I tried Kazaa briefly, but I was not satisfied with the quality of most of the songs there. I found I was spending too much time looking for music, and only coming up with a few things I would listen to. Songs would be truncated, or have skips, or just sound crappy. Other times, I would get a song only to find that it was a remake of a popular song by some amateur (and untalented) band.
At least with something like Apple's service, I have some assurance that whatever I download and buy will be of a listenable quality. This means I can spend less time looking for music, and more time listening to it.
In summary: if you have to spend an hour looking for one free song that's actually worth more than that, it ain't free.
But cassette tape players, VCR's, etc. have been made for years, and the responsibility for legal content on these devices has been squarely on the user. I know the music industry had tried to squelch them, just like everything else, but as long as there is a significant use other than piracy (and there is) then the {RI,MP}AA can go fly.
Essentially, don't get caught donating money to the group that put up the site. The site itself is just a server in a room somewhere. It needs electricity, a reliable network connection, and some TLC from the sysadmins.
Dr. Egon Spengler: There's something very important I forgot to tell you.
Dr. Peter Venkman: What?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Don't cross the streams.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why?
Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean "bad"?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Dr. Raymond Stantz: Total protonic reversal.
Dr. Peter Venkman: That's bad. Okay. Alright, important safety tip, thanks Egon.
Besides the obvious trivial nature of this thing ("Shift key?!? WTF?") the one thing I can say that makes this non-DMCA-protected is that preventing auto-run from loading software on your computer is not in itself illegal. Therefore telling somebody how to do something which is not illegal, is also not illegal.
It is not even close to something like telling somebody how to steal DirecTV, or build a cable descrambler box, the activities of which are illegal (though I still disagree with the telling someone part).
What rankles me is that they want to use the DMCA to shut down speech about legal activities. Such an attack on the First Amendment borders on treason against this country.
Internal combustion engines, nuclear power, steam engines (all that wood smoke). All radio frequency emissions, from AM to microwave. Catscans, MRI, X-rays. Let's get rid of all that evil technology.
Sound like technophobic luddite minivan-driving soccer moms to me. Have these people actually paused to think what might happen to the state of their health if a bunch of geeks' wireless toys got taken away as a direct result of their lawsuit? Like the dog chasing after a car's tires, suppose he actually managed to get his teeth in there?
And when the CEO wakes up tomorrow, he should say, "What the fuck was I thinking?" and call off the suit. Cause them losing a case like this is much worse than them not bringing it at all.
is what the DMCA protects right now. If the encryption scheme (which is so bad it hardly deserves to be called that) has a vulnerability which is obvious to most people, it is illegal to point it out.
And sleazy numbnuts wackjob CEO's like this, whose mothers should be slapped for bringing them into the world, will seize upon this cocked-up law to point the blame for their own pitiful shortcomings elsewhere.
People seem to shrug this off as something to worry about only if Apple goes out of business. But Apple may discontinue the Service for any number of reasons short of dissolution, most likely being profitability issues or the artists all back out of their agreements with Apple.
And what would/could happen then? The RIAA could send out lawsuits to all the former users of the Apple service, extorting people for a few thousand bucks each to make their legal beagles go away. Why? Because technically, this agreement appears to be leasing the music for an indefinite but finite amount of time. If the Service stops, you now "own" illegal music, no more legal than something downloaded from Kazaa that afternoon.
Don't get me wrong. I like the service, and have used it, but this is one aspect of the service I hadn't thought about until now.
Kinda reminds me of the Divx fiasco a few years back (remember that?) where people thought they were buying DVD's but really weren't. Only in that case your black box had to "phone home" in order to play the movie. When I first heard of that service, I stayed away from it in droves. I knew it was a turkey. But since enforcement of the terms of service was handled at the playback device, and required an A-OK from home-base each and every time the movie was played, termination of the service made for some very angry pissed-off consumers.
At least with iTunes, if the ground swallowed up Apple Corporation tomorrow, everybody from tech support to Steve Jobs, your music would still play, even if it was technically illegal.
It shows one hideous little monster chasing another hideous little monster down a sidewalk. Two people are standing aside, and one says to the other, "It's just one goddamned thing after another."
Seems to describe this situation absolutely perfectly.
Which is why I'm not an early adopter of anything. Not PDA's, cellphone, digi-cams, or do-not-call lists. I wait and see how many people walk into the whirling abattoir blades, before I decide to buy or sign up.
In the Problem Resolution Center (not the People's Republic of China) we used to use Utopia, which used an Oracle database backend. When I left, the PRC was being re-org'd out of existence, and Peregrine was being phased in.
Hmmph. Who knows what the geniuses there are using by now.
2 points to anybody who can guess the company and location.
When someone speaks of morals, I take it as an implicit reference to religious doctrine or laws, not laws of the state. Due process is a constitutional guarantee, and circumventing it would be unconstitutional, and very bad, certainly, but not exactly immoral. At least not in the US, where state and church are supposed to be separate.
Doing 70 in a 65 speed zone is illegal, fucking your neighbor's wife is immoral.
To put it simply, there are actions which a company is legally allowed to do, but which, in an open market, it would be unwise to do.
A retailer may be legally entitled to place so many restrictions on returning an item, that most people eventually give up on the attempt. However, their customers would also soon stop buying anything from them as well. Would it be any consolation to a business, as it files for bankruptcy, that it was legally correct?
Slashdot Mirror
At least with something like Apple's service, I have some assurance that whatever I download and buy will be of a listenable quality. This means I can spend less time looking for music, and more time listening to it.
In summary: if you have to spend an hour looking for one free song that's actually worth more than that, it ain't free.
But cassette tape players, VCR's, etc. have been made for years, and the responsibility for legal content on these devices has been squarely on the user. I know the music industry had tried to squelch them, just like everything else, but as long as there is a significant use other than piracy (and there is) then the {RI,MP}AA can go fly.
It would have no idea what to do with money.
OK, SCO. Enough talk. Let's see your cards.
Dr. Egon Spengler: There's something very important I forgot to tell you.
Dr. Peter Venkman: What?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Don't cross the streams.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why?
Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean "bad"?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Dr. Raymond Stantz: Total protonic reversal.
Dr. Peter Venkman: That's bad. Okay. Alright, important safety tip, thanks Egon.
It is not even close to something like telling somebody how to steal DirecTV, or build a cable descrambler box, the activities of which are illegal (though I still disagree with the telling someone part).
What rankles me is that they want to use the DMCA to shut down speech about legal activities. Such an attack on the First Amendment borders on treason against this country.
Sound like technophobic luddite minivan-driving soccer moms to me. Have these people actually paused to think what might happen to the state of their health if a bunch of geeks' wireless toys got taken away as a direct result of their lawsuit? Like the dog chasing after a car's tires, suppose he actually managed to get his teeth in there?
And when the CEO wakes up tomorrow, he should say, "What the fuck was I thinking?" and call off the suit. Cause them losing a case like this is much worse than them not bringing it at all.
It would be the beginning of the end for DMCA.
And sleazy numbnuts wackjob CEO's like this, whose mothers should be slapped for bringing them into the world, will seize upon this cocked-up law to point the blame for their own pitiful shortcomings elsewhere.
I hope they get their pecker slapped REAL hard for this.
Coincidence? I think not. (Where's my tinfoil?)
And what would/could happen then? The RIAA could send out lawsuits to all the former users of the Apple service, extorting people for a few thousand bucks each to make their legal beagles go away. Why? Because technically, this agreement appears to be leasing the music for an indefinite but finite amount of time. If the Service stops, you now "own" illegal music, no more legal than something downloaded from Kazaa that afternoon.
Don't get me wrong. I like the service, and have used it, but this is one aspect of the service I hadn't thought about until now.
Kinda reminds me of the Divx fiasco a few years back (remember that?) where people thought they were buying DVD's but really weren't. Only in that case your black box had to "phone home" in order to play the movie. When I first heard of that service, I stayed away from it in droves. I knew it was a turkey. But since enforcement of the terms of service was handled at the playback device, and required an A-OK from home-base each and every time the movie was played, termination of the service made for some very angry pissed-off consumers.
At least with iTunes, if the ground swallowed up Apple Corporation tomorrow, everybody from tech support to Steve Jobs, your music would still play, even if it was technically illegal.
Seems to describe this situation absolutely perfectly.
Which is why I'm not an early adopter of anything. Not PDA's, cellphone, digi-cams, or do-not-call lists. I wait and see how many people walk into the whirling abattoir blades, before I decide to buy or sign up.
Of course, you get any impurities in there and PFFFFT!
Not only will they not speak to you, they back slowly away, just hoping they don't become part of your "news at 11"
Nope. Think pharmaceuticals.
Would you believe... Barry Manilow? I can't listen to him, so he must have some really secure DRM.
Hmmph. Who knows what the geniuses there are using by now.
2 points to anybody who can guess the company and location.
So how many times you gotta watch a pirated POS (piece-of-shit, not point-of-sale) copy of a POS movie to get your money's worth?
It gave me 1-4 out of 123,000. Weird.
When someone speaks of morals, I take it as an implicit reference to religious doctrine or laws, not laws of the state. Due process is a constitutional guarantee, and circumventing it would be unconstitutional, and very bad, certainly, but not exactly immoral. At least not in the US, where state and church are supposed to be separate.
Doing 70 in a 65 speed zone is illegal, fucking your neighbor's wife is immoral.
The best legislation money can buy.
A retailer may be legally entitled to place so many restrictions on returning an item, that most people eventually give up on the attempt. However, their customers would also soon stop buying anything from them as well. Would it be any consolation to a business, as it files for bankruptcy, that it was legally correct?
Paging Captain Obvious! Paging Captain Obvious!
Was it just today you had this epiphany?