TO FIRST BROADCAST ON FOX
A Chicago man pleaded guilty today to a felony charge for posting the first
four episodes of this season's "24" on the Internet before they were originally aired
on the Fox television network earlier this year. Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section [July 2, 2007], The No Electronic Theft ("NET") Act [February 18, 1998]
Halvar was wrong for not having the correct visa. That being said, the government should probably spend their money going after the millions of people who come in illegally through the Mexican border
If you come through a legal port of entry, you have to have your ducks in a row. If you want to make a few bucks harvesting cabbages on the Tex-Mex border, you can take your chances.
Slashdot Mirror
It has never been legal in your lifetime. Your parents. Your grandparents.
Anything less than perfect control is, after all, simply an unexploited opportunity for profit.
Profit drives production and production is the side of the equation that the geek never quite seems to grasp.
The Iron Giant. The Incredibles. Ratatouille.
It takes $150 million to produce animation at this level. Projects can be five to ten years in development. Brad Bird is 50.
the MAFIAA
Spare me this adolescent prattling.
The rights agencies are trade associations representing companies that - in a capitalist society - are accustomed to being paid for the products and services they deliver. Nothing more. Free downloads for the geek with a DVD burner were never part of the deal.
Until he gets caught.
Joe Average leaves a trail. Joe Average isn't judgment proof. Joe Average doesn't get free legal help. He doesn't become the next poster child for the EFF.
Joe is the guy who settles out of court, structures his new debts and begins writing checks.
You will excuse me, I trust, if I part company with the geek who lays traps for the unwary - and is vain enough to think that he is doing them a service.
Selling Windows installed adds a lot to sales. OEM Linux is entering the consumer market twenty-seven years after MSDOS and Windows.
Carmageddon was staged as a cartoon.
The pedestrian targets and obstacles never allowed to become too real.
Manhunt 2 is unmistakably derived from the sadistic and malign torture porn flicks - exploitation films - like Saw and Hostel.
If you can't see that distinction - if you can't make that distinction - then the critics of video game violence have won their point.
The PC as a ready-to-run home appliance or office machine has been the gold standard for sales in the consumer market since the Apple II.
You are a big boy now. Don't like the contract? Don't sign the contract.
Interesting argument. Use what someone might do to justify what you have done - profit from another's innocent mistake, a misprint, a typo. Why not take it into a court of equity and see how well it flies?
That is changing very rapidly.
30% of American households have HDTV.
44% of these households receive HD programming.
The "home theater" movie and gaming experience can be more important to buyers than HD programming
>it's easy to forget that this will often be a buyer's first experience with large screen, wide screen, projection, flat panel displays,etc.
>which is good news in the long run for Sony and Blu-Ray.
2/3 get their HD programming by cable TV. 1/4-1/3 by satellite.
30% of U.S. Households Have an HDTV: CEA
Or am I being somewhat naive?
Not naive.
Greedy.
Court Rules for Cleaners In $54 Million Pants Suit
No business could stand the losses if you could demand sale and delivery of a Bugatti Veyron at 90% off list because of a misprint in a brochure.
Production Costs $17 million
Theatrical Gross $13 million
Amazon.com Sales Rank: #43,832 in DVD
a low budget, high-concept, Lovecraftian horror flick that still managed to lose money.
MS is looking forwards to having one billion users on the desktop. The PC/XT is looking back over twenty-five years.
the more they remove MSWord from the virtually free Works package
MS Office Home and Student 2007. Three-seat license. Retail boxed. No academic ID required. $122 at Amazon.com. #1 in software sales at Amazon. Microsoft Works 2006 #455 in software sales from Amazon.
The Word and Works bundle listed for about $125 in its prime.
the more OEM's cut costs by preloading OO so that you have it right out of the box, the more MS has to worry about.
Want to cut costs? Pre-load trial versions of MS Office Home.
Now and again he does: Civil Rights Act of 1964,
Before breaking out the champagne, I would like to know how this poll or survey was conducted. PatchLink, after all, has a vested interest in operating systems and apps that need third-party patch solutions.
The Newman link is from 2001.
The judge who decided the original Llera-Plaza motion, which is discussed and critiqued in the following article, reversed himself on March 13, 2002, holding that expert evidence of a "match" was admissible. Judge Pollak had granted the Government's motion for a reconsideration that is mentioned above, and he also reopened the record to hear additional testimony for the prosecution as well as for the defense. In reversing himself in a 60-page opinion, Judge Pollak stated, in part, "In short, I have changed my mind.' The Reliability of Fingerprint Evidence: A Case Report
You'll find links here to many articles on Identification Evidence. For example: Phenotype vs Genotype: Why Identical Twins Have Different Fingerprints
The paragraph is the standard legal definition of participation in a criminal conspiracy and has been around more or less forever. You were part of the plan. Your or your partner(s) acted on the plan. You all share in the consequences.
The felony murder rule has a similar logic. You and your brothers rob a bank. When a teller is shot, when a teller lies dead, it doesn't much matter that you weren't the one who pulled the trigger. You were part of the crime, you helped make this happen.
I need a car that can climb the Niagara Escarpment on a switchback country road and make the long trudge into Buffalo and back in the dead of Winter. I need a car that is equally adept in heavy expressway traffic with short ramps, high speeds, quick and dangerous merges.
The American commute is a punishing environment for the featherwieght electric.
IBM had a launch date set for the PC.
The clock was running out for Kildall. He hadn't nailed down the deal or pushed his OS to completion.
Gates was there waiting and Gates took a chance, promising to deliver something serviceable on a very tight schedule and at a very attractive price - without licensing it exclusively to IBM.
What the camcorder audience wants is their free first-run media fix, quality be damned. What they want is to sound convincing when their friends begin talking about the new must-see Spiderman or Transformers.
From IMDb:
USA Gross Through July 22
Transformers $262,978,000
Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix $207,866,865
Ratatouille $165,519,955
Live Free or Die Hard $116,267,860
Which translates crudely to about 20 million admissions for a summer box office hit.
Don't rewrite history. Microsoft in 1980 was a known quantity, dominant in programming languages for the eight-bit micro, and had the licensed XENIX OS ready for the sixteen-bit micro. Microsoft Timeline
506. Criminal offenses
(a) Criminal Infringement. - Any person who infringes a copyright willfully either -
(1) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, - OR -
(2) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000
Copyright Law of the United States of America
ILLINOIS MAN PLEADS GUILTY TO POSTING '24' TELEVISION SHOW ON INTERNET PRIOR TO FIRST BROADCAST ON FOX
A Chicago man pleaded guilty today to a felony charge for posting the first four episodes of this season's "24" on the Internet before they were originally aired on the Fox television network earlier this year.
Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section [July 2, 2007], The No Electronic Theft ("NET") Act [February 18, 1998]
Why, nothing at all.
You did know that an attempt to commit a crime is itself a crime? Try forcing a lock the charge will be attempted burglary.
If you are spending time in airports - your laptop is not an impulse buy - and you are not the target market.
What "everyone knows" is often wrong.
Acer Aspire 3680 14.1" Widescreen Laptop PC w/ Intel Celeron M Processor
Vista Basic
512 MB RAM (expand to 2 GB)
80 GB HDD
DVD Burner
WiFi
$449
Compaq Presario 15.4" Widescreen Laptop PC w/ AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor
Vista Premium
1 GB RAM (Expand to 2 GB)
120 GB HDD
DVD Burner
NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150 graphics
WiFi
$600
If you come through a legal port of entry, you have to have your ducks in a row. If you want to make a few bucks harvesting cabbages on the Tex-Mex border, you can take your chances.