First, you are assuming that all copyright laws are the same as US laws.
Second, you are not considering the fair use rights. The problem with the status of the law today is that prior court decisions have not been reconciled with the DMCA.
The DMCA specifically prohibits the actual act of circumvention of a copy protection for most purposes. Copying the work is no longer the violation, the circumvention of the copy protection is.
I just wish this issue would get to the Supreme Court so it can be resolved. I am always hopeful that they could basically uphold the DMCA while still guaranteeing the rights of individuals to exercise their fair use rights like archival copies and removal of the region coding.
Bzzz. Wrong. The battery issue, at least in the 3G iPods, is not that they have problems after 18 or 24 months. Quite a few had a problem after only 2 or 3 months. My anecdotal evidence is that I have such a 3G iPod. There were clearly a significant number that had defective batteries and that is why Apple is willing to offer this settlement. Or, if not defective, Apple's claims were not based on reality.
I, of course, solved it by purchasing a 4G iPod and then a iPod Photo. Oh, add my iMac G5 that I also bought afterwards.
I have no problem filing a claim for my battery replacement or $50 - the issue is that the claim form I have says my 3G is eligible for either option but the article says I can only get a replacement.
You don't need to fight against DRM on moral grounds as it is a technically doomed idea. DRM, like copy protection, is entirely ineffective once someone has found a way around it.
Yes, for the masses it will continue to affect them but for those who have just a bit of savvy and can use the tools that others produce, DRM will be nothing more than a minor annoyance.
Open source developed or not, a DRM is just a hurdle.
The "moral" problem is actually one of legality. It is one thing to introduce an obstacle to certain ways of using content, but to make it criminal merely for bypassing the DRM regardless of your right to the actual content is where the moral problem lies.
Unless of course you need to connect to a Novell Server or what to use Exchange (well there is always Entourage, but it's not that good), but then we have to ask why are you using both of those since most small businesses don't need 50 login licenses...
First, there is no such thing as a "Novell Server" as a specific product. You can buy a Novell Netware OS, a Novell SUSE Linux variant, or Open Enterprise Server (with either a Netware kernel or a Linux kernel). Second, Novell sell per seat licenses in addition to per server licenses. The 50, 100, 250 pack days went away year ago. Third, it is no problem connecting to a Netware, SUSE Linux, or Open Enterprise Server server to server files to just about any client using CIFS.
Novell actually sells a bundled product called (wait for it) Small Business Server that bundles all their core services including iFolder, iPrint, and eDirectory plus Groupwise and a bunch of other stuff. You can get it with a Netware backend or a Linux backend.
How come no one ever uses the term "math Nazi" when someone corrects incorrect calculations? Or "science Nazi" when someone promotes so-called "intelligent design"?
Ignorance is ignorance. Mistakes are mistakes. To correct them is not wrong.
By the way, "gramar alart" should be "grammar alert". However, you spell grammar properly above when you refer to grammar Nazis, so I will chalk it up to a typo. "Alart" is worse, as the "a" and "e" are usually not replaced accidently as the keys are not next to each other. Therefore, one must inevitably conclude that this is just improper spelling.
I forbid everyone from responding to this article. First, it is poorly written. Second, it is a troll that has been submitted by the troller. Third, clearly it has not been age verified, as I think it is a legal violation in some places to allow 13 year olds to publish on the Internet.
Nowhere did Apple say x86, they just said Intel chips! So maybe there is a brand new chip that Apple will use from Intel.
Now the truth: Apple did say x86 and that, if you are interested in which specific Intel x86 chips Apple will use, check the Intel CPU roadmap for mid 2006 to get an idea.
Yes, but they specifically said "Intel"... not "x86"... "Intel".
No, they said Intel on the IA32 platform. That is x86. Phil Shindler said it and explicitly used the example of whether Apple would do anything to prevent people from running Windows on Apple machines. He said no, but that it would not be permitted to run OS X on non-Apple hardware.
For once and all, Apple is moving to Intel chips using the x86 architecture. Want to know which ones? They said to look at Intel's roadmap for mid 2006 to see the likely chips they will use.
I'm with Steve on this one. The apple experience can most certainly translate to x86, and they will make tons of money from it.
If you believe that Steve thinks the Apple experience is only the software, you have not watched him for the last 25 years.
Personally, I do not care what components make up the inside of my 20 inch iMac G5. The machine is a thing of beauty, and when you add OS X on top of it is the best computing experience I have ever had.
Apple is not just a hardware company and Apple is not just a software company. Overall, Jobs has returned Apple to his most basic passion which you stated. It is an experience. Many, many, many people who use Macs and OS X enjoy that experience quite a lot.
Let's get this right. They definitely and clearly stated it will be based on the x86 architecture. The development box is a P4 model and participants were instructed to look at Intel's x86 roadmap for the mid 2006 timeframe to get an idea which CPUs would be in the Apple models.
Apple also stated two other things. First, you will not be able to run OS X on a vanilla x86-based computer. Second, there will be nothing preventing Windows from running on the Apple computers and, it was stated, this is expected.
None of that means someone won't hack OS X into working on non-Apple machines. But everyone should be absolutely clear that Apple is moving to the x86 CPU architecture. Period. No Intel PPC. No Intel "Next Big Thing".
As for "stock hardware", most components in Macs now are the same components you find in x86-based PCs. The big difference is the architecture around the CPU. Interface cards use AGP/PCI bus. Memory is DIMM. Hard drive / DVD / CD is EIDE/SATA. I know I can buy off-the-shelf stuff to upgrade or replace many of the components in my iMac G5. Videocard manufacturers are still playing their games, though, by selling the same cards with different BIOS so they can charge a premium.
Assuming you use IE at all, go to Tools > Internet Options > Security, define a custom level for the Internet zone if you haven't already, and set all of the ActiveX settings to "prompt." You'd probably be surprised how many of the sites you visit on a day to day basis start throwing up dialogs asking whether or not it's okay to run this or that.
I already browse exactly like this in IE (which I use intensively at work) along with requiring all cookies to be manually allowed (which probably does more to save me annoyance than anything else). So other than Microsoft - which I expect to use ActiveX - I cannot remember seeing a single other mainstream site that is using it.
I do often see examples of the functionality you mention like stock tickets, sports scores, and various other interactive pages but inevitably they either use Javascript / DHTML now or Flash.
Again, this isn't a troll but a serious question asking for some examples. My impression is that ActiveX is simply a dying (if not dead) technology that is not used by mainstream websites and that it is overstating things to say it is so heavily used.
The conundrum is that so many sites now require ActiveX that if IE were to ship with it disabled, Joe Sixpack's favorite websites wouldn't work.
I am not trolling here, but exactly which mainstream sites (which I assume you meant by "Joe SixPack") rely on ActiveX? In my personal experience, the vast majority of websites I have visited now work perfectly fine in Firefox and Safari. It seems a lot of sites of moved to the slightly-less-annoying Flash-based interfaces if they want to do some things.
Porn sites seem to be the exception, but primarily to install spyware. Err... I mean... this is what I have heard.
I think we can all agree there is almost no technical reason to use ActiveX versus other solutions which are both more secure and less tied to only one platform. The driving force between more standards-based web development is not, however, a concern out of security but more out of the increasing desire to support mobile devices.
How many people do you think would pay a subscription fee to an offshore site that hosted such utilities? The issue is one of reimbursement to the software authors (for those who want it).
There are plenty of countries that have no DMCA-type laws for such tools. If this were a just rule, the WTO would be suing the shit out of each media company that even put out region encoded DVDs, which clearly are intended as a restraint of free trade.
I would recommend not using the Novell Client at all anymore on Windows machine. Use CIFS on the server for file access and utilize Zenworks with a middle tier server for login. Printing through iPrint and user's home directory should be replaced by iFolder.
About the only thing you really lose in that situation from a user perspective are the login scripts. You can use NAL apps to handle pretty much what most people are using login scripts for.
One thing that is interesting is that the MPAA actually is taking a different approach to the RIAA, primarily because they face two different types of P2P-based sharing of copyrighted content.
The RIAA has gone after individuals who share content by tracking content available from specific IP addresses. They then determine who the person is behind that IP address and then sue them. Or sue someone and then find out who they are suing, as the case may be.
The MPAA is handling it quite differently. They are going after the sites who are hosting the URL to the copyrighted content (a Bittorrent file is, after all, just a resource locator). By shutting down the URL, the location of the content is not as easily found.
The difference is important here because you have to decide which problem you are trying to solve: hiding who is hosting the link to the content or hiding who is hosting the content itself.
The MPAA approach is quite interesting because, with only one exception that I know of in a jurisdiction in the USA, having a link to the content produces no inherent liability.
I think the whole technical approach is a bit sketchy, from trackerless torrents to anonymous routing of data. Instead, why not focus on specifically taking advantage of the legal defenses?
For example, the DMCA explicitly includes a takedown notification defense. The copyright holder is actually required to inform you that the content is copyrighted, thereby giving you a complete defense of hosting copyrighted content. If every P2P client had an integrated takedown notice option, it seems a very good defense. Say you are in Kazaa, you do a search and find someone hosting a song that has license restrictions (e.g. you cannot copy it without explicit permission of the copyright holder). If you choose to download it, you get a popup that has three options: 1) Inform host that this is copyrighted material, 2) Certify that content is not restricted and download it, thereby agreeing that it is not copyrighted to the best of your knowledge. If option #1 is selected, then the content is disabled and the content host has to reenable access to it.
Perhaps that would end up in the bullshit list of excuses, but it would require the downloader to utilize a takedown notice. If the hoster keeps reenabling access, then liability could be established.
The reason why I think this could be feasible is because of the Napster case. In Napster, the judge explicitly required the RIAA to inform Napster of specific content that was copyrighted and being infringed. Why is an individual less able to utilize this defense?
With Bush you at least know what you'll get, the only thing you knew about Kelly is that he didn't have a clue what you'd get, and neither did you.
Another classic example of the great informed electorate. I would chalk it up as a typo or trying to make a joke. However, the "l" is nowhere near the "r" key and it wasn't even humorous by the farthest stretch. So I will just go with stupid.
I think history is already doing a stellar job at addressing the "at least you know what you'll get" crap.
The MythTV frontend has been available for Mac OS X since the 0.17 release, which is from February 11, 2005.
Of course, you said full port so I assume you also mean the backend. That would require two things. First, a video input (which the Mac mini may have, I just do not know). Second, the encoding would have to be handled via software as I do not think there is any encoding hardware in the mini.
You're overlooking several reasons why DVDs appear to be "cheaper" when compared to CDs. Realize that DVDs represent a repackaging of existing content pre-produced for prior distribution and profit. Home video is an aftermarket, even though studios increasingly rely on it to turn break-even flicks into profitable ones.
All very valid, but that is only the supply side of the equation. There is also the demand side. On the demand side, you have a potential consumer base deciding where to spend their discretionary funds. Therefore, the demand side does not distinguish between a CD and a DVD based on the cost of production or the profit model. A consumer will only decide which entertainment item provides the best value for the money.
If the supply side has an inefficient model that does not match up or compete well on the demand side, then the result is that the profitability decreases or even disappears. Such is life under capitalism. The reason why CDs and DVDs are a valid comparison is that they are usually competing for the same consumers.
All this "IE is the Sux04rz" talk makes it very apparent that the people getting infected either have no clue about how to configure a secure computer, or have no scruples on what they click "OK" to.
Boy, I cannot agree with you more.
If you have half a clue, then IE is easy to make secure. I just went into Tools - Internet Options and set the Security policy to Restricted Sites, turned on popup blocking (after I obviously installed SP2), set my Privacy level to High (because everyone except an idiot knows this is how to disable Cookies), and then installed all the hot fixes from MS. If you are too lazy to maintain your software properly then you shouldn't even have a computer. Just get a Mac or something.
It's like all those people who complain about safety problems in cars. My Pinto is safer than almost every car out there. All that with almost zero risk of theft.
I strapped some padding onto the rear bumper and put some steel reinforcement plating around the gas tank. There is almost no risk to myself or my passengers of a ruptured fuel tank, all because I took the time to fix an inherent problem in the design of the... wait.... err... I gotta go.
Most people haven't even heard of the ipod, I'm willing to bet.
Boy, you are either on crack or live in a cave. A great majority of people are aware of the iPod. Go to NYC or Tokyo and you will see how much people are aware of it. You can throw out rhetoric like "Apple disciples" to explain it away, but you can bet that every other company trying to do business in the digital music player market knows exactly who Apple is. Eight million iPods sold in the last year and I can guarantee many of them were purchased by people who have never bought an Apple product before.
If you want to sell music content in the online world and cannot offer your product to iPod owners, then you are scrapping it out for a very small market.
Only time will tell whether Apple will continue to dominate the market, but they are the only ones who even have a chance now. These things snowball and the market leader has the best chance to stay the market leader. Apple sells the device and the content, and no other combination even comes close. Yahoo, Microsoft, Napster, Wal-Mart, and all the other players in the WMA market are fighting it out with each other. They aren't competing with Apple.
I also challenge anyone who claims the iPod is so much more expensive than other devices with comparable functionality, especially on the hard drive based players. There is a lot more variation on the flash devices, but the iRiver and Creative products are basically only a little cheaper and not enough to address the huge brand power that Apple has with the iPod.
Both WMA DRM and FairPlay are proprietary, so no one can suggest one or the other is a standard. When two proprietary offerings compete, then the market will decide which consumers want. If you think Apple is losing that war, then you should just stick it out in your cave.
Slashdot Mirror
Disney and many other entertainment companies were all Mac (except Finance) until about the mid 90s.
First, you are assuming that all copyright laws are the same as US laws.
Second, you are not considering the fair use rights. The problem with the status of the law today is that prior court decisions have not been reconciled with the DMCA.
The DMCA specifically prohibits the actual act of circumvention of a copy protection for most purposes. Copying the work is no longer the violation, the circumvention of the copy protection is.
I just wish this issue would get to the Supreme Court so it can be resolved. I am always hopeful that they could basically uphold the DMCA while still guaranteeing the rights of individuals to exercise their fair use rights like archival copies and removal of the region coding.
I, of course, solved it by purchasing a 4G iPod and then a iPod Photo. Oh, add my iMac G5 that I also bought afterwards.
I have no problem filing a claim for my battery replacement or $50 - the issue is that the claim form I have says my 3G is eligible for either option but the article says I can only get a replacement.
Yes, for the masses it will continue to affect them but for those who have just a bit of savvy and can use the tools that others produce, DRM will be nothing more than a minor annoyance.
Open source developed or not, a DRM is just a hurdle.
The "moral" problem is actually one of legality. It is one thing to introduce an obstacle to certain ways of using content, but to make it criminal merely for bypassing the DRM regardless of your right to the actual content is where the moral problem lies.
Do not allow such design styles in websites to become popular. Please! I'll do anything! PLEASE!
First, there is no such thing as a "Novell Server" as a specific product. You can buy a Novell Netware OS, a Novell SUSE Linux variant, or Open Enterprise Server (with either a Netware kernel or a Linux kernel). Second, Novell sell per seat licenses in addition to per server licenses. The 50, 100, 250 pack days went away year ago. Third, it is no problem connecting to a Netware, SUSE Linux, or Open Enterprise Server server to server files to just about any client using CIFS.
Novell actually sells a bundled product called (wait for it) Small Business Server that bundles all their core services including iFolder, iPrint, and eDirectory plus Groupwise and a bunch of other stuff. You can get it with a Netware backend or a Linux backend.
Ignorance is ignorance. Mistakes are mistakes. To correct them is not wrong.
By the way, "gramar alart" should be "grammar alert". However, you spell grammar properly above when you refer to grammar Nazis, so I will chalk it up to a typo. "Alart" is worse, as the "a" and "e" are usually not replaced accidently as the keys are not next to each other. Therefore, one must inevitably conclude that this is just improper spelling.
Author: Varun Dubey
I forbid everyone from responding to this article. First, it is poorly written. Second, it is a troll that has been submitted by the troller. Third, clearly it has not been age verified, as I think it is a legal violation in some places to allow 13 year olds to publish on the Internet.
Funny, I have an iMac G5 that sits next to my bed. I cannot hear it. Ever.
Nowhere did Apple say x86, they just said Intel chips! So maybe there is a brand new chip that Apple will use from Intel.
Now the truth: Apple did say x86 and that, if you are interested in which specific Intel x86 chips Apple will use, check the Intel CPU roadmap for mid 2006 to get an idea.
Just trying to be efficient...
No, they said Intel on the IA32 platform. That is x86. Phil Shindler said it and explicitly used the example of whether Apple would do anything to prevent people from running Windows on Apple machines. He said no, but that it would not be permitted to run OS X on non-Apple hardware.
For once and all, Apple is moving to Intel chips using the x86 architecture. Want to know which ones? They said to look at Intel's roadmap for mid 2006 to see the likely chips they will use.
MS better not have any such license agreement with ANY of their partners. It is illegal under the consent decree.
If you believe that Steve thinks the Apple experience is only the software, you have not watched him for the last 25 years.
Personally, I do not care what components make up the inside of my 20 inch iMac G5. The machine is a thing of beauty, and when you add OS X on top of it is the best computing experience I have ever had.
Apple is not just a hardware company and Apple is not just a software company. Overall, Jobs has returned Apple to his most basic passion which you stated. It is an experience. Many, many, many people who use Macs and OS X enjoy that experience quite a lot.
Apple also stated two other things. First, you will not be able to run OS X on a vanilla x86-based computer. Second, there will be nothing preventing Windows from running on the Apple computers and, it was stated, this is expected.
None of that means someone won't hack OS X into working on non-Apple machines. But everyone should be absolutely clear that Apple is moving to the x86 CPU architecture. Period. No Intel PPC. No Intel "Next Big Thing".
As for "stock hardware", most components in Macs now are the same components you find in x86-based PCs. The big difference is the architecture around the CPU. Interface cards use AGP/PCI bus. Memory is DIMM. Hard drive / DVD / CD is EIDE/SATA. I know I can buy off-the-shelf stuff to upgrade or replace many of the components in my iMac G5. Videocard manufacturers are still playing their games, though, by selling the same cards with different BIOS so they can charge a premium.
I already browse exactly like this in IE (which I use intensively at work) along with requiring all cookies to be manually allowed (which probably does more to save me annoyance than anything else). So other than Microsoft - which I expect to use ActiveX - I cannot remember seeing a single other mainstream site that is using it.
I do often see examples of the functionality you mention like stock tickets, sports scores, and various other interactive pages but inevitably they either use Javascript / DHTML now or Flash.
Again, this isn't a troll but a serious question asking for some examples. My impression is that ActiveX is simply a dying (if not dead) technology that is not used by mainstream websites and that it is overstating things to say it is so heavily used.
I am not trolling here, but exactly which mainstream sites (which I assume you meant by "Joe SixPack") rely on ActiveX? In my personal experience, the vast majority of websites I have visited now work perfectly fine in Firefox and Safari. It seems a lot of sites of moved to the slightly-less-annoying Flash-based interfaces if they want to do some things.
Porn sites seem to be the exception, but primarily to install spyware. Err ... I mean ... this is what I have heard.
I think we can all agree there is almost no technical reason to use ActiveX versus other solutions which are both more secure and less tied to only one platform. The driving force between more standards-based web development is not, however, a concern out of security but more out of the increasing desire to support mobile devices.
There are plenty of countries that have no DMCA-type laws for such tools. If this were a just rule, the WTO would be suing the shit out of each media company that even put out region encoded DVDs, which clearly are intended as a restraint of free trade.
About the only thing you really lose in that situation from a user perspective are the login scripts. You can use NAL apps to handle pretty much what most people are using login scripts for.
The RIAA has gone after individuals who share content by tracking content available from specific IP addresses. They then determine who the person is behind that IP address and then sue them. Or sue someone and then find out who they are suing, as the case may be.
The MPAA is handling it quite differently. They are going after the sites who are hosting the URL to the copyrighted content (a Bittorrent file is, after all, just a resource locator). By shutting down the URL, the location of the content is not as easily found.
The difference is important here because you have to decide which problem you are trying to solve: hiding who is hosting the link to the content or hiding who is hosting the content itself. The MPAA approach is quite interesting because, with only one exception that I know of in a jurisdiction in the USA, having a link to the content produces no inherent liability.
I think the whole technical approach is a bit sketchy, from trackerless torrents to anonymous routing of data. Instead, why not focus on specifically taking advantage of the legal defenses?
For example, the DMCA explicitly includes a takedown notification defense. The copyright holder is actually required to inform you that the content is copyrighted, thereby giving you a complete defense of hosting copyrighted content. If every P2P client had an integrated takedown notice option, it seems a very good defense. Say you are in Kazaa, you do a search and find someone hosting a song that has license restrictions (e.g. you cannot copy it without explicit permission of the copyright holder). If you choose to download it, you get a popup that has three options: 1) Inform host that this is copyrighted material, 2) Certify that content is not restricted and download it, thereby agreeing that it is not copyrighted to the best of your knowledge. If option #1 is selected, then the content is disabled and the content host has to reenable access to it.
Perhaps that would end up in the bullshit list of excuses, but it would require the downloader to utilize a takedown notice. If the hoster keeps reenabling access, then liability could be established.
The reason why I think this could be feasible is because of the Napster case. In Napster, the judge explicitly required the RIAA to inform Napster of specific content that was copyrighted and being infringed. Why is an individual less able to utilize this defense?
Another classic example of the great informed electorate. I would chalk it up as a typo or trying to make a joke. However, the "l" is nowhere near the "r" key and it wasn't even humorous by the farthest stretch. So I will just go with stupid.
I think history is already doing a stellar job at addressing the "at least you know what you'll get" crap.
I think we should sue them all.
Of course, you said full port so I assume you also mean the backend. That would require two things. First, a video input (which the Mac mini may have, I just do not know). Second, the encoding would have to be handled via software as I do not think there is any encoding hardware in the mini.
From a form factor standpoint, it is perfect.
All very valid, but that is only the supply side of the equation. There is also the demand side. On the demand side, you have a potential consumer base deciding where to spend their discretionary funds. Therefore, the demand side does not distinguish between a CD and a DVD based on the cost of production or the profit model. A consumer will only decide which entertainment item provides the best value for the money.
If the supply side has an inefficient model that does not match up or compete well on the demand side, then the result is that the profitability decreases or even disappears. Such is life under capitalism. The reason why CDs and DVDs are a valid comparison is that they are usually competing for the same consumers.
Boy, I cannot agree with you more. If you have half a clue, then IE is easy to make secure. I just went into Tools - Internet Options and set the Security policy to Restricted Sites, turned on popup blocking (after I obviously installed SP2), set my Privacy level to High (because everyone except an idiot knows this is how to disable Cookies), and then installed all the hot fixes from MS. If you are too lazy to maintain your software properly then you shouldn't even have a computer. Just get a Mac or something.
It's like all those people who complain about safety problems in cars. My Pinto is safer than almost every car out there. All that with almost zero risk of theft. I strapped some padding onto the rear bumper and put some steel reinforcement plating around the gas tank. There is almost no risk to myself or my passengers of a ruptured fuel tank, all because I took the time to fix an inherent problem in the design of the ... wait .... err ... I gotta go.
Boy, you are either on crack or live in a cave. A great majority of people are aware of the iPod. Go to NYC or Tokyo and you will see how much people are aware of it. You can throw out rhetoric like "Apple disciples" to explain it away, but you can bet that every other company trying to do business in the digital music player market knows exactly who Apple is. Eight million iPods sold in the last year and I can guarantee many of them were purchased by people who have never bought an Apple product before.
If you want to sell music content in the online world and cannot offer your product to iPod owners, then you are scrapping it out for a very small market.
Only time will tell whether Apple will continue to dominate the market, but they are the only ones who even have a chance now. These things snowball and the market leader has the best chance to stay the market leader. Apple sells the device and the content, and no other combination even comes close. Yahoo, Microsoft, Napster, Wal-Mart, and all the other players in the WMA market are fighting it out with each other. They aren't competing with Apple.
I also challenge anyone who claims the iPod is so much more expensive than other devices with comparable functionality, especially on the hard drive based players. There is a lot more variation on the flash devices, but the iRiver and Creative products are basically only a little cheaper and not enough to address the huge brand power that Apple has with the iPod.
Both WMA DRM and FairPlay are proprietary, so no one can suggest one or the other is a standard. When two proprietary offerings compete, then the market will decide which consumers want. If you think Apple is losing that war, then you should just stick it out in your cave.