The company's stock soared on the news, rising $54.75, or 57 percent, to close at $11.69 on Nasdaq.
Am I the only one that sees a little fuzzy math here? Quite an impressive gain on the day, considering the stock opened at -43.06. Anyone know how to work with decimals? Anyone?
That's like claiming that your Heroin trading outfit is legal because now and then, you DO deliver pizzas.
ummmm, your pizza delivery operation doesnt depend on the existence of heroin trading. Altnet depends on the existence of file sharing and the Kazaa network. If that's destroyed by the courts, it will be impossible for Altnet to continue. If your heroin operation was busted, you would still be able to deliver pizzas (if you found some way to avoid jail of course).
Plus, there are other ways to bring in cash besides CD sales. Royalties for radio play
I admit that I don't know what the royalties are per song for radio, but it seems to me that the money generated from radio royalties would pale in comparison to the amount of money spent to actually get songs on the radio in the first place. The way the system is set up today, you have to pay to get your music exposure and rotation on mainstream, commercial radio (which is quickly becoming all that's left on dials across America, well, F.M. anyway. I mean for God's sake, how many stations does Clear Channel own now?)
because it seems a universal garage opener could be used for ill purposes, like opening someone elses garage and steal his stuff
I agree somewhat with the point that you are making, but if we go down this route then what else must be illegal? Glass cutters for being able to gain entry through a sliding glass door? The idea (also found in the DMCA coincidentally) that things that are used for legitimate purposes most of the time should be illegal simply because they could be used to do something against the law is flawed, and if we want to go down that path then it's ridiculous how many common, useful items we use every day would have to be banned because they might be used for wrongdoing.
With my service provider, AT&T,the message will expire after 48 hours and if it's not delivered by then, it's gone (i.e. it will wait until your phone is turned on). On the nokia 8265 I have and most every other phone I've encountered, the settings for this aren't on the phone, they pertain to the carrier. Still, it is true most people don't know about this but for many it's not a setting on their phone.
If you want the google toolbar in another browser, consider Googlebar for Mozilla over at mozdev.org. Pretty good emulation of all the IE toolbar features, in my opinion. Only complaint is that it takes up a bit too much screen space and as far as I know, isn't adjustable. Other than that, you're not missing much from the IE version.
Sorry, but I fail to see what role state governments have in the "upkeep and maintenance" of the internet. Seems to me that task is shouldered by individuals and companies, not the government.
The point you make is valid that most Linux users will not want to buy a Palladium computer. Sadly, companies aren't out to cater to everybody, they're out to cater to the group that will make them the most money. The problem is that the mainstream will buy into Palladium eagerly just because they're told of all the supposed "benefits", and besides, it is the latest technology (yipee!). Do most people really delve into their computers to find all the spyware running behind the scenes? No, the fact is most of them are oblivious, as they're oblivious to the possible implications of Palladium being implemented. AMI/Microsoft can make a lot more money off the average consumer than they can off the (as of now) small base of Linux users. So while you and most everyone else using Linux won't want to buy their products, to companies like AMI and Microsoft, that's irrelevant. As for the competition (ignoring the obvious monopoly), what are other companies going to offer average, not-so-computer-literate people to counter the rosy landscape of "trusted computing" and (suppposed?) eradication of viruses painted by Microsoft?
Better yet, they could take the case and argue the point that they aren't responsible for crimes their end users commit. After all, do we hold gun manufacturers responsible for the murders committed with their products? Which is a more serious crime, murder or copyright infringement? Anyway, taking a case like this and winning it would set a huge precedent instead of just being the next p2p company to cave under legal pressure.
What laws are the MPAA and RIAA using to sue Sharman Networks? Are they applicable in Australia or Vanuatu
They're obviously using the DMCA to sue Sharman Networks. As for whether or not our laws apply to them, that's a more cloudy issue. Due to the nature of the internet, in order to comply with all laws in ALL countries, companies would have to abide by the strictest laws in existence. For example, if Scotland said absolutely no filesharing allowed and Peru says it's ok, a company still can't be involved in filesharing in order to be safe from Scotland's laws.
On another note, could the Chinese government (assuming they didn't have the great firewall up) bring lawsuits against a web company like yahoo or cnn for spreading ideas in their country (through the internet) that were against Chinese law?
what legitimate uses are there for P2P networks? There aren't any.
I can point out at least one example of how I've legitimately used p2p. I was trying to get SP1 for Windows XP, but the windows update software prompted me to update my windows update software to continue (or something along those lines). anyway, i'd do the update then come back and it'd tell me I needed to update again. So I went on kazaa and downloaded the service pack there, no problem. Technically yes this is illegal but I don't think Microsoft really wants to prevent me from obtaining its patches. Aside from that, p2p is a great way to distribute a program while taking the load off of your servers and keeping bandwith costs down (look at how kazaa distributes their own software).
I found a very interesting comment in the discussion on the Neo Project story, which suggested that someone already knew the key and the project was a scam that would magically "discover" the key in a few months. Still, even if the key was cracked by the project (wink, wink), the Neo Project would be right in the crosshairs of MS if they ever tried to put the key out to the public.
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Am I the only one that sees a little fuzzy math here? Quite an impressive gain on the day, considering the stock opened at -43.06. Anyone know how to work with decimals? Anyone?
I admit that I don't know what the royalties are per song for radio, but it seems to me that the money generated from radio royalties would pale in comparison to the amount of money spent to actually get songs on the radio in the first place. The way the system is set up today, you have to pay to get your music exposure and rotation on mainstream, commercial radio (which is quickly becoming all that's left on dials across America, well, F.M. anyway. I mean for God's sake, how many stations does Clear Channel own now?)
I agree somewhat with the point that you are making, but if we go down this route then what else must be illegal? Glass cutters for being able to gain entry through a sliding glass door? The idea (also found in the DMCA coincidentally) that things that are used for legitimate purposes most of the time should be illegal simply because they could be used to do something against the law is flawed, and if we want to go down that path then it's ridiculous how many common, useful items we use every day would have to be banned because they might be used for wrongdoing.
With my service provider, AT&T,the message will expire after 48 hours and if it's not delivered by then, it's gone (i.e. it will wait until your phone is turned on). On the nokia 8265 I have and most every other phone I've encountered, the settings for this aren't on the phone, they pertain to the carrier. Still, it is true most people don't know about this but for many it's not a setting on their phone.
If you want the google toolbar in another browser, consider Googlebar for Mozilla over at mozdev.org. Pretty good emulation of all the IE toolbar features, in my opinion. Only complaint is that it takes up a bit too much screen space and as far as I know, isn't adjustable. Other than that, you're not missing much from the IE version.
Sorry, but I fail to see what role state governments have in the "upkeep and maintenance" of the internet. Seems to me that task is shouldered by individuals and companies, not the government.
The point you make is valid that most Linux users will not want to buy a Palladium computer. Sadly, companies aren't out to cater to everybody, they're out to cater to the group that will make them the most money. The problem is that the mainstream will buy into Palladium eagerly just because they're told of all the supposed "benefits", and besides, it is the latest technology (yipee!). Do most people really delve into their computers to find all the spyware running behind the scenes? No, the fact is most of them are oblivious, as they're oblivious to the possible implications of Palladium being implemented. AMI/Microsoft can make a lot more money off the average consumer than they can off the (as of now) small base of Linux users. So while you and most everyone else using Linux won't want to buy their products, to companies like AMI and Microsoft, that's irrelevant. As for the competition (ignoring the obvious monopoly), what are other companies going to offer average, not-so-computer-literate people to counter the rosy landscape of "trusted computing" and (suppposed?) eradication of viruses painted by Microsoft?
Wonderful business strategy...let's charge our users to fix problems that WE cause (just look at Microsoft's technical support lines).
Better yet, they could take the case and argue the point that they aren't responsible for crimes their end users commit. After all, do we hold gun manufacturers responsible for the murders committed with their products? Which is a more serious crime, murder or copyright infringement? Anyway, taking a case like this and winning it would set a huge precedent instead of just being the next p2p company to cave under legal pressure.
They're obviously using the DMCA to sue Sharman Networks. As for whether or not our laws apply to them, that's a more cloudy issue. Due to the nature of the internet, in order to comply with all laws in ALL countries, companies would have to abide by the strictest laws in existence. For example, if Scotland said absolutely no filesharing allowed and Peru says it's ok, a company still can't be involved in filesharing in order to be safe from Scotland's laws.
On another note, could the Chinese government (assuming they didn't have the great firewall up) bring lawsuits against a web company like yahoo or cnn for spreading ideas in their country (through the internet) that were against Chinese law?
I can point out at least one example of how I've legitimately used p2p. I was trying to get SP1 for Windows XP, but the windows update software prompted me to update my windows update software to continue (or something along those lines). anyway, i'd do the update then come back and it'd tell me I needed to update again. So I went on kazaa and downloaded the service pack there, no problem. Technically yes this is illegal but I don't think Microsoft really wants to prevent me from obtaining its patches. Aside from that, p2p is a great way to distribute a program while taking the load off of your servers and keeping bandwith costs down (look at how kazaa distributes their own software).
I found a very interesting comment in the discussion on the Neo Project story, which suggested that someone already knew the key and the project was a scam that would magically "discover" the key in a few months. Still, even if the key was cracked by the project (wink, wink), the Neo Project would be right in the crosshairs of MS if they ever tried to put the key out to the public.
Application grouping adds one more click which may not seem like much, but it's still slower than tabs inside the browser.