Install Privoxy (available for Mac, Windows, many flavors of Linux, and lots of other OSes)
Privoxy acts as a local proxy and filters web sites to let through only what you want. No more pop-ups, no more banner ads, no more abusive javascripts. It's completely browser-independent, too. And it regularly updates its action files to catch new ads.
In previous suits, the RIAA has said things to the tune of: "Since you didn't own copyright to this and my computer made a copy, regardless of whether or not I own copyright, the file isn't legally mine."
They have never said that. They've never said anthing even similar. Show me a cited quotation.
It is not a violation to copy content for which you own the copyright ever. Even if the person who made that copy infringed on your copyright when they did it, it's impossible to infringe on a copyright that you OWN.
What they actually SAID in their IM is "It appears that you are offering copyrighted music to others from your computer." What they said is completely true: it DOES appear that you are offering copyrighted music. Can I imagine a universe where an mp3's title usually doesn't match its contents? Sure, but WE DON'T LIFE IN THAT UNIVERSE.
Nice try, but the plausible deniability goes right out the window the minute they subpoena your hard drive and find all of those illicit mp3s in your playlists. Logging the transfers gives them the probable cause they'd need to get a warrant.
And then come the perjury charges... you think copyright infrigement is a serious offense?
In the really long term, after bandwidth and storage has caught up to the demand, movie files will be traded exactly like mp3s are today. Hell, to a large extent they already are, albeit only among people with fat pipes.
Personal computers are more and more becoming media hubs, and Apple has been pushing digital music for a few years now to great effect. Media is becoming a killer app for the home PC; when home networks connect the computer to the TV and stereo system, digital media on the computer will only become more prominent.
Whether the MPAA will accept this as inevitable and offer a low-cost legitimate alternative (like Apple's Music Store) remains to be seen. The MPAA certainly won't allow it without engaging in mortal combat with the Internet first (exhibit 1: the RIAA), but that'll ultimately be a fight they can't win.
It's much the same reason getting music by buying MP3's (say from apple's new service) will not fly in the end.
You mean mp3s aren't flying? Last time I checked there were tens of millions of users on Kazaa actively trading digital audio files.
A persistent digital copy on a hard drive is almost always more useful than a physical copy. When I type up a document, I save it on my computer; the print-out is just a transient means of sharing it. Similarly, mp3s are much more versatile than a track on an album, and a burned copy is just a transient vector to my stereo system or car or discman. The only reason movies don't already follow that paradigm is that they're too big for bandwidth and hard drives, and that is a temporary problem. Soon the MPAA will face the same issues the RIAA faces today.
This may not be terribly relevant, but there is an easy way to disable that nag dialog. Set your system clock to the year 2500 or so and launch QT player. Quit it, and set the clock back to 2003. You'll be nag-free for 497 years. I know this works on the mac; it may work on Windows as well.
Note: in China or Cuba, you're lucky if you are only sent to jail for speaking out against your government. Some people just get shot.
Okay, this is BAD LOGIC. There have always been nations and people with little to no regard for human rights. There will probably be nations and people with no regard for human rights far into the future. This is not an excuse to be abusive ourselves.
Well, you could rip back to AAC. I'm assuming that there isn't any DRM on tracks you rip from physical media; there certainly isn't when you rip to mp3. So I can imagine a consumer burning his restricted AACs to a CD, then ripping them back to unrestricted AACs.
Of course, long before that becomes necessary, we will probably see utilities on VersionTracker that will illicitly remove DRM from all of your media.
There's a bright side to all this: Spammers are doing this because they're desperate, with fewer and fewer spam friendly havens.
Maybe I'm being overly cynical, but I think the reason spammers are doing this is only because it's more profitable than not doing it. I mean, they're using other people's bandwidth, and bandwidth is really the only variable cost associated with spamming. Whether or not they're desperate is an independant and unrelated issue.
Oh please. First, the assertion that there are enough of us to make a dent in an unrelated market sphere (greeting cards) is highly doubtful. Second, even if the boycott succeeded, the company would simply spin the drop in sales as having been hurt by Penny Arcade's defamatory/infringing/unfunny parody, not as a consumer response to frivolous legal claims. Third -- and this bears repeating -- there is no such thing as bad publicity. You'd better believe that the more attention this story gets, the happier AGC advertising execs are.
Well after the english singer Robbie Williams [bbc.co.uk] claimed that piracy was 'great', and his record company (EMI) went ballistic.... it is quite an interesting change of tact from them.
Does it occur to you that they're still against piracy? Legally purchasing song files (mp3 or otherwise) is not piracy. Advocating the legal sale of song files is not advocating piracy.
I'm fairly certain that I don't own a paper document for every piece of software I've purchased. Most shareware, for example, comes with licenses in "about" boxes or in accompanying text files.
My point is, duplicating a "legal document" can be and often is just as simple as duplicating a CD and a key number.
OK, let's assume a worst-case latency of 1 second. Even with that extremely pessimistic assumption, you've still got a clock that is never more than a second off. Hell, assume that it doesn't actually adjust the pendulum until it's 3 seconds off; you've still got a timekeeper that will never be more than 4 seconds wrong. For an antique analog clock, you'd be crazy not to take that.
Compare that to my wristwatch, which is a far more capable timer than a pendulum clock. Even a quartz clock drifts over time; maybe 1 second per week is gained or lost. Still, after 4 weeks, the antique clock wins. Now, obviously, simply having the atomic clock itself give a digital readout is the more accurate than either option, but if you decide that you want an antique analog clock at all, this is the way to go.
Privacy actually is an explicit constitutional right. I'm not going to point to a line in the Constitution that gives you that right, though, because the Supreme Court Justices did a much better job than I could when they penned Griswold v. Connecticut.
That someone would claim privacy is not a right is surprising in that it redefines what I think of as common knowledge; it is, after all, the justification for Roe v. Wade, and I hope we've all heard of that.
More likely, the survey says that people like getting something for nothing. When my friends download an mp3, retribution is the least of their motivations -- and I don't think they're alone.
But then, some people today also think that the whole concept that you could "own" an idea is pretty strange.
You can't own an idea. Copyright applies only to creative works in their original form, and it's not ownership; it's a limited monopoly on the rights associated with copying it. Hence, "copy right."
This is a very common misconception with copyright -- it does not apply to ideas, and it does not grant ownership.
But owning an idea is not at all counterintuitive. If I think of something and tell no one, the idea is mine. I own it. No one can force it from me, and I'm free to take it to the grave. Ironically, this sort of ownership is exactly what patents are designed to prevent.
No, I wouldn't eat at that restaurant -- but that has little to do with the service being offered. At the risk of belaboring your analogy, the Sony portable player would serve the purpose of a large doggie bag -- having already payed for the thirty entrees proffered, the player simply allows me not to eat the ones I don't like.
Granted, a user can choose to infringe on copyright, but this glorified mp3 player hardly enhances his ability to do so. I mean, with it, he downloads an mp3 and puts it on the player. Without it, he downloads an mp3 and puts it on his iPod, Archos, or Rio. Or he could burn it to a CD, or listen to it on his computer. How this device promote piracy any more than a high-capacity mp3 player?
If one is to use a firearm for self-defense, it will be used at the last possible moment - a moment that does not allow for software glitches, hardware bugs, run-down batteries, etc...
Of course. The gun has admittedly increased software dependance -- the hammer is replaced by a laser for example. But that same change significantly reduces the potential for mechanical defect -- the hardware bugs you mention. Current guns can jam, and there's no reason to believe these electronic guns would be any more prone to error.
The glass stairs he talks about aren't really such a big deal -- they are translucent rather than transparent, and that's only apparent because there are lights shining up from underneath. I've been in buildings that promote a sort of adrenaline rush -- seven stories with metal grating for each floor, for example -- and the stairs in Apple SoHo do not qualify.
According to a rumor I've heard, when the store opened for the first time, the manifold legions of press rushed inward. The architect for the glass stairs was standing nearby and audibly panicked at the sight of them stampeding toward the stairs.
Slashdot Mirror
Replies to spam will never reach the spammer.
Just sayin'...
Imagine this technology combined with a simple Bluetooth ID that you can carry in your wallet:
Privoxy acts as a local proxy and filters web sites to let through only what you want. No more pop-ups, no more banner ads, no more abusive javascripts. It's completely browser-independent, too. And it regularly updates its action files to catch new ads.
In previous suits, the RIAA has said things to the tune of: "Since you didn't own copyright to this and my computer made a copy, regardless of whether or not I own copyright, the file isn't legally mine."
Nice try, but the plausible deniability goes right out the window the minute they subpoena your hard drive and find all of those illicit mp3s in your playlists. Logging the transfers gives them the probable cause they'd need to get a warrant.
And then come the perjury charges... you think copyright infrigement is a serious offense?
In the really long term, after bandwidth and storage has caught up to the demand, movie files will be traded exactly like mp3s are today. Hell, to a large extent they already are, albeit only among people with fat pipes.
Personal computers are more and more becoming media hubs, and Apple has been pushing digital music for a few years now to great effect. Media is becoming a killer app for the home PC; when home networks connect the computer to the TV and stereo system, digital media on the computer will only become more prominent.
Whether the MPAA will accept this as inevitable and offer a low-cost legitimate alternative (like Apple's Music Store) remains to be seen. The MPAA certainly won't allow it without engaging in mortal combat with the Internet first (exhibit 1: the RIAA), but that'll ultimately be a fight they can't win.
It's much the same reason getting music by buying MP3's (say from apple's new service) will not fly in the end.
You mean mp3s aren't flying? Last time I checked there were tens of millions of users on Kazaa actively trading digital audio files.
A persistent digital copy on a hard drive is almost always more useful than a physical copy. When I type up a document, I save it on my computer; the print-out is just a transient means of sharing it. Similarly, mp3s are much more versatile than a track on an album, and a burned copy is just a transient vector to my stereo system or car or discman. The only reason movies don't already follow that paradigm is that they're too big for bandwidth and hard drives, and that is a temporary problem. Soon the MPAA will face the same issues the RIAA faces today.
ditch the nag-dialogs for non-pro users entirely
This may not be terribly relevant, but there is an easy way to disable that nag dialog. Set your system clock to the year 2500 or so and launch QT player. Quit it, and set the clock back to 2003. You'll be nag-free for 497 years. I know this works on the mac; it may work on Windows as well.
Note: in China or Cuba, you're lucky if you are only sent to jail for speaking out against your government. Some people just get shot.
Okay, this is BAD LOGIC. There have always been nations and people with little to no regard for human rights. There will probably be nations and people with no regard for human rights far into the future. This is not an excuse to be abusive ourselves.
Well, you could rip back to AAC. I'm assuming that there isn't any DRM on tracks you rip from physical media; there certainly isn't when you rip to mp3. So I can imagine a consumer burning his restricted AACs to a CD, then ripping them back to unrestricted AACs.
Of course, long before that becomes necessary, we will probably see utilities on VersionTracker that will illicitly remove DRM from all of your media.
There's a bright side to all this: Spammers are doing this because they're desperate, with fewer and fewer spam friendly havens.
Maybe I'm being overly cynical, but I think the reason spammers are doing this is only because it's more profitable than not doing it. I mean, they're using other people's bandwidth, and bandwidth is really the only variable cost associated with spamming. Whether or not they're desperate is an independant and unrelated issue.
Oh please. First, the assertion that there are enough of us to make a dent in an unrelated market sphere (greeting cards) is highly doubtful. Second, even if the boycott succeeded, the company would simply spin the drop in sales as having been hurt by Penny Arcade's defamatory/infringing/unfunny parody, not as a consumer response to frivolous legal claims. Third -- and this bears repeating -- there is no such thing as bad publicity. You'd better believe that the more attention this story gets, the happier AGC advertising execs are.
How much harm has this heavy-handed action *really* done you?
There is no such thing as bad publicity. Reverence is nice, but infamy will work well enough.
Well after the english singer Robbie Williams [bbc.co.uk] claimed that piracy was 'great', and his record company (EMI) went ballistic.... it is quite an interesting change of tact from them.
Does it occur to you that they're still against piracy? Legally purchasing song files (mp3 or otherwise) is not piracy. Advocating the legal sale of song files is not advocating piracy.
I'm fairly certain that I don't own a paper document for every piece of software I've purchased. Most shareware, for example, comes with licenses in "about" boxes or in accompanying text files.
My point is, duplicating a "legal document" can be and often is just as simple as duplicating a CD and a key number.
OK, let's assume a worst-case latency of 1 second. Even with that extremely pessimistic assumption, you've still got a clock that is never more than a second off. Hell, assume that it doesn't actually adjust the pendulum until it's 3 seconds off; you've still got a timekeeper that will never be more than 4 seconds wrong. For an antique analog clock, you'd be crazy not to take that.
Compare that to my wristwatch, which is a far more capable timer than a pendulum clock. Even a quartz clock drifts over time; maybe 1 second per week is gained or lost. Still, after 4 weeks, the antique clock wins. Now, obviously, simply having the atomic clock itself give a digital readout is the more accurate than either option, but if you decide that you want an antique analog clock at all, this is the way to go.
Privacy actually is an explicit constitutional right. I'm not going to point to a line in the Constitution that gives you that right, though, because the Supreme Court Justices did a much better job than I could when they penned Griswold v. Connecticut.
That someone would claim privacy is not a right is surprising in that it redefines what I think of as common knowledge; it is, after all, the justification for Roe v. Wade, and I hope we've all heard of that.
More likely, the survey says that people like getting something for nothing. When my friends download an mp3, retribution is the least of their motivations -- and I don't think they're alone.
You can't own an idea. Copyright applies only to creative works in their original form, and it's not ownership; it's a limited monopoly on the rights associated with copying it. Hence, "copy right."
This is a very common misconception with copyright -- it does not apply to ideas, and it does not grant ownership.
But owning an idea is not at all counterintuitive. If I think of something and tell no one, the idea is mine. I own it. No one can force it from me, and I'm free to take it to the grave. Ironically, this sort of ownership is exactly what patents are designed to prevent.
No, I wouldn't eat at that restaurant -- but that has little to do with the service being offered. At the risk of belaboring your analogy, the Sony portable player would serve the purpose of a large doggie bag -- having already payed for the thirty entrees proffered, the player simply allows me not to eat the ones I don't like.
Granted, a user can choose to infringe on copyright, but this glorified mp3 player hardly enhances his ability to do so. I mean, with it, he downloads an mp3 and puts it on the player. Without it, he downloads an mp3 and puts it on his iPod, Archos, or Rio. Or he could burn it to a CD, or listen to it on his computer. How this device promote piracy any more than a high-capacity mp3 player?
Of course. The gun has admittedly increased software dependance -- the hammer is replaced by a laser for example. But that same change significantly reduces the potential for mechanical defect -- the hardware bugs you mention. Current guns can jam, and there's no reason to believe these electronic guns would be any more prone to error.
The glass stairs he talks about aren't really such a big deal -- they are translucent rather than transparent, and that's only apparent because there are lights shining up from underneath. I've been in buildings that promote a sort of adrenaline rush -- seven stories with metal grating for each floor, for example -- and the stairs in Apple SoHo do not qualify.
According to a rumor I've heard, when the store opened for the first time, the manifold legions of press rushed inward. The architect for the glass stairs was standing nearby and audibly panicked at the sight of them stampeding toward the stairs.