I'm sure everyone's going to bitch about how Google should use SSL for everything. And from a marketing perspective, maybe they should.
Or maybe they should use SSL for things which really should be secure, like Gmail. Maybe from more than just a marketing perspective.
But the openness of your wireless network really isn't their problem.
It's not necessarily my wireless network -- notice that the example from TFA was someone checking Gmail from a conference. Obviously, George Ou didn't have the opportunity to secure that wireless network for himself.
It isn't Google's responsibility to secure your connection end-to-end. It's far more reasonable to think that it's your responsibility to not broadcast sensitive information in plaintext!!
True enough. But in this case, it means either you have to turn on the SSL for yourself (use the https URL), or you have to not use Gmail.
Think about it: What is really different about broadcasting sensitive information in plaintext over wireless, and broadcasting sensitive information in plaintext over the Internet? Do you really trust your ISP that much? How about every router between you and Google? At least 15 hops, by my count, between me and mail.google.com. Do I trust netINS to not read my email, and to be secure? Do I trust ALTER.NET to not read my email, and to be secure? How about Qwest?
Need I go on?
Open wireless networks are just the easiest place to sniff plaintext, but plaintext is plaintext anywhere, so I say hell yes, Google should be using SSL by default for Gmail.
No, what would make the difference with IPv6 might be the crypto, as it's far enough below the application layer that you could have dedicated hardware for it, probably making it easier for Google (and others) to default to secure connections for everything.
But does IPv6 have much protection against IP spoofing, on a plaintext connection?
Many others have pointed out that an IP address isn't exactly reliable even under normal circumstances. AOL people are, in fact, behind a load-balancing proxy. Some people carry their laptop between home and work, and like not having to login. What's more, NAT is still too common -- if you're on a wireless AP, unless it's one of the few, rare ones that get it right, you'll have the same IP address as half a dozen other people.
(Iowa State University assigns every laptop a real, Internet-facing IP, which is the same no matter where you go on their wireless network. If you know what you're doing, you can assign multiple mac addresses to the same machine, meaning you can go wireless, or plug in to the ethernet in the dorms, and still have the same IP. But they are the exception, not the rule.)
But even assuming none of that applied -- assume, say, that you live at Iowa State University, and never carry that laptop anywhere else, so your IP is always the same, and no one else ever shares it.
It's still entirely too easy to spoof mac addresses, let alone IP addresses.
Because this means more computing for google servers.
This is Google we're talking about. They can take it.
I mean, seriously, even an old 200 mhz Linux box set up as a server can do crypto at wire speed (100 mbit ethernet). I'm sure it takes them more cycles to spellcheck it for you.
And also because your mail is sent as plain text to the recipient's mail server (and it came as plain text on google server). So it would be useless to crypt only the first (or last) part of the way.
"Not entirely secure" is not the same thing as "useless".
Consider: The majority of most websites are mostly served as plain HTML over HTTP. Is it still "useless" for me to admin mine using SSH instead of unsecured FTP? I think not.
The point I am making here is, if your communications with Gmail are unencrypted, it makes it possible for someone to not only intercept the content of the message, but alter it -- they could, in fact, hijack your whole session, gain access to your archived mail, and send mail pretending to be you. All of this is theoretically possible with that SMTP connection between Gmail and another mailserver, but it's also insanely difficult to get anywhere close to what you can get by hijacking the session.
And there's even a point to encrypting it, as opposed to just signing it. Well, two points, actually:
Browsers include SSL natively, but there's no spec for just signing something and sending it plaintext. Therefore, it would have to be done in JavaScript, which is MUCH slower.
SMTP is only used for connections between Gmail and other servers. Mail sent between you and another Gmail address is entirely secure, once it gets to the server. Why let people hijack your session and make it insecure?
I mean, I tend to agree with you somewhat -- I only really do email from the one machine that has my GPG key, and I wouldn't use Gmail for more than backup. I don't see much point to webmail, because I never login to anything from a computer that isn't my own, because I don't like exposing myself to keyloggers.
But even if it can't be very secure, why make it even less secure than it can be?
I say that because 11 years ago, we got the DMCA, which already gives them this ability.
Essentially, all they have to do to make it illegal to share around your house is to implement DRM which prevents you from doing that. Since it's illegal to circumvent DRM, you're fucked.
And this does, in fact, prevent you from exercising your fair use rights, and, indeed, even the rights inherent in purchasing a physical disk (or a download, even).
I'd love to see it go to court, though. If anyone from the media industry is reading this, I dare you to sue me for playing my movies on Linux, or even ripping and time-shifting a rental. Come on, make my day. Who knows? Maybe it would end in new legislation banishing DRM at all, unless it allows all forms of fair use.
What I would like to see is certain terms very, very clearly defined.
For example, you should not be allowed to hijack domains and call yourself an ISP. You can still hijack domains and sell some sort of service, but you shouldn't be able to call it Internet service.
You should not be allowed to sell a CD with any kind of copy protection (let alone rootkits) and call it a CD. You can still sell them, but they should include a fairly large disclaimer to the effect of "This is not a CD." Ditto for DVDs with any copy protection beyond CSS, especially deliberately breaking the spec to where it won't even play on your own players (I'm looking at you again, Sony) -- you could call it a movie, but not a DVD, and it should be very clear that it is not intended to be able to play in DVD players.
And you should not be able to sell media that has its fair use restricted and call it "selling" -- indeed, you must make it very clear that the customer is renting the media.
At least if we had a clear definition of terms, I could buy a movie and know it will play on anything.
As it is, they don't even need additional legislation to make this work. All they need is what they already have -- DRM + DMCA. They can use DRM to prevent you from copying the media around your house, and the DMCA will make it illegal to crack that DRM, even if you have the right to copy the media around your house.
They don't have to be part of the html spec. In fact, more than one browser does allow you to send an XML document with an XSLT stylesheet for converting to HTML, so we could invent a new spec which allows them. Or we could just use class names and apply CSS to those.
Design doesn't need writing to convey mood, and writing doesn't need design. I have no opposition to a bit of style -- simple colors, bold, italic, etc... But when you start insisting on typefaces, let alone exact fonts, it's over the top.
Also, there have been plenty of books written with no more typeface control than the occasional italics. Most books I could call good or bad, but certainly not a robotic monotone. (Although some are, deliberately, a robotic monotone -- Slaughterhouse 5, for one -- but that's unusual.)
With so many variables out there, using only HTML it's not possible to ensure that what the user sees will match what the creator intended.
I'd say, under most circumstances, the creator should give up such anal control over what they intend. I've seen far, far too many websites set to exact pixel constraints, and there's no call for it -- make flexible designs, or your websites will look tiny and stupid on large, high-resolution displays.
(Which isn't to say that you need to let it stretch across the entire window, the way Slashdot does. I kind of like trusting the user that much, but constraining the width of your text does actually make it more readable. Five lines of 80 chars are really much more readable than one line 400 chars across. But you can get this effect much more reliably and flexibly by using em units, and then if the user is aging and wants to zoom the font, they can.)
But if you're making a website, your primary purpose should be delivering content, and that should always be visible. Having a page that loads quickly helps, too. Your secondary purpose is to make the site look good, but if you only design it to look good at 800x600 or 1024x768, it's going to look retarded at 1600x1200 or 320x240. There's nothing wrong with specifying a font in CSS, but comment out that line for a second to see what happens -- if your site completely falls apart, go back to school on making a gracefully-degrading website.
There are exceptions, and there are valid uses for things like PDF. But I don't think there are many times when it's a good idea to constrain so thoroughly, unless you are eventually targetting print media.
Markup and semantics simply are not nuanced enough to communicate mood, they do well with meaning but mood and character are out of their scope.
<skeptical>Oh really?</skeptical>
<seriously>Markup and semantics, combined with the content itself, is more than sufficiently nuanced to communicate mood. If they aren't, you're not a very good writer, or you're designing for a really stupid audience.</seriously>
<sarcastic>But I suppose your mood and atmosphere are so much better if you can ensure they're expressed in exactly 12-point Verdana (in purple!), or whatever your font fetish is.</sarcastic>
They are about even further separating content from presentation.
The idea being, you design your content in HTML, then you use CSS to specify some presentation. Not all of it, you leave some up to the browser, but some, allowing you to tweak things for print vs web vs handheld.
But if you're wanting to design something intended to be printed, HTML is probably not the best thing to use, and certainly not the easiest.
Neither of those examples applies here. How does "Fair use apply to a case where a person copies something specifically to allow another person to see it for free?
I thought I covered that. Citation. A sufficiently small portion of a work.
When did I say I was defending copying entire movies? Whereas you are the one saying that a teenager should be punished for videotaping twenty seconds of a movie, which is entirely legal, though it may be against theater policy. But "against theater policy" really means that the most punishment she should get is banishment from that particular theater.
That assumes two things : 1. The Theater KNEW that she was only taping 20 seconds.
They know this, because they are watching. The flashlight would be in her face within twenty seconds of her starting to tape.
And if they do that on someone who really was intending to tape the whole movie, so what? I prefer to live in a society where we are not punished for intentions.
2. That she was smart enough to learn her lesson and not use that same camera to tape another movie the next time.
And so what if she does? That would be a problem to deal with then.
Of course not. But it is perfectly for parents to spank the child. It is not appropriate for the child to be asked nicely to please return the stick of gum and then be allowed to leave with no repercussions.
That is a matter for the parents to decide. It's not up to the store owner to spank the child for them.
Besides, I'd think banishment from that particular store would be a severe enough repercussion, if it comes to that. Again, with no need for police or courts.
I always know I'm right when the other side resorts to child like name calling.
With one of those quotes, you missed the point entirely. I wasn't intending to call you a name, I was using name-calling as an example of something that we all have the right to do, but shouldn't do anyway.
With the other one, you missed an entirely valid point I was making about her, and not you -- that she was being stupid, but she should not be jailed for it.
Regardless, it's a fallacy to say that just because someone's argument is flawed, that you are right. For example: "2+2=4 because Mommy said so." Well, the reasoning is entirely flawed, because Mommy could be wrong, but two plus two does, in fact, equal four.
Or we could go back to name-calling, since you seem to enjoy it -- "child-like"? You're the one posting anonymously, yet you think you have all the answers, that life is so simple and black and white, that everyone can be separated into good people and filthy pirates which must be tried in a court of law. All of which shows the emotional and intellectual maturity of a three-year-old.
And they may have been being dickheads, after the person explained what she was doing, assuming she did.
She didn't have a chance to. They didn't pull her out of the theater and ask her what she thought she was doing. They called the cops.
As TFA states, she was too busy crying as she was dragged away by THE COPS, not the theater manager, to explain anything -- and by the it was too late anyway.
Camcorders and recording aren't allowed in movie theaters.
I don't have a problem with that. What I have a problem with is calling the cops over it. Just kick her out of the theater and be done with it.
Oh, here's a #3: As soon as you catch someone recording (or even using a cell phone, etc), kick them out of the theater. You still have "zero tolerance", and no one has to even bring fair use into the equation, because if you're paying attention, they won't be physically able to record more than a small clip that would be covered under fair use.
Now, if you catch the projectionist after hours with a very high-quality camera, aligned perfectly to the screen, plugged into the audio system and perfectly synced to the framerate of the movie, then by all means, call the cops, he's a big-deal pirate, he should serve some time.
Wow, you can barely go a full sentence without two or three bullshit misconceptions.
The person that owns the copyright has the right to retain control of how the movie is shown.
No, they don't. They have the right to retain some measure of control, as provided by copyright. But there's also this little thing called "fair use", which means that you are allowed to copy small portions of a work in order to cite it -- for example, my quoting you here is fair use. You're also allowed to make backup copies for your own use, etc etc.
I don't care if you are just videotaping 20 seconds or the whole movie - you are doing it without permission.
Fair use specifically covers copying without permission.
It is the same as walking into a store and stealing
Except that if you steal, you are depriving someone else of what you are stealing.
Repeat after me until it sinks in: Copying is not the same as stealing. Copying is not the same as stealing. Copying is never the same as stealing, no matter how much you wish it was.
whether you steal 5 pounds of steak or one stick of gum, you are still stealing.
The difference is, if you steal one stick of gum, a reasonable store that catches you will simply ask you to put it back, make sure you haven't taken anything else, and then ask you to leave the store.
Whereas if you steal 5 pounds of steak, or if you empty the cash register, you better bet they'll call the police.
If you are videotaping a whole movie, then maybe -- maybe -- you demand to have the police and the courts involved. If you are videotaping 20 seconds, the theater could save everyone a lot of hassle by simply shining a flashlight in your face and asking for your camcorder -- then giving it back after the movie is over.
The theater is perfectly within it's rights to charge this woman
And I'm perfectly within my rights to call your mother and tell her you're a moronic dipshit shill for the MAFIAA. I'd still be an asshole for doing it, though.
Just because you have the right to do something doesn't make it OK. The theater was perfectly within its rights (no apostrophe with possessive 'its') to press charges. The manager was still an asshole to do so, and if I lived in the area, I would boycott his theater for it.
it is 100% appropriate for a judge to be the one to determine her punishment.
Let's go back to your "stealing from a store" analogy. Do you really think it's appropriate for a judge to be the one to determine the punishment of a ten-year-old boy stealing a pack of gum? Do you really think it would be appropriate to lock him up for a year -- to even have that sentence brought up as a possibility?
Considering she wasn't even "stealing" those 20 seconds of film (which are worth much less than a pack of gum), I'd say no, the judge shouldn't even have to hear about this.
Also, what if the judge decided to dismiss the case, meaning no punishment? Too late, the girl already spent her 19th birthday in jail.
But there should be punishment for this type of behaviour.
I agree -- she should have her camera confiscated for the rest of the movie (and there wasn't much left), and she should be slapped upside the head for stupidity. Worst case, confiscate her film (or memory card or whatever), and kick her out of the theater.
But she should absolutely not be charged with anything, unless we make stupidity a crime -- in which case, you'd be a lifer.
Perhaps this one will cause more people to be aware of the loose definitions of media piracy
Perhaps we should raise awareness of the language used here. It's not piracy -- piracy is armed robbery on the high seas. It's also not theft -- it's copyright infringement.
That doesn't make copyright infringement OK, but a huge political tool is the ability to control language, and I suggest we don't give them that control. For example, if you're a pro-choice advocate, or even if you're neutral, you say "abortion doctor", not "baby murderer". And if you're pro-life, you probably don't use the word "choice" at all, because you don't want to be seen as against choice.
Why should the theater decide between "good and bad stealing"?
I guess I could poke holes in the rest of your argument, but I just can't get around that catchphrase, "good and bad stealing". It'd be entirely too easy to use to advocate DRM, for instance -- "We can't allow any fair use whatsoever, possibly including playing the movie back at all, because how can we trust software to decide between good and bad stealing?"
First, start calling it what it is. Piracy is armed robbery -- on the high seas, no less. Stealing is taking an item from someone, with the inevitable side effect of depriving that someone of their item.
This is neither -- it's unauthorized copying. It may even be copyright infringement, but it's not stealing, and there's no way it's piracy.
Now that we've established that, you see the fallacy of it. There is good and bad unauthorized copying, because a lot of unauthorized copying falls under fair use. There is not good and bad copyright infringement, which is, I hope, what they meant by "stealing". (Although I would argue that there is such a thing as good DMCA violations, because watching DVDs on Linux should not be a crime.)
By using the phrase "good and bad stealing", they are attempting to gain the power to decide what's fair use and what's not -- which they already have, mostly, thanks to the DMCA and DRM. But what that phrase is doing here is implying that you can only have fair use by the grace of the copyright owner, which is not true at all (were it not for the DMCA, which I reject).
I'm not saying we should have no copyright. But I do think copyright is entirely too extreme right now, two specific examples being the DMCA and the RIAA.
As for the rest of your argument, I don't think it should be OK to record even 20 seconds of video in a movie theater, because it would be hard to enforce 20 seconds vs 2 hours. If you can get away with it, fine, otherwise, your fault for doing something stupid like bringing a video camera to a movie. But I don't think the court has to be involved, either -- just shine a flashlight into their face and ask them to stop recording. If they do it again, confiscate their camera, erase their recording, and give it back at the end of the movie.
Ok, with your way, they call the police and first mention the mexican, then the black man... And miss the white male next to them who they can't quite see. Instant lawsuit.
There is no way to have any rules at all and not put yourself at risk of this kind of bullshit. I mean, what if it's an NC-17 movie, and you card the mexican kid (who's only 16), but not the black kid (who looks older)? What if someone answers their cell phone, or talks very loudly, or something like that, which is not actually illegal, but against the rules of the theater -- meaning your only recourse is to either let them do it (driving people away from your theater) or go enforce it yourself?
Or does "blanket policy of arresting and pressing charges against everyone" mean everyone in the theater? In that case, the "without disturbing others" is moot -- now everyone is disturbed, and there's no way they come back to your theater anytime soon.
I'd say, when given a choice between putting yourself at the risk of maybe sometimes getting hit with a bullshit lawsuit, or actually encouraging a bullshit lawsuit against someone else, I know which one I'd do.
How are they to decide who's going to upload movies and who is "recording a 20 second clip to get their little brother excited"?
Simple, really: Because this person really only did record a 20 second clip. I supposed she could upload that clip, but really, I think that even falls under fair use. If she'd wanted to record the entire movie, don't you think she'd start at the beginning, and keep recording until she was caught?
Here's a really simple thing the theater could have done differently -- confiscate the recording medium, or the whole camera if that's not easily determined. If it's not disposable, simply erase the offending material and give it back. While erasing, it should be possible to check intent -- if they really were recording the entire movie, then yeah, press charges. But 20 seconds, there's no need to get the court involved.
Re:Geeks do- everyone else doesn't.
on
The DRM Scorecard
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· Score: 2, Insightful
My grandfather once said to me that locks were there only to keep the honest people honest.
Which is what the MAFIAA continues to say, and I find it a bit insulting. It's basically implying that all honest people would instantly be dishonest, were it not for the wonders of locks or DRM.
Anyway, I disagree. The point of a lock is only sometimes to "keep honest people honest" -- for example, a bathroom door which is normally closed should have a lock, so you know when someone is in there. This is certainly not the case of other locks, for example -- it's not as if people think an unlocked front door or an un-DRM'd file is an invitation.
The point of a locked front door is, it deters people without training in lockpicking, and if it's sufficiently well done (deadbolt, etc), it can be difficult or impossible to enter without leaving significant damage, or creating enough noise (with the alarm, if the lock fails) to alert the neighbors.
In other words, it's not to prevent someone from getting into your house, it's more to deter them, and to prevent them getting away with it. DRM does neither effectively.
There must be a better way to do this. Something that isn't so obtrusive and aggrivating for the end user.
Well, Apple did it -- watermarking. It could be done much more subtly, though, probably some type of stenography -- hopefully nothing that'd worsen compression much, possibly only at certain points in the file, hopefully in a way that could withstand re-encoding. The trick would be not to reveal any details about it until people are already leaking their copies, then start nailing people based on it -- again trying to keep the details confidential as long as possible.
It would eventually be defeated, but it's a much better way of deterring people from sharing those files in the first place. DRM, as currently implemented, controls far too much (watermarks in no way prevent fair use), and doesn't really deter anyone -- because you know whether it's cracked or not, and once it's cracked, it's no more dangerous than any other cracked media. But watermarks, you never really know if it's cracked, and if it's not, you'll be able to watch it, but they will be able to track you down.
I think the fact that the majority of the industry uses DRM instead of watermarking proves that DRM is about control, not about stopping piracy.
I could second that as to why I haven't been laid lately -- I'm trying to get and keep a job for long enough to pay off my student loan, and maybe make enough to go back to college.
But I don't think any of us can really cite that as an excuse in high school. Can you honestly say that if that cute girl from Homeroom visited you in your house and came on to you that you'd ignore her? I mean, some people would, but I really hope that's not a common attitude here.
Free condoms are partly birth control (better than nothing), partly awkward situations (watch for cute girls taking some), and mostly for practical jokes.
On our campus, there were two very large mixing bowls on a table, and two cute girls sitting behind said table handing them out.
One way: Grab as many as you can and run. Or just calmly take a whole bowl, muttering about how it won't even last you a week...
Another: Slowly count them out loud as you take them. "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday morning, Wednesday lunch, Wednesday evening, three for all night Wednesday... Thursday, Friday, Saturday..."
Or count them another way: "Jenny, Katie, Sarah -- whoops, better take three for Sarah... Becky, Erin, Samantha..."
Or hang a calendar on your wall and tape them to it, for when people visit. Or make a condom collage! Endless possibilities!
Not the gameplay, but the game world and story, without having to resort to a cutscene.
For example: Even games with cutscenes often rely on the gameplay to give the cutscene more impact. But there are games with great story, and no cutscenes -- take Half-Life. All kinds of things happen in the game world, but the player is usually in full control of themselves.
I think one question is how much can be evoked from the interactivity. Certainly, there are some basic things that movies lack -- something truly visceral about bludgeoning someone in the back in Halo, or shivving a guard to death in Riddick (and then hiding the body). But most of the deeper things that happen in a game are either cutscenes or scripted sequences (in which the player is in full control).
There may be exceptions, but I think that's really enough to make them art -- and potentially a much richer art form than movies can be, at least until we get a truly holographic cinema.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sure plenty of morons will buy it. And quickly tell their friends to stop buying it if they find they can't play it in a CD player.
But even if they all buy new CD players that can play it, at least it becomes obvious to me which ones to avoid.
Or maybe they should use SSL for things which really should be secure, like Gmail. Maybe from more than just a marketing perspective.
It's not necessarily my wireless network -- notice that the example from TFA was someone checking Gmail from a conference. Obviously, George Ou didn't have the opportunity to secure that wireless network for himself.
True enough. But in this case, it means either you have to turn on the SSL for yourself (use the https URL), or you have to not use Gmail.
Think about it: What is really different about broadcasting sensitive information in plaintext over wireless, and broadcasting sensitive information in plaintext over the Internet? Do you really trust your ISP that much? How about every router between you and Google? At least 15 hops, by my count, between me and mail.google.com. Do I trust netINS to not read my email, and to be secure? Do I trust ALTER.NET to not read my email, and to be secure? How about Qwest?
Need I go on?
Open wireless networks are just the easiest place to sniff plaintext, but plaintext is plaintext anywhere, so I say hell yes, Google should be using SSL by default for Gmail.
I don't care either. Security is such a bother...
Then you won't mind me hijacking your message, do you, SanityInAnarchy? I can make you say whatever I want! Muahahahaha!
No, what would make the difference with IPv6 might be the crypto, as it's far enough below the application layer that you could have dedicated hardware for it, probably making it easier for Google (and others) to default to secure connections for everything.
But does IPv6 have much protection against IP spoofing, on a plaintext connection?
Many others have pointed out that an IP address isn't exactly reliable even under normal circumstances. AOL people are, in fact, behind a load-balancing proxy. Some people carry their laptop between home and work, and like not having to login. What's more, NAT is still too common -- if you're on a wireless AP, unless it's one of the few, rare ones that get it right, you'll have the same IP address as half a dozen other people.
(Iowa State University assigns every laptop a real, Internet-facing IP, which is the same no matter where you go on their wireless network. If you know what you're doing, you can assign multiple mac addresses to the same machine, meaning you can go wireless, or plug in to the ethernet in the dorms, and still have the same IP. But they are the exception, not the rule.)
But even assuming none of that applied -- assume, say, that you live at Iowa State University, and never carry that laptop anywhere else, so your IP is always the same, and no one else ever shares it.
It's still entirely too easy to spoof mac addresses, let alone IP addresses.
This is Google we're talking about. They can take it.
I mean, seriously, even an old 200 mhz Linux box set up as a server can do crypto at wire speed (100 mbit ethernet). I'm sure it takes them more cycles to spellcheck it for you.
"Not entirely secure" is not the same thing as "useless".
Consider: The majority of most websites are mostly served as plain HTML over HTTP. Is it still "useless" for me to admin mine using SSH instead of unsecured FTP? I think not.
The point I am making here is, if your communications with Gmail are unencrypted, it makes it possible for someone to not only intercept the content of the message, but alter it -- they could, in fact, hijack your whole session, gain access to your archived mail, and send mail pretending to be you. All of this is theoretically possible with that SMTP connection between Gmail and another mailserver, but it's also insanely difficult to get anywhere close to what you can get by hijacking the session.
And there's even a point to encrypting it, as opposed to just signing it. Well, two points, actually:
I mean, I tend to agree with you somewhat -- I only really do email from the one machine that has my GPG key, and I wouldn't use Gmail for more than backup. I don't see much point to webmail, because I never login to anything from a computer that isn't my own, because I don't like exposing myself to keyloggers.
But even if it can't be very secure, why make it even less secure than it can be?
Right, and it does show that they can compete with free.
It makes one wonder, if Linux and OS X were more successful, would Windows even cost $50 in the US?
I say that because 11 years ago, we got the DMCA, which already gives them this ability.
Essentially, all they have to do to make it illegal to share around your house is to implement DRM which prevents you from doing that. Since it's illegal to circumvent DRM, you're fucked.
And this does, in fact, prevent you from exercising your fair use rights, and, indeed, even the rights inherent in purchasing a physical disk (or a download, even).
I'd love to see it go to court, though. If anyone from the media industry is reading this, I dare you to sue me for playing my movies on Linux, or even ripping and time-shifting a rental. Come on, make my day. Who knows? Maybe it would end in new legislation banishing DRM at all, unless it allows all forms of fair use.
What I would like to see is certain terms very, very clearly defined.
For example, you should not be allowed to hijack domains and call yourself an ISP. You can still hijack domains and sell some sort of service, but you shouldn't be able to call it Internet service.
You should not be allowed to sell a CD with any kind of copy protection (let alone rootkits) and call it a CD. You can still sell them, but they should include a fairly large disclaimer to the effect of "This is not a CD." Ditto for DVDs with any copy protection beyond CSS, especially deliberately breaking the spec to where it won't even play on your own players (I'm looking at you again, Sony) -- you could call it a movie, but not a DVD, and it should be very clear that it is not intended to be able to play in DVD players.
And you should not be able to sell media that has its fair use restricted and call it "selling" -- indeed, you must make it very clear that the customer is renting the media.
At least if we had a clear definition of terms, I could buy a movie and know it will play on anything.
As it is, they don't even need additional legislation to make this work. All they need is what they already have -- DRM + DMCA. They can use DRM to prevent you from copying the media around your house, and the DMCA will make it illegal to crack that DRM, even if you have the right to copy the media around your house.
They don't have to be part of the html spec. In fact, more than one browser does allow you to send an XML document with an XSLT stylesheet for converting to HTML, so we could invent a new spec which allows them. Or we could just use class names and apply CSS to those.
Design doesn't need writing to convey mood, and writing doesn't need design. I have no opposition to a bit of style -- simple colors, bold, italic, etc... But when you start insisting on typefaces, let alone exact fonts, it's over the top.
Also, there have been plenty of books written with no more typeface control than the occasional italics. Most books I could call good or bad, but certainly not a robotic monotone. (Although some are, deliberately, a robotic monotone -- Slaughterhouse 5, for one -- but that's unusual.)
I'd say, under most circumstances, the creator should give up such anal control over what they intend. I've seen far, far too many websites set to exact pixel constraints, and there's no call for it -- make flexible designs, or your websites will look tiny and stupid on large, high-resolution displays.
(Which isn't to say that you need to let it stretch across the entire window, the way Slashdot does. I kind of like trusting the user that much, but constraining the width of your text does actually make it more readable. Five lines of 80 chars are really much more readable than one line 400 chars across. But you can get this effect much more reliably and flexibly by using em units, and then if the user is aging and wants to zoom the font, they can.)
But if you're making a website, your primary purpose should be delivering content, and that should always be visible. Having a page that loads quickly helps, too. Your secondary purpose is to make the site look good, but if you only design it to look good at 800x600 or 1024x768, it's going to look retarded at 1600x1200 or 320x240. There's nothing wrong with specifying a font in CSS, but comment out that line for a second to see what happens -- if your site completely falls apart, go back to school on making a gracefully-degrading website.
There are exceptions, and there are valid uses for things like PDF. But I don't think there are many times when it's a good idea to constrain so thoroughly, unless you are eventually targetting print media.
<skeptical>Oh really?</skeptical>
<seriously>Markup and semantics, combined with the content itself, is more than sufficiently nuanced to communicate mood. If they aren't, you're not a very good writer, or you're designing for a really stupid audience.</seriously>
<sarcastic>But I suppose your mood and atmosphere are so much better if you can ensure they're expressed in exactly 12-point Verdana (in purple!), or whatever your font fetish is.</sarcastic>
They are about even further separating content from presentation.
The idea being, you design your content in HTML, then you use CSS to specify some presentation. Not all of it, you leave some up to the browser, but some, allowing you to tweak things for print vs web vs handheld.
But if you're wanting to design something intended to be printed, HTML is probably not the best thing to use, and certainly not the easiest.
And why doesn't this solution apply to simply asking them to stop taping, confiscating the camcorder, or asking them to leave?
I thought I covered that. Citation. A sufficiently small portion of a work.
When did I say I was defending copying entire movies? Whereas you are the one saying that a teenager should be punished for videotaping twenty seconds of a movie, which is entirely legal, though it may be against theater policy. But "against theater policy" really means that the most punishment she should get is banishment from that particular theater.
They know this, because they are watching. The flashlight would be in her face within twenty seconds of her starting to tape.
And if they do that on someone who really was intending to tape the whole movie, so what? I prefer to live in a society where we are not punished for intentions.
And so what if she does? That would be a problem to deal with then.
That is a matter for the parents to decide. It's not up to the store owner to spank the child for them.
Besides, I'd think banishment from that particular store would be a severe enough repercussion, if it comes to that. Again, with no need for police or courts.
With one of those quotes, you missed the point entirely. I wasn't intending to call you a name, I was using name-calling as an example of something that we all have the right to do, but shouldn't do anyway.
With the other one, you missed an entirely valid point I was making about her, and not you -- that she was being stupid, but she should not be jailed for it.
Regardless, it's a fallacy to say that just because someone's argument is flawed, that you are right. For example: "2+2=4 because Mommy said so." Well, the reasoning is entirely flawed, because Mommy could be wrong, but two plus two does, in fact, equal four.
Or we could go back to name-calling, since you seem to enjoy it -- "child-like"? You're the one posting anonymously, yet you think you have all the answers, that life is so simple and black and white, that everyone can be separated into good people and filthy pirates which must be tried in a court of law. All of which shows the emotional and intellectual maturity of a three-year-old.
She didn't have a chance to. They didn't pull her out of the theater and ask her what she thought she was doing. They called the cops.
As TFA states, she was too busy crying as she was dragged away by THE COPS, not the theater manager, to explain anything -- and by the it was too late anyway.
I don't have a problem with that. What I have a problem with is calling the cops over it. Just kick her out of the theater and be done with it.
Oh, here's a #3: As soon as you catch someone recording (or even using a cell phone, etc), kick them out of the theater. You still have "zero tolerance", and no one has to even bring fair use into the equation, because if you're paying attention, they won't be physically able to record more than a small clip that would be covered under fair use.
Now, if you catch the projectionist after hours with a very high-quality camera, aligned perfectly to the screen, plugged into the audio system and perfectly synced to the framerate of the movie, then by all means, call the cops, he's a big-deal pirate, he should serve some time.
But a girl with a cell phone?
Wow, you can barely go a full sentence without two or three bullshit misconceptions.
No, they don't. They have the right to retain some measure of control, as provided by copyright. But there's also this little thing called "fair use", which means that you are allowed to copy small portions of a work in order to cite it -- for example, my quoting you here is fair use. You're also allowed to make backup copies for your own use, etc etc.
Fair use specifically covers copying without permission.
Except that if you steal, you are depriving someone else of what you are stealing.
Repeat after me until it sinks in: Copying is not the same as stealing. Copying is not the same as stealing. Copying is never the same as stealing, no matter how much you wish it was.
The difference is, if you steal one stick of gum, a reasonable store that catches you will simply ask you to put it back, make sure you haven't taken anything else, and then ask you to leave the store.
Whereas if you steal 5 pounds of steak, or if you empty the cash register, you better bet they'll call the police.
If you are videotaping a whole movie, then maybe -- maybe -- you demand to have the police and the courts involved. If you are videotaping 20 seconds, the theater could save everyone a lot of hassle by simply shining a flashlight in your face and asking for your camcorder -- then giving it back after the movie is over.
And I'm perfectly within my rights to call your mother and tell her you're a moronic dipshit shill for the MAFIAA. I'd still be an asshole for doing it, though.
Just because you have the right to do something doesn't make it OK. The theater was perfectly within its rights (no apostrophe with possessive 'its') to press charges. The manager was still an asshole to do so, and if I lived in the area, I would boycott his theater for it.
Let's go back to your "stealing from a store" analogy. Do you really think it's appropriate for a judge to be the one to determine the punishment of a ten-year-old boy stealing a pack of gum? Do you really think it would be appropriate to lock him up for a year -- to even have that sentence brought up as a possibility?
Considering she wasn't even "stealing" those 20 seconds of film (which are worth much less than a pack of gum), I'd say no, the judge shouldn't even have to hear about this.
Also, what if the judge decided to dismiss the case, meaning no punishment? Too late, the girl already spent her 19th birthday in jail.
I agree -- she should have her camera confiscated for the rest of the movie (and there wasn't much left), and she should be slapped upside the head for stupidity. Worst case, confiscate her film (or memory card or whatever), and kick her out of the theater.
But she should absolutely not be charged with anything, unless we make stupidity a crime -- in which case, you'd be a lifer.
Perhaps we should raise awareness of the language used here. It's not piracy -- piracy is armed robbery on the high seas. It's also not theft -- it's copyright infringement.
That doesn't make copyright infringement OK, but a huge political tool is the ability to control language, and I suggest we don't give them that control. For example, if you're a pro-choice advocate, or even if you're neutral, you say "abortion doctor", not "baby murderer". And if you're pro-life, you probably don't use the word "choice" at all, because you don't want to be seen as against choice.
I guess I could poke holes in the rest of your argument, but I just can't get around that catchphrase, "good and bad stealing". It'd be entirely too easy to use to advocate DRM, for instance -- "We can't allow any fair use whatsoever, possibly including playing the movie back at all, because how can we trust software to decide between good and bad stealing?"
First, start calling it what it is. Piracy is armed robbery -- on the high seas, no less. Stealing is taking an item from someone, with the inevitable side effect of depriving that someone of their item.
This is neither -- it's unauthorized copying. It may even be copyright infringement, but it's not stealing, and there's no way it's piracy.
Now that we've established that, you see the fallacy of it. There is good and bad unauthorized copying, because a lot of unauthorized copying falls under fair use. There is not good and bad copyright infringement, which is, I hope, what they meant by "stealing". (Although I would argue that there is such a thing as good DMCA violations, because watching DVDs on Linux should not be a crime.)
By using the phrase "good and bad stealing", they are attempting to gain the power to decide what's fair use and what's not -- which they already have, mostly, thanks to the DMCA and DRM. But what that phrase is doing here is implying that you can only have fair use by the grace of the copyright owner, which is not true at all (were it not for the DMCA, which I reject).
I'm not saying we should have no copyright. But I do think copyright is entirely too extreme right now, two specific examples being the DMCA and the RIAA.
As for the rest of your argument, I don't think it should be OK to record even 20 seconds of video in a movie theater, because it would be hard to enforce 20 seconds vs 2 hours. If you can get away with it, fine, otherwise, your fault for doing something stupid like bringing a video camera to a movie. But I don't think the court has to be involved, either -- just shine a flashlight into their face and ask them to stop recording. If they do it again, confiscate their camera, erase their recording, and give it back at the end of the movie.
Ok, with your way, they call the police and first mention the mexican, then the black man... And miss the white male next to them who they can't quite see. Instant lawsuit.
There is no way to have any rules at all and not put yourself at risk of this kind of bullshit. I mean, what if it's an NC-17 movie, and you card the mexican kid (who's only 16), but not the black kid (who looks older)? What if someone answers their cell phone, or talks very loudly, or something like that, which is not actually illegal, but against the rules of the theater -- meaning your only recourse is to either let them do it (driving people away from your theater) or go enforce it yourself?
Or does "blanket policy of arresting and pressing charges against everyone" mean everyone in the theater? In that case, the "without disturbing others" is moot -- now everyone is disturbed, and there's no way they come back to your theater anytime soon.
I'd say, when given a choice between putting yourself at the risk of maybe sometimes getting hit with a bullshit lawsuit, or actually encouraging a bullshit lawsuit against someone else, I know which one I'd do.
Simple, really: Because this person really only did record a 20 second clip. I supposed she could upload that clip, but really, I think that even falls under fair use. If she'd wanted to record the entire movie, don't you think she'd start at the beginning, and keep recording until she was caught?
Here's a really simple thing the theater could have done differently -- confiscate the recording medium, or the whole camera if that's not easily determined. If it's not disposable, simply erase the offending material and give it back. While erasing, it should be possible to check intent -- if they really were recording the entire movie, then yeah, press charges. But 20 seconds, there's no need to get the court involved.
Which is what the MAFIAA continues to say, and I find it a bit insulting. It's basically implying that all honest people would instantly be dishonest, were it not for the wonders of locks or DRM.
Anyway, I disagree. The point of a lock is only sometimes to "keep honest people honest" -- for example, a bathroom door which is normally closed should have a lock, so you know when someone is in there. This is certainly not the case of other locks, for example -- it's not as if people think an unlocked front door or an un-DRM'd file is an invitation.
The point of a locked front door is, it deters people without training in lockpicking, and if it's sufficiently well done (deadbolt, etc), it can be difficult or impossible to enter without leaving significant damage, or creating enough noise (with the alarm, if the lock fails) to alert the neighbors.
In other words, it's not to prevent someone from getting into your house, it's more to deter them, and to prevent them getting away with it. DRM does neither effectively.
Well, Apple did it -- watermarking. It could be done much more subtly, though, probably some type of stenography -- hopefully nothing that'd worsen compression much, possibly only at certain points in the file, hopefully in a way that could withstand re-encoding. The trick would be not to reveal any details about it until people are already leaking their copies, then start nailing people based on it -- again trying to keep the details confidential as long as possible.
It would eventually be defeated, but it's a much better way of deterring people from sharing those files in the first place. DRM, as currently implemented, controls far too much (watermarks in no way prevent fair use), and doesn't really deter anyone -- because you know whether it's cracked or not, and once it's cracked, it's no more dangerous than any other cracked media. But watermarks, you never really know if it's cracked, and if it's not, you'll be able to watch it, but they will be able to track you down.
I think the fact that the majority of the industry uses DRM instead of watermarking proves that DRM is about control, not about stopping piracy.
I could second that as to why I haven't been laid lately -- I'm trying to get and keep a job for long enough to pay off my student loan, and maybe make enough to go back to college.
But I don't think any of us can really cite that as an excuse in high school. Can you honestly say that if that cute girl from Homeroom visited you in your house and came on to you that you'd ignore her? I mean, some people would, but I really hope that's not a common attitude here.
Free condoms are partly birth control (better than nothing), partly awkward situations (watch for cute girls taking some), and mostly for practical jokes.
On our campus, there were two very large mixing bowls on a table, and two cute girls sitting behind said table handing them out.
One way: Grab as many as you can and run. Or just calmly take a whole bowl, muttering about how it won't even last you a week...
Another: Slowly count them out loud as you take them. "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday morning, Wednesday lunch, Wednesday evening, three for all night Wednesday... Thursday, Friday, Saturday..."
Or count them another way: "Jenny, Katie, Sarah -- whoops, better take three for Sarah... Becky, Erin, Samantha..."
Or hang a calendar on your wall and tape them to it, for when people visit. Or make a condom collage! Endless possibilities!
Not the gameplay, but the game world and story, without having to resort to a cutscene.
For example: Even games with cutscenes often rely on the gameplay to give the cutscene more impact. But there are games with great story, and no cutscenes -- take Half-Life. All kinds of things happen in the game world, but the player is usually in full control of themselves.
I think one question is how much can be evoked from the interactivity. Certainly, there are some basic things that movies lack -- something truly visceral about bludgeoning someone in the back in Halo, or shivving a guard to death in Riddick (and then hiding the body). But most of the deeper things that happen in a game are either cutscenes or scripted sequences (in which the player is in full control).
There may be exceptions, but I think that's really enough to make them art -- and potentially a much richer art form than movies can be, at least until we get a truly holographic cinema.