I agree. One thing is for sure: whatever technical measures they might
implement and whatever laws they might pass, the Interned will still
resemble a series of tu... I mean, a truck full of x-rated movies.
Listen: if I am not using the software, I cannot be violating the EULA. But let us just ignore this inconvenient fact and see what the EULA says anyway:
use the Game Client in conjunction with the Service for your non-commercial entertainment purposes only
So, when I am disclosing my account/password to a third party, am I using the client software or the service?
Where is the violation? When I am opening the trade window and transfer 1000g, do I use the WoW client for my commercial transaction, or the WoW service? Don't get me wrong, dude. I like WoW as a game. I am subscribed as of this moment. But one look at their EULA is enough to see it as a steaming pile of garbage that it is. Not only it is probably not enforceable, it just doesn't make any sense!
WoW's EULA is a steaming pile of garbage. It is impossible to sell your character in a legal sense of the word, as it is just a file on Blizzard's servers. When you are "selling your character" on eBay, you are selling the service of disclosing your account name and password, neither of which can possibly be licensed by Blizzard. When you are "selling gold", you are selling the service of transferring gold in-game, and for that you have Blizzard's implicit permission.
Names, titles, and short phrases or expressions are not subject to copyright protection. Even if a name, title, or short phrase is novel or distinctive or if it lends itself to a play on words, it cannot be protected by copyright.
Mind it, the EULA is probably referring to NPCs' names, not PCs' names, as the latter, even if they could be licensed, would "belong" to the players. Moreover, I do not think that I need to abide by EULA if I am not playing WoW.
My gripe with eBay is not about them removing game-related listings; if they would just bloody told me that I cannot sell anything game-related because it's their shop and they set the rules, I would be perfectly satisfied. Instead, they told me that (1) ESA reported my listing as infringing their IP (2) I should apologize (in typing) for infringing ESA's IP if I want my eBay account back (3) ESA refuses to comment on which IP was infringed. Since I did not infringe anyone's IP, I didn't see a reason to apologize. As far as I know, I never violated eBay's policy: I chatted with the reps several times, and not a single one of them could tell me what the violation was. All they knew was that I got tagged by ESA twice, and they have an agreement to remove the tagged listings. But if there is no violation, how is it fair to have my account suspended? Unless, that is, eBay thinks that its customers are morons and treats them like morons, which is my only bloody point in this thread.
Does anyone know a utility/website for detecting and cleaning bots?
Microsoft makes great software for that, and it is a part of the default
installation. If you can see a "Start" button in the lower left corner
of your screen, it means that your computer is probably infected. To clean
it, you may try using the Windows installation CD.
The seller must be the owner of the underlying intellectual property, or authorized to distribute it by the intellectual property owner.
Not only they are being stupid, they have been consistently treating us as if we were stupid.
I gave up on eBay after my attempt to sell my WoW account. eBay suspended my eBay account and
asked me to agree to their policy (see above). I wrote to them, saying that I am
literally selling two character strings, under 20 bytes total (account/password). They are not
even copyrightable. My listing was clearly worded to explain that. The response I got from them
was along the lines of "That's great; now admit your fault or go f%#k yourself". I went with
the latter.
I am under an impression (more so lately) that the Congress is not really against the Bush's policy. They keep saying they are, and next day they let the Military Commissions Bill to pass,
and day after that they pass a non-binding resolution to express their "outrage". As Bill Hicks would put it, what is it gonna take
for Americans to see that the Congress is fucking them in the ass?
Am I being too simple here? Is my mind too coarse and vulgar to comprehend some piece of wisdom possessed by the enlightened representatives? They keep saying "No" on TV and voting "Yes" the very next fucking day. They don't want the war to end! I don't know what their motive is, but they are really, really committed to what Bush is doing.
Perhaps he's saying that the government shouldn't get involved on pro- or con-neutrality, which I can understand more, but then that opens the door for the greedy corporations to start throttling away.
I think that's what he is saying. I tend to agree with him. After all, what's the worst they can do?
Take their cables and go home? Well, guess what, we'll just find another way to connect our networks!
They (telcos) will be left to rot with their tv-cable-like internet, while the rest of us will
happily use our ghetto wireless network. Without legislation, no one can take away our ability
to connect our networks the way we bloody like; they can only take away a few "tubes"--albeit
very nice ones. But with the legislation, we are risking to loose some of our freedom
as to how to connect.
Hmm, the tower... That's right, how did I not see that before?
Just for a vertical tower on n pieces,
the total number of combinations is 17^(n-1), which
is a strict lower bound.
To simplify the question, we could consider just these
classic
bricks. By different combinations we'll understand fully connected arrangements, with
no regard to combinations of colour, rotations, or symmetries. I suppose that Legos can
connect with a single corner, correct me if I am wrong.
Le(1) = 1
Le(2) = 17
Then, for one of the combinations in Le(2), there are 18 ways to add the third piece. The
problem seems to be barely tractable now without the aid of at least lego pieces and a piece
of paper, but I'll make bold assumptions. If Le(n) grows at least as fast as 10^n (and my
gut tells me that it grows much faster), then measly 100 pieces will give you a quantity that
dwarfs the number of particles in the known universe.
If Microsoft had refused to support this bullshit [...]
And they could, of course. Gutmann is right: they do have the
content producers by the balls on that issue. But I am convinced
that they too seek to benefit from all of that DRM. They
are making their best effort to curb piracy. We'll see how well
that's gonna work...
Will the Windows Vista content protection board robustness recommendations increase the cost of graphics cards and reduce the number of build options?
Everything was moving to be integrated on the one chip anyway and this is independent of content protection recommendations. Given that cost (particularly chip cost) is most heavily influenced by volume, it is actually better to avoid making things optional through the use of external chips. It is a happy side effect that this technology trend also reduces the number of vulnerable tracks on the board.
Am I hearing a resounding yes?
Will Windows Vista content protection features increase CPU resource consumption?
Yes. However, the use of additional CPU cycles is inevitable, as the PC provides consumers with additional functionality. [...]
Yes, we know that what we call DRM they call "an additional functionality".
Will the 'tilt bit' mechanism cause problems even when the driver is not under attack from a hacker, e.g., when there are voltage spikes?
It is pure speculation to say that things like voltage fluctuations might cause a driver to think it is under attack from a hacker. It is up to a graphics IHV to determine what they regard as an attack.
How can one say "yes" that will sound mostly like "no"? See above.
All in all, the article is a great read. There are useful details about the bricking mechanism (it's actually more forgiving than was suspected), and a general consensus with the costs identified by Gutmann.
Mod this up! It is all about the motive. Google has none: they only stand to loose
if someone controls the traffic. They have no content of their own, they make money
because the Web is neutral. When the content providers will push for non-neutrality,
they will in fact be asking to make the Net into Cable, which would make Google
completely irrelevant. I have no doubt that Google would kill its own mother to increase
the margins, but at the present moment they are on people's side: their entire
strategy depends on the presence of neutral, ubiquitous, slightly chaotic Internet.
This measure is not intended to stop pirates, who could scramble any
invisible watermark by simply re-encoding with negligible quality loss.
Nor, I think, is it supposed to discourage a consumer from "posting
the video on the Internet". Who the hell is posting their videos on the
Internet?? YouTube users, may be? Where videos are scaled down so much
that even a visible watermark might become unintelligible.
To me it looks like a lip-service to the studios. It's cheaper than
DRM, and just as effective for all practical purposes (which is to say,
completely ineffective). Microsoft said it best: they are doing it "because
[it] demonstrates their strong intent to protect premium content".
Great point! The only version of Windows I ever liked was 95, and that was briefly.
Whereas I instantly liked Linux (the first UNIX I've encountered), and I like it to
this day. For me, it all comes down to the pleasure of studying it--something I cannot
do with Windows. Later in my life I also liked SunOS, but more as a challenge to
replace the entire userland with GNU.
It's funny that you chose to call them "derivative works" in an attempt to show that making them is legal.
Great quoting from the think book of law. Now if you were so keen as to
read three damn lines of the GP's post just to make sure that he never states
or argues that mixing is legal. He is saying that it is a creative act,
it is ethical, and is exactly the kind of act that is supposed to be encouraged
by the copyright.
You can choose to believe copyright has failed all you want (which you do simply to justify piracy, no doubt); it won't make it true.
Right, what makes it true is the fact that copyright is excluding people from access to knowledge
and arts today, the very opposite of what it was supposed to achieve. See Moglen for the extended
version of this argument.
you are actually arguing here that releasing a product for sale is somehow "abusing copyright."
Where?
you argue that playing live is somehow different from recording yourself playing live
It's the same very thing? Playing equals recording? Are you sure it's me who is crazy here?
you are arguing that you somehow have a right to get their music without compensating them for it.
What does it mean, "getting their music"? Be precise. I am arguing that I have a right to copy
any digital content for non-commercial purposes. I would argue more, but let's just stop here
for now. You are confusing authorship and possession. Just because the recording is made by them,
it does not follow that it belongs to them. What right do they have to decide what is to be done with the
recording besides the copyright?
Some of us have principles and will actually pay the people for their work.
If I buy a product, I pay. If I hire someone, I pay. But if I bust my own ass to
make a copy of a bit-stream, why the hell am I supposed to pay anyone? Because it
encourages the progress yadda yadda? It doesn't, so I won't. You probably think
that I am a self-righteous asshole, but I don't want to make that impression. I am
no better than you; I just think that they are scamming us. They are selling us
air, dude. Come on.
Uh, what I really want to say (in defense of Linus) is this:
you can at most blame him for being seemingly apathetic to the cause,
but I wouldn't do even that. We know he is a hot head. He knows that
himself, he admitted it in writing many times over. If he starts talking
politics, it's going to be a bloodbath. He is a passionate idealist,
and he is wise enough to let the calm, level-headed cynic do the talking.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree. One thing is for sure: whatever technical measures they might implement and whatever laws they might pass, the Interned will still resemble a series of tu... I mean, a truck full of x-rated movies.
Listen: if I am not using the software, I cannot be violating the EULA. But let us just ignore this inconvenient fact and see what the EULA says anyway:
So, when I am disclosing my account/password to a third party, am I using the client software or the service? Where is the violation? When I am opening the trade window and transfer 1000g, do I use the WoW client for my commercial transaction, or the WoW service? Don't get me wrong, dude. I like WoW as a game. I am subscribed as of this moment. But one look at their EULA is enough to see it as a steaming pile of garbage that it is. Not only it is probably not enforceable, it just doesn't make any sense!
WoW's EULA is a steaming pile of garbage. It is impossible to sell your character in a legal sense of the word, as it is just a file on Blizzard's servers. When you are "selling your character" on eBay, you are selling the service of disclosing your account name and password, neither of which can possibly be licensed by Blizzard. When you are "selling gold", you are selling the service of transferring gold in-game, and for that you have Blizzard's implicit permission.
So, could you point out exactly which part of copyright law I am breaking by disclosing my character's name and my password to a third party?
They are full of shit. From the U.S. Copyright Office:
Mind it, the EULA is probably referring to NPCs' names, not PCs' names, as the latter, even if they could be licensed, would "belong" to the players. Moreover, I do not think that I need to abide by EULA if I am not playing WoW.
My gripe with eBay is not about them removing game-related listings; if they would just bloody told me that I cannot sell anything game-related because it's their shop and they set the rules, I would be perfectly satisfied. Instead, they told me that (1) ESA reported my listing as infringing their IP (2) I should apologize (in typing) for infringing ESA's IP if I want my eBay account back (3) ESA refuses to comment on which IP was infringed. Since I did not infringe anyone's IP, I didn't see a reason to apologize. As far as I know, I never violated eBay's policy: I chatted with the reps several times, and not a single one of them could tell me what the violation was. All they knew was that I got tagged by ESA twice, and they have an agreement to remove the tagged listings. But if there is no violation, how is it fair to have my account suspended? Unless, that is, eBay thinks that its customers are morons and treats them like morons, which is my only bloody point in this thread.
Microsoft makes great software for that, and it is a part of the default installation. If you can see a "Start" button in the lower left corner of your screen, it means that your computer is probably infected. To clean it, you may try using the Windows installation CD.
Not only they are being stupid, they have been consistently treating us as if we were stupid. I gave up on eBay after my attempt to sell my WoW account. eBay suspended my eBay account and asked me to agree to their policy (see above). I wrote to them, saying that I am literally selling two character strings, under 20 bytes total (account/password). They are not even copyrightable. My listing was clearly worded to explain that. The response I got from them was along the lines of "That's great; now admit your fault or go f%#k yourself". I went with the latter.
What are you trying to hide and where?
As far as I understand, the legislation is only intended to make Apple untie their music from the iPod. It doesn't matter if anyone is using DRM.
I am under an impression (more so lately) that the Congress is not really against the Bush's policy. They keep saying they are, and next day they let the Military Commissions Bill to pass, and day after that they pass a non-binding resolution to express their "outrage". As Bill Hicks would put it, what is it gonna take for Americans to see that the Congress is fucking them in the ass? Am I being too simple here? Is my mind too coarse and vulgar to comprehend some piece of wisdom possessed by the enlightened representatives? They keep saying "No" on TV and voting "Yes" the very next fucking day. They don't want the war to end! I don't know what their motive is, but they are really, really committed to what Bush is doing.
Why am I modded funny? I don't get it :(
I know nothing about Vista, but sounds like DMA might be disabled.
I think that's what he is saying. I tend to agree with him. After all, what's the worst they can do? Take their cables and go home? Well, guess what, we'll just find another way to connect our networks! They (telcos) will be left to rot with their tv-cable-like internet, while the rest of us will happily use our ghetto wireless network. Without legislation, no one can take away our ability to connect our networks the way we bloody like; they can only take away a few "tubes"--albeit very nice ones. But with the legislation, we are risking to loose some of our freedom as to how to connect.
Hmm, the tower... That's right, how did I not see that before? Just for a vertical tower on n pieces, the total number of combinations is 17^(n-1), which is a strict lower bound.
how many lego combinations are possible
To simplify the question, we could consider just these classic bricks. By different combinations we'll understand fully connected arrangements, with no regard to combinations of colour, rotations, or symmetries. I suppose that Legos can connect with a single corner, correct me if I am wrong.
Le(1) = 1
Le(2) = 17
Then, for one of the combinations in Le(2), there are 18 ways to add the third piece. The problem seems to be barely tractable now without the aid of at least lego pieces and a piece of paper, but I'll make bold assumptions. If Le(n) grows at least as fast as 10^n (and my gut tells me that it grows much faster), then measly 100 pieces will give you a quantity that dwarfs the number of particles in the known universe.
And they could, of course. Gutmann is right: they do have the content producers by the balls on that issue. But I am convinced that they too seek to benefit from all of that DRM. They are making their best effort to curb piracy. We'll see how well that's gonna work...
a
Am I hearing a resounding yes?
Yes, we know that what we call DRM they call "an additional functionality".
How can one say "yes" that will sound mostly like "no"? See above.
All in all, the article is a great read. There are useful details about the bricking mechanism (it's actually more forgiving than was suspected), and a general consensus with the costs identified by Gutmann.
Mod this up! It is all about the motive. Google has none: they only stand to loose if someone controls the traffic. They have no content of their own, they make money because the Web is neutral. When the content providers will push for non-neutrality, they will in fact be asking to make the Net into Cable, which would make Google completely irrelevant. I have no doubt that Google would kill its own mother to increase the margins, but at the present moment they are on people's side: their entire strategy depends on the presence of neutral, ubiquitous, slightly chaotic Internet.
This measure is not intended to stop pirates, who could scramble any invisible watermark by simply re-encoding with negligible quality loss. Nor, I think, is it supposed to discourage a consumer from "posting the video on the Internet". Who the hell is posting their videos on the Internet?? YouTube users, may be? Where videos are scaled down so much that even a visible watermark might become unintelligible.
To me it looks like a lip-service to the studios. It's cheaper than DRM, and just as effective for all practical purposes (which is to say, completely ineffective). Microsoft said it best: they are doing it "because [it] demonstrates their strong intent to protect premium content".
As you can see, my post above contains a link to the law and hence this case falls under the Quirk's Exception.
Great point! The only version of Windows I ever liked was 95, and that was briefly. Whereas I instantly liked Linux (the first UNIX I've encountered), and I like it to this day. For me, it all comes down to the pleasure of studying it--something I cannot do with Windows. Later in my life I also liked SunOS, but more as a challenge to replace the entire userland with GNU.
If Windows sucks soooo much, how come more people are familiar with it than Mac OS X?
If Hitler sucks soooo much, how come more people are familiar with him than with Asoka?
It's funny that you chose to call them "derivative works" in an attempt to show that making them is legal. Great quoting from the think book of law. Now if you were so keen as to read three damn lines of the GP's post just to make sure that he never states or argues that mixing is legal. He is saying that it is a creative act, it is ethical, and is exactly the kind of act that is supposed to be encouraged by the copyright.
Wow, great move, MySpace. Now, how about taking all that energy and channeling it into, um, I don't know, preventing Tom's profile from being hacked?
You can choose to believe copyright has failed all you want (which you do simply to justify piracy, no doubt); it won't make it true.
Right, what makes it true is the fact that copyright is excluding people from access to knowledge and arts today, the very opposite of what it was supposed to achieve. See Moglen for the extended version of this argument.
you are actually arguing here that releasing a product for sale is somehow "abusing copyright."
Where?
you argue that playing live is somehow different from recording yourself playing live
It's the same very thing? Playing equals recording? Are you sure it's me who is crazy here?
you are arguing that you somehow have a right to get their music without compensating them for it.
What does it mean, "getting their music"? Be precise. I am arguing that I have a right to copy any digital content for non-commercial purposes. I would argue more, but let's just stop here for now. You are confusing authorship and possession. Just because the recording is made by them, it does not follow that it belongs to them. What right do they have to decide what is to be done with the recording besides the copyright?
Some of us have principles and will actually pay the people for their work.
If I buy a product, I pay. If I hire someone, I pay. But if I bust my own ass to make a copy of a bit-stream, why the hell am I supposed to pay anyone? Because it encourages the progress yadda yadda? It doesn't, so I won't. You probably think that I am a self-righteous asshole, but I don't want to make that impression. I am no better than you; I just think that they are scamming us. They are selling us air, dude. Come on.
Uh, what I really want to say (in defense of Linus) is this: you can at most blame him for being seemingly apathetic to the cause, but I wouldn't do even that. We know he is a hot head. He knows that himself, he admitted it in writing many times over. If he starts talking politics, it's going to be a bloodbath. He is a passionate idealist, and he is wise enough to let the calm, level-headed cynic do the talking.