Ok, well firstly I thought you were talking about an idiot savant who managed to crack the code without prior knowledge of the algorithm or key. That sounds like the plot of a bad movie (I believe it was called "Mercury Rising").
Fine, so anyone can decrypt a cipher by hand if they know the algorithm and the key. However, if someone goes out of their way to reverse engineer a copy-protection algorithm, it doesn't really matter to me whether they write a computer program, hire an idiot savant, or teach it to trained circus chimps.
I don't know about you, but I have cable and I pay something like $70 a month for TV (and it goes up all the time). Broadcast TV loses market share every year and TIVO is really going to kill it if left unregulated. 100% ad sponsored TV was a dominant business model in a technological vacuum, the kind of atmosphere that never existed on the Internet.
My comment about downloading a movie and not watching the ads being stealing was in reference to a quote from some TV network bigwig who said that skipping commmercials was stealing. Anyway, my point is that TIVO is rapidly gaining popularity and the ability to skip commercials is a large reason for that popularity. None of the viewers seem to care if the network makes money from ads, so I conclude that the value of the ads will go down and the networks will lose money. People will get used to pressing the pause button on the TIVO when they need a break.
A small police force could conquer Britian, and the only people there who could do a damn thing about it would be the criminals.
The criminals, the police, the army, and the armies of all of Britain's allies. We know that the threat of prison doesn't work, because otherwise there'd be no crime.
Uhh... no, we know that the threat of prison doesn't work perfectly because otherwise there'd be no crime. Actually, I've analyzed the statistics on violent crime and from what I can tell, the death penalty is an effective deterent. All in all, the only thing that deters violent crime is the possibility of violent retaliation, and that means citizenry with guns.
And I suppose that's why the US has the highest rate of violent crime in the Western world. The US has the most murders and also the highest handgun ownership. Interestingly enough, Switzerland has the second highest handgun ownership and the second highest gun murder rate. Coincidence? I think not.
Well, I don't know about your website specifically. I definitely agree that there were plenty of dumb websites with dumb business cases before the implosion, but there were also some good sites that struggled.
Before the bubble burst, I was on at least 4 different ad-sponsored mailing lists with readerships in the 10s or 100s of thousands. None of these sites went crazy with IPOs or hiring 50 people, but they all had to move to a subscriber model (or mixed subscriber/advertising) when the ad revenue dried up.
The stupid companies went flat-out bankrupt, but many of the good ones couldn't cut it with advertising alone. I'm talking about online media here, not e-commerce. In addition to developing the website, they also have to provide content, which is no easy task.
The reason they failed is that they didn't reward the customer for viewing the ad.If they were smart and put cartoons or something up there, they might have had a loyal advertising audience.
Cartoons,you say? Yeah, everyone on here has his pet theory on how to make money on the Internet and they all involve giving away your greatest asset for free. I'll believe it when I see it. How many people aren't renting movies because they're too tired after work to do so? I think this would add to their revenue, not replace the rental system. Other than that, I think you're right.
Well, if they're too tired to go to the video store, they can watch pay per view for about the same price. No need to give away their products for free on the Internet. I'd rather get it off a fast server with ads than download the edited from you over the period of a day.
Whatever... someone will write an ad-skipping plugin for Mozilla. Same difference. I have yet to meet anyone who thought that downloading a movie and not watching the ads was stealing.
This would be true if the average user of P2P knew that the material they download could be edited. Truth is editing would be too much trouble for the average viewer. It's not as satisfying to actually do something about a problem as it is to bitch about it.
Someone will write an open source program to do it for them.
I find your comment alarmist and ridiculous. If there was an idiot-savant who could decrypt stuff in his head (which in itself is ridiculous) I don't think he would be thrown in jail. More likely, he would be employed by the NSA for a hefty salary.
Music, movies, TV shows, and other forms of digital media should be made downloadable on the website of whoever owns it. The owner could still profit quite handsomely from advertisements on the website, seeing as how more people will visit it to grab all the free media they would offer. Video media such as TV shows and movies would have built-in ads within them too.
Cough! Yet another stupid commment by someone who has no clue about economics. If you had been paying any attention whatsoever for the last 3 years you would have noticed that most of the websites that were 100% advertising are now out of business. Then let's consider how much advertising revenue you get from a single hit on your website. It sure ain't the $5 you currently pay to rent a movie or the $17 that a CD would cost you. Plus after someone downloads your movie, edits out the commercials, and sticks it on P2P then you're right back where you started. Get a fucking clue!!!
Yes, it was an inspired choice. However, after listening to Gwen struggle through the first song while out of breath, it makes you realize why so many artists lip-synch (especially the ones with big dance routines).
On the other hand, maybe she could have just skipped the push-ups beforehand.
You're really dealing with two intertwined issues here. The RIAA member companies price fixing / lack of sampling alternitives will ensure that P2P lasts for years to come reguardless of anything else.
I don't think so. Firstly, go up a couple of messages in the thread and you will see that the OP was expousing the virtue of a system that would allow the copyright holder to squeeze every last cent out of the music for the first 28 years. (And plus, I don't think price fixing is a major concern in the music industry.) Also, I don't think the consumer has any fundamental right to be able to buy music on a per track basis, although it would be nice. (The problem is that consumers have unrealistic expectations in this regard.)
Your second paragraph is just a non-sequitor as far as I'm concerned. However, simply changing copywright law to requier 'comercial profit' or 'intent to comercially profit' to the laws defining copyright violations will solve more problems than any solution I have yet seen. It removes the teeth of these laws to go after individuals, and forces the focus back to comercial copyright issues, and off the casual violator.
I wholeheartedly disagree. It may alleviate what you perceive to be the problemm, but in this case the demand is just as much a problem as the supply. As far as I'm concerned, pirating music for personal benefit is just as serious as pirating music for profit.
I don't use P2P, but I almost entirely listen to music that is more than 28 years old. I'm sure there are others around in a similar situation.
Well, I listen to about 50% music that is more than 28 years old. But what you and I do is irrelevant, statistically speaking. Would you care to estimate how much recent music the average/. reader listens to.
However, I don't support the reduction in copyright terms because music, movies, radio shows, and books that I like would be released into the public domain, but for other reasons.
Try re-reading that sentence a few times and see if it means what you think it means. Yet another "generalizing the slashdot crowd is pretty futile" comment...
Generalizations are perfectly valid when you are describing a general trend. They fail when they are applied to a specific case.
The proposition proposed doesn't wash - it's right there with folks that want to take away the right to own and carry fire arms. Once that happens only criminals have guns. Real bright idea there too!
Oh yeah.. forgot to mention. You seem to have the mistaken impression that the best way to support your argument is by drawing an analogy to another highly contraversial debate. Since only half of Americans (and many fewer foreigners) would agree with your NRA slogan, it doesn't do much to back up your point. Especially when there are plenty of Westernized countries where only the criminals (and police) have guns, and the citizens are no worse for it.
If this is possible (which I doubt - can they get all ISPs to detect and block gnutella, etc. traffic on every port), it would mean going back to FTP, IRC, etc. That would significantly reduce piracy, although probably a lot of file sharers would just switch to the other protocols.
Think about it this way. Any large-scale piracy service that is accessible to the general public will be accessible to law enforcement as well. It doesn't matter if it's P2P or FTP or IRC. Back in the days of the pirate BBS's, they always used to have a disclaimer when you log on that said something like "By clicking here, you swear under oath that you are not a member of a law enforcement organization." Kind of a dead giveaway, isn't it? Anyway, what those sysops eventually found out is that that kind of system doesn't make you immune from prosecution. Copyright holders can make piracy more cumbersome, and thus less appealing, but, short of a 1984-like world, they can never stop someone who's determined to do it from pirating.
Maybe not, but that was the whole point of my earlier post. You can't stop 100% of the piracy out there, but if you discourage the people who won't do it if it's inconvenient or if they might get caught, then you can reduce it to manageable levels.
Interesting that you should bring up 1984, though. I always thought the whole "file sharing" terminology was rather 1984-ish. If you ever say "stealing", you will face a barrage of complaints about how stealing is depriving someone of property (which will invariably be modded up to +5 insightful), to the point where you end up having to use another term. Of course, newspeak exists anywhere there is lobbying going on (pro-life, pro-choice, affirmative action, etc).
In Canada, we have two major beer companies, and of course both of them wanted to be known as the official sponsor of the Canadian Olympic hockey team. So one of them paid to be the sponsor and the other just featured generic hockey players (who happened to be in Utah). Apparently, being associated with a sporting event is a big value, so the NFL needs to protect the value of their commodity.
Of course for the life of me, I can't remember which beer company actually was the official sponsor.
Damn straight it is. You get twenty-eight years to milk something for all the millions it's worth, AND you get to crush utterly and punitively anyone who dares steal even a penny's worth from you? Sounds like a good deal to me.
I'm sure that all the/. readers who complain about the terms of copyright being too long would immediately stop pirating music if this law was enacted, right? In fact, I bet they only currently use P2P to 'share' music that is more than 28 years old, right?
Let's face it,/. support for copyright limitation is just hypocracy.
It only takes one person circumventing the protection to open a work to the world.
You need to learn to think in a less extremist manner. The real world doesn't work in black and white. Copyright violations were going on for years in the pre-Internet era, and while we don't know the exact damage to the music industry, it wasn't serious enough to fundamentally damage their business.
The Internet has caused piracy rates to skyrocket, mostly due to the failure of law enforcement to shut down file trading services quickly. Eliminate the file sharing networks and piracy will drop back down to a more manageable level.
Further - how does the government have the right to give away MY rights! They don't! I have the right to "fair-use" under the law. The US government doesn't have the right to trade that away to the content providers!
The government giveth and the government taketh away.
Suing your customers is a somewhat questionable business model. I can't think of a single thing they could do that would kill them more quickly.
Nonono... suing celebrities is a poor business model. That's why Saks 5th Avenue didn't want to pursue the case against Winona.
Suing 'customers' doesn't do much damage. The reason is that only a small percentage (say 10%) of consumers base their purchasing decisions on moral outrage. While a disproportionate number of people may post on/., they don't represent the mood of the public as a whole.
There's a reason why cryptographers talk about 10 and 20 year security. If you have information that is worth $1 million and will still be worth $1 million 10 years ago, it may be in danger. Lets say the adversary waits 5 years and builds one of these machines for only $2 million. Now he can crack one key per year for at least 5 years and more than recover his investment.
If someone is a full time musician and is able to sell a decent amount of albums they are going to be paid at the very least enough to eat and pay the rent. As always wages are the highest expenses. /. readers don't believe in full time musicians. Music (just like programming) is a hobby that you do to exercise your creativity after yet another day's work at the 7-11.
In what way is paying for a product or service extortion? No one's forcing you to download the music, or even to pay for it.
I think you read my comment exactly the wrong way. A statement such as "If they lowered the price then maybe people wouldn't steal it" is tantamount to extortion. If you walked up to an EMI exec right now and said "If you don't lower your price for CD foo, I intend to pirate it", that would be a clear act of extortion. However, if the $.50 bought you added value, in the form of accurate filenames and ID3 tags, and decent quality, only someone with no money and lots of free time would bother downloading entire albums from Kazaa.
First of all, 50 cents a track is already a huge loss for the labels. Previously, they might charge $17 for a 10 track CD, so that's $1.70 per track. In other words, you are asking for a 70% discount.
But there's also all the/. readers who complain about spending $17+ for a CD with only 1 or 2 good songs. Clearly the tracks are not all of equal value. Perhaps those 2 tracks are worth $5 each, the other tracks are worth 75 cents each, and the cover art is worth $1. If music goes 100% online then the concept of albums will probably disappear, as users will just burn mix tapes. If you only download the two songs you like for 50 cents a pop, you are getting a 90% discount off the current price. Piracy would have to reach enormous levels before that became a value proposition. only someone with no money and lots of free time would bother downloading entire albums from Kazaa. The last time I tried, I got an incomplete album, with varying bitrates, and a couple of imposter songs.
You assume, without justification, that P2P technology will never improve. The technology to make a better, more convenient Kazaa already exists, and it would probably be deployed by now if it weren't for the threat of lawsuits. I make way more in the two hours it took to get that mess on my computer than the CD would have cost.
Most people don't. And there's no fundamental reason why it will still take 2 hours next year or the year after.
It's not that hard to shoplift gum, either, but why bother when it's only $.25 per?
The problem is that no one likes to give in to extortion, even when it may seem to be the most practical solution. Personally, it bothers me that threats of extortion are so frequently used as a construtive argument here on/.
If she cares what the/. crowd thinks about her at all, then such a move could do nothing but improve her image. What could she possibly have to lose by agreeing to such an interview?
Maybe she doesn't care what the/. crowd thinks about her. I know I don't.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, well firstly I thought you were talking about an idiot savant who managed to crack the code without prior knowledge of the algorithm or key. That sounds like the plot of a bad movie (I believe it was called "Mercury Rising").
Fine, so anyone can decrypt a cipher by hand if they know the algorithm and the key. However, if someone goes out of their way to reverse engineer a copy-protection algorithm, it doesn't really matter to me whether they write a computer program, hire an idiot savant, or teach it to trained circus chimps.
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"To draw an analogy"?? Did you read my sig?
I use the term "piracy" simply because it doesn't tend to get me into semantic arguments, whereas "stealing" does.
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I don't know about you, but I have cable and I pay something like $70 a month for TV (and it goes up all the time). Broadcast TV loses market share every year and TIVO is really going to kill it if left unregulated. 100% ad sponsored TV was a dominant business model in a technological vacuum, the kind of atmosphere that never existed on the Internet.
My comment about downloading a movie and not watching the ads being stealing was in reference to a quote from some TV network bigwig who said that skipping commmercials was stealing. Anyway, my point is that TIVO is rapidly gaining popularity and the ability to skip commercials is a large reason for that popularity. None of the viewers seem to care if the network makes money from ads, so I conclude that the value of the ads will go down and the networks will lose money. People will get used to pressing the pause button on the TIVO when they need a break.
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A small police force could conquer Britian, and the only people there who could do a damn thing about it would be the criminals.
The criminals, the police, the army, and the armies of all of Britain's allies.
We know that the threat of prison doesn't work, because otherwise there'd be no crime.
Uhh... no, we know that the threat of prison doesn't work perfectly because otherwise there'd be no crime. Actually, I've analyzed the statistics on violent crime and from what I can tell, the death penalty is an effective deterent.
All in all, the only thing that deters violent crime is the possibility of violent retaliation, and that means citizenry with guns.
And I suppose that's why the US has the highest rate of violent crime in the Western world. The US has the most murders and also the highest handgun ownership. Interestingly enough, Switzerland has the second highest handgun ownership and the second highest gun murder rate. Coincidence? I think not.
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Well, I don't know about your website specifically. I definitely agree that there were plenty of dumb websites with dumb business cases before the implosion, but there were also some good sites that struggled.
Before the bubble burst, I was on at least 4 different ad-sponsored mailing lists with readerships in the 10s or 100s of thousands. None of these sites went crazy with IPOs or hiring 50 people, but they all had to move to a subscriber model (or mixed subscriber/advertising) when the ad revenue dried up.
The stupid companies went flat-out bankrupt, but many of the good ones couldn't cut it with advertising alone. I'm talking about online media here, not e-commerce. In addition to developing the website, they also have to provide content, which is no easy task.
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The reason they failed is that they didn't reward the customer for viewing the ad.If they were smart and put cartoons or something up there, they might have had a loyal advertising audience.
Cartoons,you say? Yeah, everyone on here has his pet theory on how to make money on the Internet and they all involve giving away your greatest asset for free. I'll believe it when I see it.
How many people aren't renting movies because they're too tired after work to do so? I think this would add to their revenue, not replace the rental system. Other than that, I think you're right.
Well, if they're too tired to go to the video store, they can watch pay per view for about the same price. No need to give away their products for free on the Internet.
I'd rather get it off a fast server with ads than download the edited from you over the period of a day.
Whatever... someone will write an ad-skipping plugin for Mozilla. Same difference. I have yet to meet anyone who thought that downloading a movie and not watching the ads was stealing.
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Commmercial skipping algorithms have already been developed for VCRs. Someone will write the equivalent program for digital media.
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This would be true if the average user of P2P knew that the material they download could be edited.
Truth is editing would be too much trouble for the average viewer. It's not as satisfying to actually do something about a problem as it is to bitch about it.
Someone will write an open source program to do it for them.
-a
I find your comment alarmist and ridiculous. If there was an idiot-savant who could decrypt stuff in his head (which in itself is ridiculous) I don't think he would be thrown in jail. More likely, he would be employed by the NSA for a hefty salary.
-a
Music, movies, TV shows, and other forms of digital media should be made downloadable on the website of whoever owns it. The owner could still profit quite handsomely from advertisements on the website, seeing as how more people will visit it to grab all the free media they would offer. Video media such as TV shows and movies would have built-in ads within them too.
Cough! Yet another stupid commment by someone who has no clue about economics. If you had been paying any attention whatsoever for the last 3 years you would have noticed that most of the websites that were 100% advertising are now out of business. Then let's consider how much advertising revenue you get from a single hit on your website. It sure ain't the $5 you currently pay to rent a movie or the $17 that a CD would cost you. Plus after someone downloads your movie, edits out the commercials, and sticks it on P2P then you're right back where you started. Get a fucking clue!!!
-a
Yes, it was an inspired choice. However, after listening to Gwen struggle through the first song while out of breath, it makes you realize why so many artists lip-synch (especially the ones with big dance routines).
On the other hand, maybe she could have just skipped the push-ups beforehand.
-a
You're really dealing with two intertwined issues here. The RIAA member companies price fixing / lack of sampling alternitives will ensure that P2P lasts for years to come reguardless of anything else.
I don't think so. Firstly, go up a couple of messages in the thread and you will see that the OP was expousing the virtue of a system that would allow the copyright holder to squeeze every last cent out of the music for the first 28 years.
(And plus, I don't think price fixing is a major concern in the music industry.) Also, I don't think the consumer has any fundamental right to be able to buy music on a per track basis, although it would be nice. (The problem is that consumers have unrealistic expectations in this regard.)
Your second paragraph is just a non-sequitor as far as I'm concerned.
However, simply changing copywright law to requier 'comercial profit' or 'intent to comercially profit' to the laws defining copyright violations will solve more problems than any solution I have yet seen. It removes the teeth of these laws to go after individuals, and forces the focus back to comercial copyright issues, and off the casual violator.
I wholeheartedly disagree. It may alleviate what you perceive to be the problemm, but in this case the demand is just as much a problem as the supply. As far as I'm concerned, pirating music for personal benefit is just as serious as pirating music for profit.
-a
I don't use P2P, but I almost entirely listen to music that is more than 28 years old. I'm sure there are others around in a similar situation.
Well, I listen to about 50% music that is more than 28 years old. But what you and I do is irrelevant, statistically speaking. Would you care to estimate how much recent music the average
However, I don't support the reduction in copyright terms because music, movies, radio shows, and books that I like would be released into the public domain, but for other reasons.
Try re-reading that sentence a few times and see if it means what you think it means.
Yet another "generalizing the slashdot crowd is pretty futile" comment...
Generalizations are perfectly valid when you are describing a general trend. They fail when they are applied to a specific case.
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The proposition proposed doesn't wash - it's right there with folks that want to take away the right to own and carry fire arms. Once that happens only criminals have guns. Real bright idea there too!
Oh yeah.. forgot to mention. You seem to have the mistaken impression that the best way to support your argument is by drawing an analogy to another highly contraversial debate. Since only half of Americans (and many fewer foreigners) would agree with your NRA slogan, it doesn't do much to back up your point. Especially when there are plenty of Westernized countries where only the criminals (and police) have guns, and the citizens are no worse for it.
-a
If this is possible (which I doubt - can they get all ISPs to detect and block gnutella, etc. traffic on every port), it would mean going back to FTP, IRC, etc. That would significantly reduce piracy, although probably a lot of file sharers would just switch to the other protocols.
Think about it this way. Any large-scale piracy service that is accessible to the general public will be accessible to law enforcement as well. It doesn't matter if it's P2P or FTP or IRC. Back in the days of the pirate BBS's, they always used to have a disclaimer when you log on that said something like "By clicking here, you swear under oath that you are not a member of a law enforcement organization." Kind of a dead giveaway, isn't it? Anyway, what those sysops eventually found out is that that kind of system doesn't make you immune from prosecution.
Copyright holders can make piracy more cumbersome, and thus less appealing, but, short of a 1984-like world, they can never stop someone who's determined to do it from pirating.
Maybe not, but that was the whole point of my earlier post. You can't stop 100% of the piracy out there, but if you discourage the people who won't do it if it's inconvenient or if they might get caught, then you can reduce it to manageable levels.
Interesting that you should bring up 1984, though. I always thought the whole "file sharing" terminology was rather 1984-ish. If you ever say "stealing", you will face a barrage of complaints about how stealing is depriving someone of property (which will invariably be modded up to +5 insightful), to the point where you end up having to use another term. Of course, newspeak exists anywhere there is lobbying going on (pro-life, pro-choice, affirmative action, etc).
-a
In Canada, we have two major beer companies, and of course both of them wanted to be known as the official sponsor of the Canadian Olympic hockey team. So one of them paid to be the sponsor and the other just featured generic hockey players (who happened to be in Utah). Apparently, being associated with a sporting event is a big value, so the NFL needs to protect the value of their commodity.
Of course for the life of me, I can't remember which beer company actually was the official sponsor.
-a
Damn straight it is. You get twenty-eight years to milk something for all the millions it's worth, AND you get to crush utterly and punitively anyone who dares steal even a penny's worth from you? Sounds like a good deal to me.
I'm sure that all the
Let's face it,
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It only takes one person circumventing the protection to open a work to the world.
You need to learn to think in a less extremist manner. The real world doesn't work in black and white. Copyright violations were going on for years in the pre-Internet era, and while we don't know the exact damage to the music industry, it wasn't serious enough to fundamentally damage their business.
The Internet has caused piracy rates to skyrocket, mostly due to the failure of law enforcement to shut down file trading services quickly. Eliminate the file sharing networks and piracy will drop back down to a more manageable level.
Further - how does the government have the right to give away MY rights! They don't! I have the right to "fair-use" under the law. The US government doesn't have the right to trade that away to the content providers!
The government giveth and the government taketh away.
-a
Suing your customers is a somewhat questionable business model. I can't think of a single thing they could do that would kill them more quickly.
Nonono... suing celebrities is a poor business model. That's why Saks 5th Avenue didn't want to pursue the case against Winona.
Suing 'customers' doesn't do much damage. The reason is that only a small percentage (say 10%) of consumers base their purchasing decisions on moral outrage. While a disproportionate number of people may post on
-a
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There's a reason why cryptographers talk about 10 and 20 year security. If you have information that is worth $1 million and will still be worth $1 million 10 years ago, it may be in danger. Lets say the adversary waits 5 years and builds one of these machines for only $2 million. Now he can crack one key per year for at least 5 years and more than recover his investment.
-a
If someone is a full time musician and is able to sell a decent amount of albums they are going to be paid at the very least enough to eat and pay the rent. As always wages are the highest expenses.
-a
In what way is paying for a product or service extortion? No one's forcing you to download the music, or even to pay for it.
I think you read my comment exactly the wrong way. A statement such as "If they lowered the price then maybe people wouldn't steal it" is tantamount to extortion. If you walked up to an EMI exec right now and said "If you don't lower your price for CD foo, I intend to pirate it", that would be a clear act of extortion.
However, if the $.50 bought you added value, in the form of accurate filenames and ID3 tags, and decent quality, only someone with no money and lots of free time would bother downloading entire albums from Kazaa.
First of all, 50 cents a track is already a huge loss for the labels. Previously, they might charge $17 for a 10 track CD, so that's $1.70 per track. In other words, you are asking for a 70% discount.
But there's also all the
only someone with no money and lots of free time would bother downloading entire albums from Kazaa. The last time I tried, I got an incomplete album, with varying bitrates, and a couple of imposter songs.
You assume, without justification, that P2P technology will never improve. The technology to make a better, more convenient Kazaa already exists, and it would probably be deployed by now if it weren't for the threat of lawsuits.
I make way more in the two hours it took to get that mess on my computer than the CD would have cost.
Most people don't. And there's no fundamental reason why it will still take 2 hours next year or the year after.
-a
It's not that hard to shoplift gum, either, but why bother when it's only $.25 per?
The problem is that no one likes to give in to extortion, even when it may seem to be the most practical solution. Personally, it bothers me that threats of extortion are so frequently used as a construtive argument here on
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If she cares what the
Maybe she doesn't care what the
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