What legal precendent? This legal precedent, where the court ruled that (in the words of the winning lawyer), "Skipping commercials is not illegal and neither is sending television shows from your home to your office..."
First off, I didn't hear this was settled. Second, this was a lawsuit brought on by ReplayTV owners for a declatory ruling that their use of their Replay units did not violate copyrights. This was not the case between the media companies and ReplayTV (aka SonicBlue at the time). Third, this ruling was made by the Federal 9th Circuit. The rest of the country generally ignores the rulings of the 9th Circuit in terms of legal precedents. Ask any attorney or law school student to verify that little tidbit. Finally, the case ended when the media companies promised not to sue the END USERS (unlike, say, I dunno, SCO for example!). This ruling does little to protect companies like TiVo, Replay, or others from future copyright issues.
"I DO know that Tivo has had a very suspect privacy policy in the past and that they DO transfer personally idendifiable data back to their dbs."
You can opt out of aggregate viewer totals. This has been covered ad nauseum (sic) here on Slashdot as well as the general internet community. This is not an issue.
"Tivo is owned by Phillips and sold out to Hollywood, which is why they are still around in their current, Hollywood friendly incarnation."
No its [TiVo] not (owned by Philips). Philips owns a stake in TiVo, just like Time Warner, Viacom, Comcast, NBC Universal, Sony, and Disney. Here's the info:
http://www.tivo.com/5.4.asp
So before recommending someone's post is flamebaited, try getting some of your facts straight in your own postings. That'll make Slashdot all the better a place to visit.
"Taken from news.com story: DirecTV sells its TiVo stake "There are about 1.6 million TiVo subscribers in total. About a million of those are DirecTV subscribers signed up for the TiVo service. TiVo has a contract with DirecTV for DVRs that runs through February 2007, according to TiVo's annual report for the period ending Jan. 31, 2004."
Yes, and DirecTV also sold off its stake in XM Satellite as well, which really boggles my mind. The official position that DirecTV was selling off its stakes to generate monies to pay down debts. It is also conceivable that DirecTV could buy back shares if it ever becomes their intent to acquire those companies at lower share prices...
"To be fair, SonicBlue was fighting legal battles over the Rio and was competing across several lines of multimedia devices. If any suit hurt them, it was probably the patent suit with TiVo.'
Then SonicBlue brought that on themselves and their shareholders. If my memory is correct, it was SonicBlue that filed the IP lawsuit against TiVo first. TiVo countered that with their own large patent portfolio. The two settled out of court thereby agreeing not to sue each other over basic PVR patents and cross-licensed everything. That was prior to the official bankrupcy of SonicBlue and the current owners of the company.
"In any case, you are correct that ReplayTV hasn't had smooth times. Yes, TiVo has more customers. Over half of them come from DirectTiVo deals. DirecTV will cut this tie to TiVo, so who knows what will happen to them then."
That's an assumption. TiVo is a valuable brand and it effectively sells DirecTV units. Its a great way for DirecTV to differentiate their service from that of Echostar's DISH Network with its generic DISH Player PVR service. In such a case, DirecTV is "Coke" and DISH is "Shasta." TiVo also aids DirecTV against the cable providers because the cable companies haven't deployed TiVo branded services but PVRs built by Scientific Atlanta which just about everyone online agrees are lacking in the features department. So when a customer calls up Comcast and asks about TiVo, the Comcast rep has to tell them they offer a PVR that's "something like TiVo," but not the Real Slim Shady. Rupert Murdoch needs TiVo. If anything, Murdoch will either threaten TiVo with defection to his own PVR company he owns to squeeze fees or concessions from them (much like AOL did with Microsoft in threatening to switch the default browser to Netscape if Microsoft dropped AOL from the Windows installations), or outright buy them later. Of course, this is an assumption made by me but most of the financial analysts have offered similar opinions on the matter.
"ReplayTV should have had the foresight to adopt a partner in this way--about half of all PVR subscriptions come from cable and satellite subscriptions, rather than direct from TiVo or Replay."
If memory serves me correctly, SonicBlue licensed its Replay IP to Scientific Atlanta, but that's a whole lot different than actually using Replay in those boxes. And I should note that even if half of all of TiVo's PVR subscriptions come through its partnership with DirecTV, the other half that goes directly through TiVo is still a much larger installed user base than what Replay has alone.
"But the point is that ReplayTV set the precedent that transferring the recordings is legal. That's not "the feature that bankrupted SonicBlue", at least not all on its own, so the feature itself isn't the kiss of death."
What legal precedent? SonicBlue was bankrupted by the lawsuits the MPAA and the Broadcasters Association brought against them for both the "commercial skip" button (which many VCRs have) and the ability to share programming with other ReplayTV owners over the internet. There is no precedent established. The current owners of Replay suspended the sharing feature on the current models of Replay and also removed the "commercial skip" button from the remotes.
At this point, I'd be willing to bet there are more MythTV units operating on a daily basis than there are Replay units.
"If TiVo makes advertisers' business model obsolete, that's just too bad. Find another way to make money. They're already putting more "ads" into the shows to counter this."
I was reminded of this ("ads" in television programming) with this week's episode of *Nip/Tuck* on the FX Network. One character mentioned XM Satellite by brand name. XM sponsored the season premiere of the show this season commercial-free.
"Having lost the two programs I was saving to demo HD when my new DirecTV HD Tivo crapped out when it was only two months old, I'd really like a way to transfer stuff to a PC. DircTV promptly sent a replacement unit, but my demos were gone and they haven't been repeated yet. It'd suit me if I could just do an automated (or semi-automated) backup to a PC or another hard drive w/o having to crack the case."
There's another option, although it is pricy; Granted, you have a HD TiVo so I guess pricing shouldn't be a problem with you. The solution would be purchasing a secondary TiVo, such as a Pioneer model with the DVD burner. Thus you could use the now free "Home Media Option" to transfer your programming from your main TiVo to the secondary unit and burn it. By transferring it through the network, the HD digital signal should be preserved.
Now there are possible hang-ups with this approach.
1. How large are the HDTV files? You probably will run out of room on the DVD-R. As I don't have a Pioneer TiVo DVD-R, I cannot advise you if the machine will allow splitting the content on multiple discs.
2. Will TiVo (or more importantly, DirecTV) allow the transfer of an HD recording from an HDTV TiVo (by DirecTV) to a Series 2 non HDTV TiVo?
These are questions you should ask TiVo directly before purchasing another unit in the quest at backing up your HDTV content and keeping it pristine.
"When will media organizations realize that this sort of thing does not hurt - especially the NFL who does not release anything other than highlight tapes on video anyway."
I guess you've never seen ESPN Classic. You know, the cable channel that broadcasts ancient (no, not Greco-Roman) sporting events? Better put, its another channel that Disney (owners of ESPN through ABC) includes in their packages that they try to hard-sell to the cable companies and thus force up basic and extended prices to the consumer.
One of the major contributions to increases in basic cable pricing has been Disney's insistence of forcing cable companies to include ESPN in the basic packages and then hike up the prices charged to the cable companies for that very channel. Dump ESPN out of basic cable and the prices would stabilize. Of course, you can conclude easily that I support "a la carte" legislation championed by Senator John McCain.
"Without the mindshare and press of Tivo, ReplayTV has sported this feature for a long time. Ownere preemptively filed suit to make sure they could legally use show-sharing."
Yes, and that's also the feature that bankrupted SonicBlue. Replay is now on its third corporate parent thanks to the failure of branding, simplicity, etc. that TiVo captured. TiVo has 1.6 million subscribers; how many does Replay have? The last time I heard, Replay peaked at 200k. And the only person I know that owns one is Brentano on G4TechTV's "The Screen Savers." And TiVo and Replay have both been on the market roughly the same amount of years.
"Instead of recycling electronics, it would be much better if they could send them to less-developed countries where high-tech is more or less non-existant."
That's a great idea to keep the rest of the world technologically less-advanced than us and also seed them as future technology consumers for our companies. Of course, the downside is that since Microsoft will go after such endeavors over improper Windows licenses, those third-worlders on the receiving end will load Linux and thus create computer using blocks separate from American influence. Thus if the U.S. doesn't move towards Linux and BSD based operating systems, we could find ourselves trapped in the sea of Microsoft operating system mediocrity.
"With the exception of aluminum, most recycling programs would loose money if not for the fees charged to end users."
Is that a complaint about recycling in general? I'd rather pay for it that way than casually wasting resources away by having it end up in a landfill. I really do not like the fact that steel cans are ending up in landfills because there isn't a redemption value assessed on canned goods. In terms of aluminum, I believe the figure in the 80s was that America threw away enough aluminum per year to rebuild the entire commercial airline fleets 27 times over, or something to that effect.
As a Californian, I am not happy about our recycling of plastics being assessed by weight in terms of receiving payment. We pay the redemption value but never receive the total amount on the back-end (unlike, say Oregon, for example). But then again, we can counter-act that by mixing non-redemption value water bottles and other plastics in the mix (shampoo bottles, etc.).
Those tricky Oregonians have watched too much Seinfeld though. Their automatic recycling machines located at just about every supermarket in the state is set up to reject any bottles or cans with bar codes identified as originating out-of-state. Arrrrrgh!:0
This topic begs the question, "will Office Depot recycle their old tech products still sitting on their shelves?"
From my experience, both Office Depot and Office Max are terrible at keeping pace with the rest of the tech market offerings. When Best Buy, CompUSA, and Circuit City have all cleared their shelves of old product, I've usually been able to go into either OhMax or the Depot and find the stuff still sitting there, under a lot of dust of course.
"Look, its the Palm V!"
"Wow, I didn't know 3Com made Palm products!"
Of course, that is a tad bit of an exaggeration, but not by much!:)
"Has anyone been tracking Firefox/Mozilla in the User-Agent stats for a large site to see if it is truly pulling browsershare from IE? The last mention we had from the Slashdot admins was that Slashdot was 90% Internet Explorer, is this on the decline? Are these stats publicly available?"
The 90% figure is probably due to people surfing and posting to Slashdot during normal work hours in offices that only allow for IE usage. I had Mozilla FireFox on my system until our IT department ordered me to remove it. They do have to justify their MCSE certificates every way they can...:)
"they've always been the loveable underdog-an the also make the ALL the console games with the most amazing story lines.... i can't wait to see what comes of this "closer relationship""
What planet are you from? Nintendo monopolized the game industry in the late 80s like Microsoft can't to this day. It took the combined efforts of Atari Corp. and Atari Games Corp/Tengen through the court system to get Nintendo to drop their licensing agreements that stated that if any 3rd party developer made a title on the NES, it could not be ported to any other competing system. That policy hurt not only the Atari 7800, but the Sega Master System and the NEC TurboGrafx16 (T16). During that era, the Japanese version of the T16 known as the PC Engine, was the dominant system because every title was available on it. NEC brought the system to America only to find out they couldn't release hardly any of the games it enjoyed in Japan to Stateside. The Sega Genesis did not have a large amount of support from 3rd party developers either; Tengen was one of the strongest (and prominent) because they had an axe to grind with "The Other" Beast of Redmond.
Nintendo's later ineptitude lost the monopoly that they partly built upon their own merits. First with the lack of backwards compatibility (for the NES) in the SNES, and then with the failure to embrace CD-Roms.
The problem with the game industry is Nintendo is no longer a competent player in it.
"Which, incidentally, is how the "unofficial" 1983 Bond film "Never Say Never Again" got made. I assume that the makers didn't have the rights to the things innovated for the (Eon) Bond films themselves, and obviously not the regular actors, which is why it was such a good film (cough)."
You don't consider Sean Connery a *regular* Bond actor?:) In a later settlement, Warner Bros. Pictures returned the rights to "Never Say Never Again" back to MGM/Eon. That leaves "Casino Royale" the only property they didn't have their hands on, and I understand Eon now controls rights to future theatrical adaptations...and its the very source material Pierce Brosnan and Tarantino wish to use for a collaboration if permitted.
Here's the email address if you (like me) want the new DOCTOR WHO to premiere on the SciFi Network in America at the same time it debuts (returns) to the BBC in Fall 2005:
program@www.scifi.com
I seriously doubt BBC America would carry the new show since it already does not show the old WHO, Blake's 7, or Red Dwarf. SciFi is now part of the combined NBC Universal, and it has shown with the reimagined Battlestar Galactica that it is willing to spend money on new programming.
"I agree. I always thought that the Sontarans could kick Dalek ass any day of the week - especially the members of the Sontaran Special Space Services (the SSSS)."
Star Trek Voyager already used the Sontaran design for a race of creatures they encountered (I believe) in their last season. Call it borrowing, ripoff, or an homage. Of course, Enterprise also had a spacecraft on it that was "bigger on the inside than the outside" and they even said that famous line in the dialogue (Trip said it).
"I mean look at their track record, after Davros was introduced they were reduced to the level of galactic criminals and pests, not the all conquering ruthless invaders we feared from the show's first decade. Fanboys will prolly argue that in Genesis OFTD, where Davros was introduced, the Time Lords asked the Doctor to interfere to hamstring their development. He succeeded only too well. As long as Davros was around he caused so much internal strife among the Daleks, culminating in a civil war, that they realy were just shadows of their former selves."
In the 60s, the Daleks were taking their orders from the Supreme Dalek. It wasn't like they had a collective conscious that came to consent before any of them took any action. So how is it any different whether the Dalek masses are receiving their orders from the Supreme Dalek or from Davros himself?
And the Time Lords ordered the Doctor to destroy the development of the Daleks, not "hamstring their development." It was the Doctor who wussed out and decided to "hamstring" them instead of exterminating them at the point of germination because he himself did not want to be guilty of genocide even though it would've saved countless innocents across space and time.
"Actually, from what I read of the article, it sounded like "editorial control" and not money was the problem. I could see the BBC wanting to do something different with the Daleks and saying "No" thats not how Daleks should be. I'd rather them just come up with more evil bad guys. Come on the universe is big. It can have more than a half dozen regular bad guy species."
Hey, buy the book "The Nth Doctor" about the various attempts (prior to the 1996 telefilm) to get a theatrical release for WHO. When the project was at Amblin (and to be directed by Leonard Nemoy), the Daleks were mechanical spider creatures and Davros turned out to be genetically engineering himself into a spider creature himself (he reveals his abdomens (sic)). Of course, it was no wonder that a few years later when this film did not materialize that the hack Akiva Goldsman riffed these concepts and inserted them into his screenplay of "Lost in Space" and the same thing happened to Dr. Smith instead. Of course, it was even funnier to see "Space Quest" riff off the 1996 Doctor Who telefilm with the ships special room physically causing events on the spacecraft itself go back in time to prevent character deaths just as the Eye of Harmony did in the WHO telefilm.
"same with the hendrix estate, the adopted sister ended up getting control over it. she convinced the father who was having medical problems to hand it to her, and she's not even really bloodline, meanwhile his brother has been left out of the estate by her, she's also wanting more money for hendrix' music being used."
Ah, so that's why there isn't any Hendrix music in Battlefield Vietnam!
"Also, in the past, Hancock have said that they will allow Daleks to appear in shows etc., but ONLY if they don't say anything. I think the reason for this is because the look of the Daleks is retained by the BBC, but what they say and do is retained by the creator."
Okay, so how much money do you think the Nation estate pocketed from the 1996 Fox/Universal/BBC Worldwide Doctor Who telefilm? You could hear the Daleks during the intro when the Master was executed on Skaro. Then when the 8th Doctor figured out the Master was still alive, he mentioned the Daleks had lured him into the trap. So in the telefilm, you could hear the Daleks - but you could not see them - and they were mentioned by name.
"Perhaps something along the lines of the Borg could be used. The cybermen but a lot more evil. I'm sure someone must have some good ideas."
Excuse me, but where do you think the TREK gods got the idea for the Borg? Here's a hint, it didn't come to them from meditating about the ether. The Borg are a total ripoff of the Cybermen with a different design to cut down on liability issues. The Cybermen were human from Earth's twin planet. They began enhancing theirselves with cybernetics until they decided to become completely mechanical because they felt it made them a superior race. They assimilate other humanoids. Now think back; the Cybermen debuted on Doctor Who back in the 1960s. The Borg were introduced to TREK in the late 80s.
Hmmm. I recall the good Doctor still can fall back upon the Cybermen, the Sonatarans, the Autons, the Sillurians and Sea Devils, the Black Guardian, the Valleyard (sic), the Rani, the Monk, and THE MASTER as worthy opponents, not to mention the Time Lord High Council and the American Medical Association (hint hint, 7th Doctor's death).
"The way the BBC does things (or did), if you're an employee of the BBC, your ideas belong to them. If you were hired by the BBC to do something specific (like write a script), then your ideas belong to you. This explains why Terry Nation (not a BBC employee) "owns" the Daleks and has made millions off them, while the guy who designed them, Raymond Cusick (a BBC employee), received only his BBC salary and hasn't received a penny of the royalties."
That is terrible (the Nation scenario of rights). That scenario reminds me of that endless lawsuit between the guy who wrote the screenplay for "Thunderball" and claimed he owned the theatrical version of James Bond. That dispute was only settled a couple of years ago because Sony bought the guy's "rights" and threatened to take down Eon Productions/MGM or launch their own James Bond flicks. What a nightmare.
As for Cusick, just look at what people in tech companies deal with. For instance, if you work for Apple, and you create a program when you are away from the office, Apple still owns whatever you create during your tenure at the company. Thus what has happened to Cusick is pretty common regardless if it is unfair.
"It's a nice, romantic view but it isn't the case here. Terry Nation had a serious falling out with the BBC over control and payments, and continually refused the BBC permission to use them. I believe various other monsters are involved as well - a true Whovian will be able to fill the details in here, as opposed to myself who just watches the programmes on cable sometimes. Plus, the BBC doesn't have a very good record with Daleks. There aren't very many working models left, and when the BBC borrowed one from the Dr Who Exhibition in Llangollen (now back in Blackpool after god know's hoow many years) they managed to damage it."
Terry Nation originally tried to create a "Daleks" show here in the U.S. back in the 60s but he failed to get a contract.
As for Daleks still in existence, there's one sitting atop the giant fridge inside Pizza Schmizza in Portland, Oregon. Its one of the Daleks from the Peter Cushing Doctor Who films...
Slashdot Mirror
What legal precendent? This legal precedent, where the court ruled that (in the words of the winning lawyer), "Skipping commercials is not illegal and neither is sending television shows from your home to your office..."
First off, I didn't hear this was settled. Second, this was a lawsuit brought on by ReplayTV owners for a declatory ruling that their use of their Replay units did not violate copyrights. This was not the case between the media companies and ReplayTV (aka SonicBlue at the time). Third, this ruling was made by the Federal 9th Circuit. The rest of the country generally ignores the rulings of the 9th Circuit in terms of legal precedents. Ask any attorney or law school student to verify that little tidbit. Finally, the case ended when the media companies promised not to sue the END USERS (unlike, say, I dunno, SCO for example!). This ruling does little to protect companies like TiVo, Replay, or others from future copyright issues.
"Mod parent Flamebait"
Oh really? And what about your post?
"I DO know that Tivo has had a very suspect privacy policy in the past and that they DO transfer personally idendifiable data back to their dbs."
You can opt out of aggregate viewer totals. This has been covered ad nauseum (sic) here on Slashdot as well as the general internet community. This is not an issue.
"Tivo is owned by Phillips and sold out to Hollywood, which is why they are still around in their current, Hollywood friendly incarnation."
No its [TiVo] not (owned by Philips). Philips owns a stake in TiVo, just like Time Warner, Viacom, Comcast, NBC Universal, Sony, and Disney. Here's the info:
http://www.tivo.com/5.4.asp
So before recommending someone's post is flamebaited, try getting some of your facts straight in your own postings. That'll make Slashdot all the better a place to visit.
"Taken from news.com story: DirecTV sells its TiVo stake "There are about 1.6 million TiVo subscribers in total. About a million of those are DirecTV subscribers signed up for the TiVo service. TiVo has a contract with DirecTV for DVRs that runs through February 2007, according to TiVo's annual report for the period ending Jan. 31, 2004."
Yes, and DirecTV also sold off its stake in XM Satellite as well, which really boggles my mind. The official position that DirecTV was selling off its stakes to generate monies to pay down debts. It is also conceivable that DirecTV could buy back shares if it ever becomes their intent to acquire those companies at lower share prices...
"To be fair, SonicBlue was fighting legal battles over the Rio and was competing across several lines of multimedia devices. If any suit hurt them, it was probably the patent suit with TiVo.'
Then SonicBlue brought that on themselves and their shareholders. If my memory is correct, it was SonicBlue that filed the IP lawsuit against TiVo first. TiVo countered that with their own large patent portfolio. The two settled out of court thereby agreeing not to sue each other over basic PVR patents and cross-licensed everything. That was prior to the official bankrupcy of SonicBlue and the current owners of the company.
"In any case, you are correct that ReplayTV hasn't had smooth times. Yes, TiVo has more customers. Over half of them come from DirectTiVo deals. DirecTV will cut this tie to TiVo, so who knows what will happen to them then."
That's an assumption. TiVo is a valuable brand and it effectively sells DirecTV units. Its a great way for DirecTV to differentiate their service from that of Echostar's DISH Network with its generic DISH Player PVR service. In such a case, DirecTV is "Coke" and DISH is "Shasta." TiVo also aids DirecTV against the cable providers because the cable companies haven't deployed TiVo branded services but PVRs built by Scientific Atlanta which just about everyone online agrees are lacking in the features department. So when a customer calls up Comcast and asks about TiVo, the Comcast rep has to tell them they offer a PVR that's "something like TiVo," but not the Real Slim Shady. Rupert Murdoch needs TiVo. If anything, Murdoch will either threaten TiVo with defection to his own PVR company he owns to squeeze fees or concessions from them (much like AOL did with Microsoft in threatening to switch the default browser to Netscape if Microsoft dropped AOL from the Windows installations), or outright buy them later. Of course, this is an assumption made by me but most of the financial analysts have offered similar opinions on the matter.
"ReplayTV should have had the foresight to adopt a partner in this way--about half of all PVR subscriptions come from cable and satellite subscriptions, rather than direct from TiVo or Replay."
If memory serves me correctly, SonicBlue licensed its Replay IP to Scientific Atlanta, but that's a whole lot different than actually using Replay in those boxes. And I should note that even if half of all of TiVo's PVR subscriptions come through its partnership with DirecTV, the other half that goes directly through TiVo is still a much larger installed user base than what Replay has alone.
"But the point is that ReplayTV set the precedent that transferring the recordings is legal. That's not "the feature that bankrupted SonicBlue", at least not all on its own, so the feature itself isn't the kiss of death."
What legal precedent? SonicBlue was bankrupted by the lawsuits the MPAA and the Broadcasters Association brought against them for both the "commercial skip" button (which many VCRs have) and the ability to share programming with other ReplayTV owners over the internet. There is no precedent established. The current owners of Replay suspended the sharing feature on the current models of Replay and also removed the "commercial skip" button from the remotes.
At this point, I'd be willing to bet there are more MythTV units operating on a daily basis than there are Replay units.
"If TiVo makes advertisers' business model obsolete, that's just too bad. Find another way to make money. They're already putting more "ads" into the shows to counter this."
I was reminded of this ("ads" in television programming) with this week's episode of *Nip/Tuck* on the FX Network. One character mentioned XM Satellite by brand name. XM sponsored the season premiere of the show this season commercial-free.
"Having lost the two programs I was saving to demo HD when my new DirecTV HD Tivo crapped out when it was only two months old, I'd really like a way to transfer stuff to a PC. DircTV promptly sent a replacement unit, but my demos were gone and they haven't been repeated yet. It'd suit me if I could just do an automated (or semi-automated) backup to a PC or another hard drive w/o having to crack the case."
There's another option, although it is pricy; Granted, you have a HD TiVo so I guess pricing shouldn't be a problem with you. The solution would be purchasing a secondary TiVo, such as a Pioneer model with the DVD burner. Thus you could use the now free "Home Media Option" to transfer your programming from your main TiVo to the secondary unit and burn it. By transferring it through the network, the HD digital signal should be preserved.
Now there are possible hang-ups with this approach.
1. How large are the HDTV files? You probably will run out of room on the DVD-R. As I don't have a Pioneer TiVo DVD-R, I cannot advise you if the machine will allow splitting the content on multiple discs.
2. Will TiVo (or more importantly, DirecTV) allow the transfer of an HD recording from an HDTV TiVo (by DirecTV) to a Series 2 non HDTV TiVo?
These are questions you should ask TiVo directly before purchasing another unit in the quest at backing up your HDTV content and keeping it pristine.
"When will media organizations realize that this sort of thing does not hurt - especially the NFL who does not release anything other than highlight tapes on video anyway."
I guess you've never seen ESPN Classic. You know, the cable channel that broadcasts ancient (no, not Greco-Roman) sporting events? Better put, its another channel that Disney (owners of ESPN through ABC) includes in their packages that they try to hard-sell to the cable companies and thus force up basic and extended prices to the consumer.
One of the major contributions to increases in basic cable pricing has been Disney's insistence of forcing cable companies to include ESPN in the basic packages and then hike up the prices charged to the cable companies for that very channel. Dump ESPN out of basic cable and the prices would stabilize. Of course, you can conclude easily that I support "a la carte" legislation championed by Senator John McCain.
"Without the mindshare and press of Tivo, ReplayTV has sported this feature for a long time. Ownere preemptively filed suit to make sure they could legally use show-sharing."
Yes, and that's also the feature that bankrupted SonicBlue. Replay is now on its third corporate parent thanks to the failure of branding, simplicity, etc. that TiVo captured. TiVo has 1.6 million subscribers; how many does Replay have? The last time I heard, Replay peaked at 200k. And the only person I know that owns one is Brentano on G4TechTV's "The Screen Savers." And TiVo and Replay have both been on the market roughly the same amount of years.
"Instead of recycling electronics, it would be much better if they could send them to less-developed countries where high-tech is more or less non-existant."
That's a great idea to keep the rest of the world technologically less-advanced than us and also seed them as future technology consumers for our companies. Of course, the downside is that since Microsoft will go after such endeavors over improper Windows licenses, those third-worlders on the receiving end will load Linux and thus create computer using blocks separate from American influence. Thus if the U.S. doesn't move towards Linux and BSD based operating systems, we could find ourselves trapped in the sea of Microsoft operating system mediocrity.
"With the exception of aluminum, most recycling programs would loose money if not for the fees charged to end users."
:0
Is that a complaint about recycling in general? I'd rather pay for it that way than casually wasting resources away by having it end up in a landfill. I really do not like the fact that steel cans are ending up in landfills because there isn't a redemption value assessed on canned goods. In terms of aluminum, I believe the figure in the 80s was that America threw away enough aluminum per year to rebuild the entire commercial airline fleets 27 times over, or something to that effect.
As a Californian, I am not happy about our recycling of plastics being assessed by weight in terms of receiving payment. We pay the redemption value but never receive the total amount on the back-end (unlike, say Oregon, for example). But then again, we can counter-act that by mixing non-redemption value water bottles and other plastics in the mix (shampoo bottles, etc.).
Those tricky Oregonians have watched too much Seinfeld though. Their automatic recycling machines located at just about every supermarket in the state is set up to reject any bottles or cans with bar codes identified as originating out-of-state. Arrrrrgh!
This topic begs the question, "will Office Depot recycle their old tech products still sitting on their shelves?"
From my experience, both Office Depot and Office Max are terrible at keeping pace with the rest of the tech market offerings. When Best Buy, CompUSA, and Circuit City have all cleared their shelves of old product, I've usually been able to go into either OhMax or the Depot and find the stuff still sitting there, under a lot of dust of course.
"Look, its the Palm V!"
"Wow, I didn't know 3Com made Palm products!"
Of course, that is a tad bit of an exaggeration, but not by much!
"Has anyone been tracking Firefox/Mozilla in the User-Agent stats for a large site to see if it is truly pulling browsershare from IE? The last mention we had from the Slashdot admins was that Slashdot was 90% Internet Explorer, is this on the decline? Are these stats publicly available?"
:)
The 90% figure is probably due to people surfing and posting to Slashdot during normal work hours in offices that only allow for IE usage. I had Mozilla FireFox on my system until our IT department ordered me to remove it. They do have to justify their MCSE certificates every way they can...
"they've always been the loveable underdog-an the also make the ALL the console games with the most amazing story lines.... i can't wait to see what comes of this "closer relationship""
What planet are you from? Nintendo monopolized the game industry in the late 80s like Microsoft can't to this day. It took the combined efforts of Atari Corp. and Atari Games Corp/Tengen through the court system to get Nintendo to drop their licensing agreements that stated that if any 3rd party developer made a title on the NES, it could not be ported to any other competing system. That policy hurt not only the Atari 7800, but the Sega Master System and the NEC TurboGrafx16 (T16). During that era, the Japanese version of the T16 known as the PC Engine, was the dominant system because every title was available on it. NEC brought the system to America only to find out they couldn't release hardly any of the games it enjoyed in Japan to Stateside. The Sega Genesis did not have a large amount of support from 3rd party developers either; Tengen was one of the strongest (and prominent) because they had an axe to grind with "The Other" Beast of Redmond.
Nintendo's later ineptitude lost the monopoly that they partly built upon their own merits. First with the lack of backwards compatibility (for the NES) in the SNES, and then with the failure to embrace CD-Roms.
The problem with the game industry is Nintendo is no longer a competent player in it.
"Which, incidentally, is how the "unofficial" 1983 Bond film "Never Say Never Again" got made. I assume that the makers didn't have the rights to the things innovated for the (Eon) Bond films themselves, and obviously not the regular actors, which is why it was such a good film (cough)."
:) In a later settlement, Warner Bros. Pictures returned the rights to "Never Say Never Again" back to MGM/Eon. That leaves "Casino Royale" the only property they didn't have their hands on, and I understand Eon now controls rights to future theatrical adaptations...and its the very source material Pierce Brosnan and Tarantino wish to use for a collaboration if permitted.
You don't consider Sean Connery a *regular* Bond actor?
Here's the email address if you (like me) want the new DOCTOR WHO to premiere on the SciFi Network in America at the same time it debuts (returns) to the BBC in Fall 2005:
program@www.scifi.com
I seriously doubt BBC America would carry the new show since it already does not show the old WHO, Blake's 7, or Red Dwarf. SciFi is now part of the combined NBC Universal, and it has shown with the reimagined Battlestar Galactica that it is willing to spend money on new programming.
"I agree. I always thought that the Sontarans could kick Dalek ass any day of the week - especially the members of the Sontaran Special Space Services (the SSSS)."
Star Trek Voyager already used the Sontaran design for a race of creatures they encountered (I believe) in their last season. Call it borrowing, ripoff, or an homage. Of course, Enterprise also had a spacecraft on it that was "bigger on the inside than the outside" and they even said that famous line in the dialogue (Trip said it).
"I mean look at their track record, after Davros was introduced they were reduced to the level of galactic criminals and pests, not the all conquering ruthless invaders we feared from the show's first decade.
Fanboys will prolly argue that in Genesis OFTD, where Davros was introduced, the Time Lords asked the Doctor to interfere to hamstring their development. He succeeded only too well. As long as Davros was around he caused so much internal strife among the Daleks, culminating in a civil war, that they realy were just shadows of their former selves."
In the 60s, the Daleks were taking their orders from the Supreme Dalek. It wasn't like they had a collective conscious that came to consent before any of them took any action. So how is it any different whether the Dalek masses are receiving their orders from the Supreme Dalek or from Davros himself?
And the Time Lords ordered the Doctor to destroy the development of the Daleks, not "hamstring their development." It was the Doctor who wussed out and decided to "hamstring" them instead of exterminating them at the point of germination because he himself did not want to be guilty of genocide even though it would've saved countless innocents across space and time.
"Actually, from what I read of the article, it sounded like "editorial control" and not money was the problem. I could see the BBC wanting to do something different with the Daleks and saying "No" thats not how Daleks should be. I'd rather them just come up with more evil bad guys. Come on the universe is big. It can have more than a half dozen regular bad guy species."
Hey, buy the book "The Nth Doctor" about the various attempts (prior to the 1996 telefilm) to get a theatrical release for WHO. When the project was at Amblin (and to be directed by Leonard Nemoy), the Daleks were mechanical spider creatures and Davros turned out to be genetically engineering himself into a spider creature himself (he reveals his abdomens (sic)). Of course, it was no wonder that a few years later when this film did not materialize that the hack Akiva Goldsman riffed these concepts and inserted them into his screenplay of "Lost in Space" and the same thing happened to Dr. Smith instead. Of course, it was even funnier to see "Space Quest" riff off the 1996 Doctor Who telefilm with the ships special room physically causing events on the spacecraft itself go back in time to prevent character deaths just as the Eye of Harmony did in the WHO telefilm.
"same with the hendrix estate, the adopted sister ended up getting control over it. she convinced the father who was having medical problems to hand it to her, and she's not even really bloodline, meanwhile his brother has been left out of the estate by her, she's also wanting more money for hendrix' music being used."
Ah, so that's why there isn't any Hendrix music in Battlefield Vietnam!
"Also, in the past, Hancock have said that they will allow Daleks to appear in shows etc., but ONLY if they don't say anything. I think the reason for this is because the look of the Daleks is retained by the BBC, but what they say and do is retained by the creator."
Okay, so how much money do you think the Nation estate pocketed from the 1996 Fox/Universal/BBC Worldwide Doctor Who telefilm? You could hear the Daleks during the intro when the Master was executed on Skaro. Then when the 8th Doctor figured out the Master was still alive, he mentioned the Daleks had lured him into the trap. So in the telefilm, you could hear the Daleks - but you could not see them - and they were mentioned by name.
"Perhaps something along the lines of the Borg could be used. The cybermen but a lot more evil. I'm sure someone must have some good ideas."
Excuse me, but where do you think the TREK gods got the idea for the Borg? Here's a hint, it didn't come to them from meditating about the ether. The Borg are a total ripoff of the Cybermen with a different design to cut down on liability issues. The Cybermen were human from Earth's twin planet. They began enhancing theirselves with cybernetics until they decided to become completely mechanical because they felt it made them a superior race. They assimilate other humanoids. Now think back; the Cybermen debuted on Doctor Who back in the 1960s. The Borg were introduced to TREK in the late 80s.
"star wars without darth vader"
Hmmm. I recall the good Doctor still can fall back upon the Cybermen, the Sonatarans, the Autons, the Sillurians and Sea Devils, the Black Guardian, the Valleyard (sic), the Rani, the Monk, and THE MASTER as worthy opponents, not to mention the Time Lord High Council and the American Medical Association (hint hint, 7th Doctor's death).
"The way the BBC does things (or did), if you're an employee of the BBC, your ideas belong to them. If you were hired by the BBC to do something specific (like write a script), then your ideas belong to you. This explains why Terry Nation (not a BBC employee) "owns" the Daleks and has made millions off them, while the guy who designed them, Raymond Cusick (a BBC employee), received only his BBC salary and hasn't received a penny of the royalties."
That is terrible (the Nation scenario of rights). That scenario reminds me of that endless lawsuit between the guy who wrote the screenplay for "Thunderball" and claimed he owned the theatrical version of James Bond. That dispute was only settled a couple of years ago because Sony bought the guy's "rights" and threatened to take down Eon Productions/MGM or launch their own James Bond flicks. What a nightmare.
As for Cusick, just look at what people in tech companies deal with. For instance, if you work for Apple, and you create a program when you are away from the office, Apple still owns whatever you create during your tenure at the company. Thus what has happened to Cusick is pretty common regardless if it is unfair.
"It's a nice, romantic view but it isn't the case here. Terry Nation had a serious falling out with the BBC over control and payments, and continually refused the BBC permission to use them. I believe various other monsters are involved as well - a true Whovian will be able to fill the details in here, as opposed to myself who just watches the programmes on cable sometimes. Plus, the BBC doesn't have a very good record with Daleks. There aren't very many working models left, and when the BBC borrowed one from the Dr Who Exhibition in Llangollen (now back in Blackpool after god know's hoow many years) they managed to damage it."
Terry Nation originally tried to create a "Daleks" show here in the U.S. back in the 60s but he failed to get a contract.
As for Daleks still in existence, there's one sitting atop the giant fridge inside Pizza Schmizza in Portland, Oregon. Its one of the Daleks from the Peter Cushing Doctor Who films...