Heh, I may have my facts wrong.;) I think the relationship between RIAA and the labels is probably sufficient to give them some power over XM, but as you point out ASCAP would have the bulk of it in the manner I was referring.
But I don't know, now that you mention it, if RIAA would still have enough power to force XM into the position they appear to have taken.
Another analysis would indicate that XM is interested in attacking this guy because he developed software that is competitive with a product they're getting ready to offer. In that case, they might take sides with RIAA because "the enemy of my enemy" or something like that.
I don't really know, but this strikes me as a TV station going after someone who makes VCRs and makes little sense, since the software he developed just adds value to the XM service. If I were they, and I'm not, I'd be trying to get him to let me bundle his software with the devices for new customers, and collect a commission off sales (it would be the trial version I'd want to bundle, because a full version would mean I paid him a commission, and for that I'd either have to raise my rates or charge separately for the software).
Because of XM turns a blind eye to anything the RIAA cares about, expect XM to suddenly no longer have a license to broadcast the music they currently broadcast.
RIAA controls the supply, in this case. Or at least to some extent, since they are the association that was created to represent *all* of the record labels in anything resembling a copyright issue.
YOu may have inadvertently hit upon the reason the first couple of star wars movies were actually good. The first one, if you recall, was a low-budget film. I mean, sure, he had backing and all, but not enough to make the movie he wanted to make (or so he said after it was made. After ESB he said *that* was the movie he wanted to make, and i hear he's disowned it since then).
But in all the Making Of... documentaries, you always hear "We wanted to so *this and this* but we didn't have enough money, so we did *this* instead".
By the time it was time to make ROTJ, he was rolling in so much money he could do whatever he wanted, and that movie was much more about showing off what he could do if he had enough money to begin with, and thus began the decline of the franchise.
Let's not forget Lucas's most important contribution to filming that he has never duplicated, for any reason whatsoever.
Casting for the very first star wars movie wasn't done based on individuals reading lines. He took groups of actors, stuck them together to play out the scenes, and then hired the one that worked the best with each other. He casted for chemistry and team effort rather than raw acting ability.
That's why we got hung with such acting virtuosos as Mark Hamil and Carrie Fisher. (Just to be true, Carrie Fisher did wind up doing a decent job with her role in the later movies, as well as she could anyway. Until ROTJ, she was a kickin'ass and taking down the names chick. Then they turned her into a soft, warm, and fuzzy woman)
Harrison Ford is probably the only actor in the whole thing that was worth a shit. (James Earl Jones was already well-established in his career, wasn't he? If not, then he's the other actor worth a shit that came out of it.)
(Oh yeah, Billy Dee Williams rocks my world, but he was picked for that movie because he was a name, and they made enough off the first one to attract names. In fact, there was even talk of replacing Mark Hamill, which probably would have been a good move considering how he worked out to be just as pompous an ass as Lucas himself in the third movie)
I never was really impressed with Boba Fett, since all he did in ESB was fire a few blaster shots at Luke and take a bit of an unusual path to track the Falcon. Other than that, he just said stupid annoying things. I think the reason he's considered a bad ass is because Vader has to caution him especially "No disintegrations".
In fact, Boba Fett turned into a clumsy buffoon in ROTJ, so it's not like he ever got good.
Jango Fett, on the other hand, is quite a badass, and his fight with Obi-Wan is probably the best thing in the new movies and easily stands alongside Luke's first lightsaber duel with Vader as an epic battle of superhero vs super villain. They were playing for keeps, and it's a hell of a battle.
Hard to believe Jango got taken out so easily by a simple amateurish charge by a determined Jedi, but he was probably still recovering from his fight with Obi-Wan.
(but i usually just skip the Ewoks part when watching it)
Then what's left? Let's see, the space battle is actually pretty cool. Rescuing Han Solo was annoying because they gave Luke too much stage in those parts. His fight with the rancor is just....dumb. Would have been cooler if they had actually made it clear that he used the force to make sure the skull hit the right switch, instead they made it look like luck. And, oh yeah, the fake tension of Luke 'turning to the dark side'. I think the problem here is Mark Hamill, actually, not the Luke Skywalker character per se.
The only catch is, we have 5 data points. Here's my personal rating of each data point, and I'll let everybody else point out why they worked out like they did (yes, I know why). Oh yeah, rating is 1-5, with 5 being the best.
1
2
This one isn't made yet
3
5
1
Considering that the actual chronological order of these ratings is 3 5 1 1 2, there is a chance Lucas might pull out something like a 3 for the next movie, and I'll like it as much as I like Episode IV, which isn't actually saying much since I generally don't watch movies again and again unless my personal rating for them is at least 4. So yes, as a matter of fact there's only one star wars movie I really like, although I occasionally enjoy the others.
But what do I know. I also like Star Trek 5, and I get a kick out of watching Battlefield: Earth no matter how dumb it is.
Hey, I was about to respond to another guy to point out the good general, but I thought I'd read further, and sure enough, someone beat me to it hours ago.;)
So add me to the list of folks that know Hannibal as an elephant guy.
Also add me to the list of folks that know that later on elephants were also used by the Indians as, guess what!, troop carriers. I would suggest that Hannibal's use predates the Indians because I believe (but I could be wrong) that the Indians hadn't organized themself into a real warring civilization until Hannibal had already slaughtered thousands of Romans and gone to his own grave.
I'm willing to grant benefit of the doubt since there are numerous other posters that are even citing when it was added, and the times being cited generally correspond. Hopefully it's not the ol' "repeat it until it becomes fact".
I do have memories of Star Wars that conflict with my parents' memories of me and Star Wars, and my siblings have been unable to resolve them.
Fine, then. Don't watch any movies, don't read any books written since the 17th Century, and don't listen to any music made since the 19th century.
If you can't handle allusions because they shatter your illusions, hide yourself in a hole.
Taking an old idea and rehashing it in a new and interesting way is awesome, and it's about all that's left. All the stories that can be written have been written, all the themes that can be covered have been covered, and all the songs that can be written have already been written.
No, except that there is plenty of evidence in existing films. Yeah, I know, they can change shit around all they want these days. no arguments about that. The scrolling text always said "Episode IV: A New Hope", even before "Episode V:" was in the works.
So, no, nothing but my memory against yours, but while I don't knwo about yours, mine is one of those unswayable childhood memories. I cna't remember what I ate that day, but I do remember being the precocious and annoying three-year-old who read "Episode IV" out of the scrolling shit and impressing all the grown-ups. That's a pretty tough memory...
It was just called "Star Wars" because when it was made, Lucas didn't know he was going to make more. He didn't even have a story beyond it, or before it. No ideas, nothing. He won't admit it now, but there's probably some footage floating around talking about it.
He removed Jabba the Hutt's scene from the movie precisely because it was the only scene with him in it, and it didn't make sense to keep in the movie. Later on, when he made ROTJ, he wished he had left the scene in, except that he didn't want Jabba to be human anymore.
Now, of course, Lucas says "Jabba always was a slug, and we shot the scene with a human as a placekeeper, intending to go back and add Jabba the Slug when we had the technology to do it".
Gawd I can't stand that man anymore.;( The only reason even one of those movies was ever any good was because he backed off and let people make it for him. Every other movie he's taken part in making has sucked ass. Even Episode IV, which has always been Episode IV, even when it was in the theater without a sequel in sight (I remember this well because I was the kid in the theater who asked why it was Episode IV and what the other movies were).
Anakin and Amidala are the most contrived relationship ever. What is she, anyway, some sort of sicko pedophile?
That said, Attack of the Clones has some really good moments, too. Obi-Wan riding that probe thing through the streets of Coruscant, the charge of the Jedi into the midst of the battle droid army.
And some good drama. Count Dooku is just plain cool. He's almost as good of a villain as Darth Vader himself, he just doesn't get enough screen time. And hopefully he won't get more in the next movie, because I know Lucas will screw it up.
Yoda fighting was anticlimactic, I'll give that. In fact, all the light saber fights just look too choreographed. Luke vs Vader in Ep 5 was down and dirty no holds barred fight to the death. Nothing at all like that here.
All that said, i enjoy the new star wars movies for what they are, even if it irritates me that they aren't what they're supposed to be.
All's I can say is, the stories for Ep 7, 8, and 9 were already written by Timothy Vaughn (sp?) under direction and guidance of Lucas himself, and if Lucas rewrites them to make new movies I'm never watching star wars again. If they really want these movies made, they should seriously just give those three books to Spielberg and let him adapt them to the big screen.
Hell yeah! For my whole marriage I've been telling my wife the TV is a waste of time. Then one day, sitting there with hundreds of channels, she just got sick of it. The kids didn't know what to do without the TV on, they had forgotten how to play. And she couldn't find anything worthwhile to watch.
So she unplugged the tv, took it outside and stuck it in the dumpster (not quite as dramatic as me throwing a TV in the dumpster from a third story balcony, but still nice to see). She hasn't watched TV in two years and she's happy about it. (I, on the other hand, haven't watched TV in something like 6+ years, so she's seeing a lot more of me now than ever before)
The main problem with TV, I think, isn't necessarily the shitty content. It's the excessive compulsive viewing that causes trouble. When you watch TV, you sit in one place (generally), and stimulation is poured into you. You keep your eyes open and you listen, and you don't do anything else. So there's no effort involved while the stuff just gets poured into you. Since there's no effort involved, there's very little benefit derived. The real benefit comes when you think about it later, or you talk it over with people. But if you're watching it all the time, there isn't any time to go derive any real benefit from watching! So you keep getting this stuff poured into you. Eventually it displaces whatever individuality you had until your entire identity is defined by the TV shows you watch and no longer exists independent of the TV.
I got called up for a political survey recently. They asked me 'If the election were held today, who would you vote for?"
I answered "Well, I'm not really sure. If it were held today, it'd have to be Ralph Nader, but I might change my mind before the actual election day."
She said "So you're going to vote for Nader and help them re-elect Bush?"
I said "Quite possibly, if Kerry turns out to be the fascist I think he is. I already know Bush is a fascist. To be honest, I'd prefer to vote with a bullet at this point."
You know, it's great fun to point out how the statistics are a lie, but what if they are true?
In a land with a government that rules by the people and for the people, is it really a good idea to condemn 1/4 of your population? At what point does the will of the people enter into the equation? Whether it's right or wrong is irrelevant, but whether it's the will of the people or not is the key question.
So, if the statistics are lie, then great, the MPAA is wrong.
If they're the truth, then the MPAA is still wrong.
Copyright infringement does involve an actual loss of money. This stuff htey're calling copyright infringement, regardless of what the courts say, is *not* copyright infringement.
Copyright infringement is when I do something like sell a copy of hte movie and don't pay the royalty, if I have an agreement with the makers of the movie. If I don't have an agreement with the makers of the movie, then just selling a copy of the movie is enough to be infringing, even if I *do* pay them the royalty.
But if I give away a copy of the movie, that's called "Fair Use", and is *not* copyright infringement. So I can buy a million blank dvds, burn a copy of Catwoman (provided I legally acquired my copy), go into the streets and just give one to everyone I see, and it's not copyright infringement. But if I ask so much as one cent for each copy, then it is copyright infringement.
Cpoyright only protects the rights to commercially exploit a creative work. So I can't just take any given Doors song and stick it in a commercial for Big Macs. I have to license the song.
But if I use any given Doors song as the soundtrack to a little slideshow I've made of my family on vacation and give it away, that's fine.
What we're seeing is a method of making money by commercially exploiting copyright works going out of date and becoming obsolete, and the big monolithic companies that depend on that method flopping around trying to fight it.
I do not have the right to have in my posession a reporduction of that right because I don't agree with the authors/copyright holder
Actually, you do, provided you acquired it legally. Copyright law doesn't exist to guarantee anybody any specific method of making money from their creative works, it only exists to provide an opportunity. Historically, that opportunity to make money from creative works was by charging for distribution. But copyright law doesn't say "distribution".
Furthermore, copyright law requires the creator to ultimately put their work in the public domain. That's what they have to do in exchange for the powers granted to them by copyright law. Have we got Mickey Mouse yet? What else haven't we got, yet? Winnie the Pooh? For this last reason, DRM is incompatible with copyright.
Let's get back to first principles here. What is copyright for? Why does it exist, and how does it benefit society?
Why should I care how many people use IE worldwide when I work on my website? What matters on my website is what's in the logs. When you code to IE specifically, you reach a self-fulfilling prophecy and you'll *never* see log files that show anything near an accurate representation of people's browsing habits. Instead it'll show that only IE works on your site.
I don't recall if it was you (I haven't been paying that much attention), but the poster that started this thread was arguing that IE is used by so much of the market that it's just better to code for IE rather than make webpages that actually work. Call it bullshit if you want, but as long as you keep coding for IE only you're just chasing your own tail and running in circles.
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Heh, I may have my facts wrong. ;) I think the relationship between RIAA and the labels is probably sufficient to give them some power over XM, but as you point out ASCAP would have the bulk of it in the manner I was referring.
But I don't know, now that you mention it, if RIAA would still have enough power to force XM into the position they appear to have taken.
Another analysis would indicate that XM is interested in attacking this guy because he developed software that is competitive with a product they're getting ready to offer. In that case, they might take sides with RIAA because "the enemy of my enemy" or something like that.
I don't really know, but this strikes me as a TV station going after someone who makes VCRs and makes little sense, since the software he developed just adds value to the XM service. If I were they, and I'm not, I'd be trying to get him to let me bundle his software with the devices for new customers, and collect a commission off sales (it would be the trial version I'd want to bundle, because a full version would mean I paid him a commission, and for that I'd either have to raise my rates or charge separately for the software).
Because of XM turns a blind eye to anything the RIAA cares about, expect XM to suddenly no longer have a license to broadcast the music they currently broadcast.
RIAA controls the supply, in this case. Or at least to some extent, since they are the association that was created to represent *all* of the record labels in anything resembling a copyright issue.
YOu may have inadvertently hit upon the reason the first couple of star wars movies were actually good. The first one, if you recall, was a low-budget film. I mean, sure, he had backing and all, but not enough to make the movie he wanted to make (or so he said after it was made. After ESB he said *that* was the movie he wanted to make, and i hear he's disowned it since then).
But in all the Making Of... documentaries, you always hear "We wanted to so *this and this* but we didn't have enough money, so we did *this* instead".
By the time it was time to make ROTJ, he was rolling in so much money he could do whatever he wanted, and that movie was much more about showing off what he could do if he had enough money to begin with, and thus began the decline of the franchise.
Good observation, I think. Thank you. ;)
Heh. Seriously, I always thought the theme from Jaws was Dvorak. I love the New World Symphony. ;)
Let's not forget Lucas's most important contribution to filming that he has never duplicated, for any reason whatsoever.
Casting for the very first star wars movie wasn't done based on individuals reading lines. He took groups of actors, stuck them together to play out the scenes, and then hired the one that worked the best with each other. He casted for chemistry and team effort rather than raw acting ability.
That's why we got hung with such acting virtuosos as Mark Hamil and Carrie Fisher. (Just to be true, Carrie Fisher did wind up doing a decent job with her role in the later movies, as well as she could anyway. Until ROTJ, she was a kickin'ass and taking down the names chick. Then they turned her into a soft, warm, and fuzzy woman)
Harrison Ford is probably the only actor in the whole thing that was worth a shit. (James Earl Jones was already well-established in his career, wasn't he? If not, then he's the other actor worth a shit that came out of it.)
(Oh yeah, Billy Dee Williams rocks my world, but he was picked for that movie because he was a name, and they made enough off the first one to attract names. In fact, there was even talk of replacing Mark Hamill, which probably would have been a good move considering how he worked out to be just as pompous an ass as Lucas himself in the third movie)
Rock on.
I never was really impressed with Boba Fett, since all he did in ESB was fire a few blaster shots at Luke and take a bit of an unusual path to track the Falcon. Other than that, he just said stupid annoying things. I think the reason he's considered a bad ass is because Vader has to caution him especially "No disintegrations".
In fact, Boba Fett turned into a clumsy buffoon in ROTJ, so it's not like he ever got good.
Jango Fett, on the other hand, is quite a badass, and his fight with Obi-Wan is probably the best thing in the new movies and easily stands alongside Luke's first lightsaber duel with Vader as an epic battle of superhero vs super villain. They were playing for keeps, and it's a hell of a battle.
Hard to believe Jango got taken out so easily by a simple amateurish charge by a determined Jedi, but he was probably still recovering from his fight with Obi-Wan.
(but i usually just skip the Ewoks part when watching it)
Then what's left? Let's see, the space battle is actually pretty cool. Rescuing Han Solo was annoying because they gave Luke too much stage in those parts. His fight with the rancor is just....dumb. Would have been cooler if they had actually made it clear that he used the force to make sure the skull hit the right switch, instead they made it look like luck. And, oh yeah, the fake tension of Luke 'turning to the dark side'. I think the problem here is Mark Hamill, actually, not the Luke Skywalker character per se.
The only catch is, we have 5 data points. Here's my personal rating of each data point, and I'll let everybody else point out why they worked out like they did (yes, I know why). Oh yeah, rating is 1-5, with 5 being the best.
Considering that the actual chronological order of these ratings is 3 5 1 1 2, there is a chance Lucas might pull out something like a 3 for the next movie, and I'll like it as much as I like Episode IV, which isn't actually saying much since I generally don't watch movies again and again unless my personal rating for them is at least 4. So yes, as a matter of fact there's only one star wars movie I really like, although I occasionally enjoy the others.
But what do I know. I also like Star Trek 5, and I get a kick out of watching Battlefield: Earth no matter how dumb it is.
Hey, I was about to respond to another guy to point out the good general, but I thought I'd read further, and sure enough, someone beat me to it hours ago. ;)
So add me to the list of folks that know Hannibal as an elephant guy.
Also add me to the list of folks that know that later on elephants were also used by the Indians as, guess what!, troop carriers. I would suggest that Hannibal's use predates the Indians because I believe (but I could be wrong) that the Indians hadn't organized themself into a real warring civilization until Hannibal had already slaughtered thousands of Romans and gone to his own grave.
I'm willing to grant benefit of the doubt since there are numerous other posters that are even citing when it was added, and the times being cited generally correspond. Hopefully it's not the ol' "repeat it until it becomes fact".
I do have memories of Star Wars that conflict with my parents' memories of me and Star Wars, and my siblings have been unable to resolve them.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Fine, then. Don't watch any movies, don't read any books written since the 17th Century, and don't listen to any music made since the 19th century.
If you can't handle allusions because they shatter your illusions, hide yourself in a hole.
Taking an old idea and rehashing it in a new and interesting way is awesome, and it's about all that's left. All the stories that can be written have been written, all the themes that can be covered have been covered, and all the songs that can be written have already been written.
Get over yourself.
No, except that there is plenty of evidence in existing films. Yeah, I know, they can change shit around all they want these days. no arguments about that. The scrolling text always said "Episode IV: A New Hope", even before "Episode V:" was in the works.
So, no, nothing but my memory against yours, but while I don't knwo about yours, mine is one of those unswayable childhood memories. I cna't remember what I ate that day, but I do remember being the precocious and annoying three-year-old who read "Episode IV" out of the scrolling shit and impressing all the grown-ups. That's a pretty tough memory...
Jesus fucking christ that was annoying.
It was always part IV.
It was just called "Star Wars" because when it was made, Lucas didn't know he was going to make more. He didn't even have a story beyond it, or before it. No ideas, nothing. He won't admit it now, but there's probably some footage floating around talking about it.
He removed Jabba the Hutt's scene from the movie precisely because it was the only scene with him in it, and it didn't make sense to keep in the movie. Later on, when he made ROTJ, he wished he had left the scene in, except that he didn't want Jabba to be human anymore.
Now, of course, Lucas says "Jabba always was a slug, and we shot the scene with a human as a placekeeper, intending to go back and add Jabba the Slug when we had the technology to do it".
Gawd I can't stand that man anymore. ;( The only reason even one of those movies was ever any good was because he backed off and let people make it for him. Every other movie he's taken part in making has sucked ass. Even Episode IV, which has always been Episode IV, even when it was in the theater without a sequel in sight (I remember this well because I was the kid in the theater who asked why it was Episode IV and what the other movies were).
Well, they did switch out their rendering farm to a linux cluster right in the middle of making the second movie.
It is also the first (or so lucas says) movie to be shot solely with digital cameras.
The CG stuff is bleeding-edge CG stuff, even if it is still just CG stuff.
Yoda isn't a puppet in the second movie, he's a CG character.
And, as usual, Lucas is still a pompous ass, and he's innovating new ground in that area every day.
Anakin and Amidala are the most contrived relationship ever. What is she, anyway, some sort of sicko pedophile?
That said, Attack of the Clones has some really good moments, too. Obi-Wan riding that probe thing through the streets of Coruscant, the charge of the Jedi into the midst of the battle droid army.
And some good drama. Count Dooku is just plain cool. He's almost as good of a villain as Darth Vader himself, he just doesn't get enough screen time. And hopefully he won't get more in the next movie, because I know Lucas will screw it up.
Yoda fighting was anticlimactic, I'll give that. In fact, all the light saber fights just look too choreographed. Luke vs Vader in Ep 5 was down and dirty no holds barred fight to the death. Nothing at all like that here.
All that said, i enjoy the new star wars movies for what they are, even if it irritates me that they aren't what they're supposed to be.
All's I can say is, the stories for Ep 7, 8, and 9 were already written by Timothy Vaughn (sp?) under direction and guidance of Lucas himself, and if Lucas rewrites them to make new movies I'm never watching star wars again. If they really want these movies made, they should seriously just give those three books to Spielberg and let him adapt them to the big screen.
Hell yeah! For my whole marriage I've been telling my wife the TV is a waste of time. Then one day, sitting there with hundreds of channels, she just got sick of it. The kids didn't know what to do without the TV on, they had forgotten how to play. And she couldn't find anything worthwhile to watch.
So she unplugged the tv, took it outside and stuck it in the dumpster (not quite as dramatic as me throwing a TV in the dumpster from a third story balcony, but still nice to see). She hasn't watched TV in two years and she's happy about it. (I, on the other hand, haven't watched TV in something like 6+ years, so she's seeing a lot more of me now than ever before)
The main problem with TV, I think, isn't necessarily the shitty content. It's the excessive compulsive viewing that causes trouble. When you watch TV, you sit in one place (generally), and stimulation is poured into you. You keep your eyes open and you listen, and you don't do anything else. So there's no effort involved while the stuff just gets poured into you. Since there's no effort involved, there's very little benefit derived. The real benefit comes when you think about it later, or you talk it over with people. But if you're watching it all the time, there isn't any time to go derive any real benefit from watching! So you keep getting this stuff poured into you. Eventually it displaces whatever individuality you had until your entire identity is defined by the TV shows you watch and no longer exists independent of the TV.
Lucky you.
Camels and Winston are made by the same people. ;)
What about Choosy moms choose GIF?
Or something like that.
I got called up for a political survey recently. They asked me 'If the election were held today, who would you vote for?"
I answered "Well, I'm not really sure. If it were held today, it'd have to be Ralph Nader, but I might change my mind before the actual election day."
She said "So you're going to vote for Nader and help them re-elect Bush?"
I said "Quite possibly, if Kerry turns out to be the fascist I think he is. I already know Bush is a fascist. To be honest, I'd prefer to vote with a bullet at this point."
"Vote with a bullet? What does that mean?"
"Revolution, because the system is broke."
"So you're going to stick with Nader?"
"Yep."
"That's going to influence my survey."
"Yep."
"Sure you don't want to change your mind?"
"I'm sure."
'nuff said?
You know, it's great fun to point out how the statistics are a lie, but what if they are true?
In a land with a government that rules by the people and for the people, is it really a good idea to condemn 1/4 of your population? At what point does the will of the people enter into the equation? Whether it's right or wrong is irrelevant, but whether it's the will of the people or not is the key question.
So, if the statistics are lie, then great, the MPAA is wrong.
If they're the truth, then the MPAA is still wrong.
Copyright infringement does involve an actual loss of money. This stuff htey're calling copyright infringement, regardless of what the courts say, is *not* copyright infringement.
Copyright infringement is when I do something like sell a copy of hte movie and don't pay the royalty, if I have an agreement with the makers of the movie. If I don't have an agreement with the makers of the movie, then just selling a copy of the movie is enough to be infringing, even if I *do* pay them the royalty.
But if I give away a copy of the movie, that's called "Fair Use", and is *not* copyright infringement. So I can buy a million blank dvds, burn a copy of Catwoman (provided I legally acquired my copy), go into the streets and just give one to everyone I see, and it's not copyright infringement. But if I ask so much as one cent for each copy, then it is copyright infringement.
Cpoyright only protects the rights to commercially exploit a creative work. So I can't just take any given Doors song and stick it in a commercial for Big Macs. I have to license the song.
But if I use any given Doors song as the soundtrack to a little slideshow I've made of my family on vacation and give it away, that's fine.
What we're seeing is a method of making money by commercially exploiting copyright works going out of date and becoming obsolete, and the big monolithic companies that depend on that method flopping around trying to fight it.
I do not have the right to have in my posession a reporduction of that right because I don't agree with the authors/copyright holder
Actually, you do, provided you acquired it legally. Copyright law doesn't exist to guarantee anybody any specific method of making money from their creative works, it only exists to provide an opportunity. Historically, that opportunity to make money from creative works was by charging for distribution. But copyright law doesn't say "distribution".
Furthermore, copyright law requires the creator to ultimately put their work in the public domain. That's what they have to do in exchange for the powers granted to them by copyright law. Have we got Mickey Mouse yet? What else haven't we got, yet? Winnie the Pooh? For this last reason, DRM is incompatible with copyright.
Let's get back to first principles here. What is copyright for? Why does it exist, and how does it benefit society?
Dude, I wouldn't admit to using a Trash-80 if I were you...
That said, my browser's user agent string claims to be "Mozilla/4.8 [en] (Atari 2600)"
Why should I care how many people use IE worldwide when I work on my website? What matters on my website is what's in the logs. When you code to IE specifically, you reach a self-fulfilling prophecy and you'll *never* see log files that show anything near an accurate representation of people's browsing habits. Instead it'll show that only IE works on your site.
I don't recall if it was you (I haven't been paying that much attention), but the poster that started this thread was arguing that IE is used by so much of the market that it's just better to code for IE rather than make webpages that actually work. Call it bullshit if you want, but as long as you keep coding for IE only you're just chasing your own tail and running in circles.