It's baffling to me that the content industries don't look at the experience of the software industry in the 80's, when copy protection on software was widely tried, and just as widely rejected by consumers.
This is a good point. I remember a game in the 1980s for the Atari 800 that I cracked by changing a couple of bytes on the floppy (replaced with 6502 machine-language NOP instructions) that made it skip the copy-protection mechanism. I needed to do that so I could have a fair use floppy disk backup of the game that I purchased. I don't think copy protection will ever work. Better to try to market your product in a way that makes it hard to resist buying, like value-added features that you can only get by purchasing the product.
I shall arrive too late to provide any interesting commentary, since anything useful or funny will have already been said in the preceeding 12 replies. And yet, the lure of attaching my post to the "4" and "5" scores above in the hopes of acheiving a "2" score will cause me to make an attempt, anyway. It is akin to the jackal fighting the vulture for the wildebeest left over from the lions' feast, on the wild plains of intellectualism and opinion.
Just because someone hasn't "been there" doesn't mean they can't say "It doesn't exist". Here I will take a stab at it. There are no humans living on the sun.
We know human life is incompatible with life on the sun. But we don't know what kind of life (if any) exists on Mars, so it's presumptuous to state that there can't be any life on Mars bigger than a microbe. That's at best a theory or a personal belief.
And who does it annoy cos you REALLY think it's your right to download as much IP as you can for free because... hey, it's digital, and it's your right?
I choose to assert a right for access to a free-flow of information. Information that comes in different forms: text, audio, visual, etc. Just because one or two industries feel that they might lose money is no justification for trying to deprive me of the right I choose to assert.
Clinton couldn't keep things mum about getting blow jobs on the floor of the oval office. Nixon couldn't keep things mum about having broken into his political opponents' headquarters. Reagan couldn't keep things mum about having sold weapons to the Iranians to fund a terrorist army in Central America. Bush is having a problem keeping a lid on using forged documentation as a pretext for war (and WHO, pray tell, would forge such a thing anyway?) THESE are secrets that people would certainly have given anything to keep.
I understand your point, but those are things that don't have the potential to disrupt our society in a serious way. Contrast that with life elsewhere, and it's potential impact on religion when doubt is perceived to be cast on what the Bible says.
Let's say there is life on Mars. There won't be cows or zebra or fish or anything like that. No, there will be microbes.
On what grounds do you make that assertion? Have you been there?
I appreciate your reply and think you are an intelligent person, but I disagree with you on these points.
Yes, but what good is it if you can't get there because you're spending billions of $ on an orbiting piece of space junk and you don't have the $ or the gumption to get there?
I think there is life there and the U.S. government thinks we can't handle the truth, so hence we don't go.
Along the same lines, why haven't we gone back to the moon? Why didn't we finish the last few Apollo flights that were already bought and paid for?
Hilary Rosen, former President of the Recording Industry Association of American, walks into a fast-food restaurant. A twenty-eight year old male employee of the restaurant recognizes her as she places her order.
"Say, you're Hilary Rosen, aren't you?" he asks. "You used to work for the
R.I.A.A."
"That's right," Hilary says, more than a little surprised. "Ten years ago."
The employee's face becomes sad. "Eight years ago, I was in college and
getting pretty good grades," he moans. "But then the R.I.A.A. sued me for
downloading a few songs off the Internet. I settled out of court, but had to
quit college and get a job to pay the money agreed to in the settlement."
Hilary is unmoved. "That is too bad," she says, "But the law is the
law."
Another employee, an old woman, hears the conversation and walks over to
join in. "My grandson used my computer to download music," the old woman says
with sadness in her eyes. "The R.I.A.A. sued me, too, even though I didn't
know anything about the Internet. Now I have to work here to pay the
settlement money."
Hilary doesn't flinch. "That is unfortunate," she says, "but after all,
the law is the law." The old woman shuffles away.
At this point Hilary decides it would be better to get her food somewhere
else and walks toward the door. A thin and attractive woman in her early
thirties enters through the door as Hilary approaches it.
Hilary is pleasantly surprised. The woman sold a million records eleven
years ago while signed up with one of the record companies the R.I.A.A.
represents, and was famous for a while. They had met at parties on more
than one occasion.
After exchanging greetings, the two talk about old times. After a while
Hilary, pressed for time, excuses herself. "It was very nice talking with
you, my dear," Hilary says, "but I'm in a hurry and I have to go now."
Thinking of the two unhappy workers behind the counter, and their probable
dislike of people connected to music, Hilary adds, "By the way, I don't
recommend that you get anything to eat here."
"Oh, you don't have to tell me about that," the former pop star says, "I
work here."
You claimed that a band that doesn't do things the RIAA was will be unemployed.
Wah. Did I hurt your feelings?
Copyright infringement is a piss poor way of fighting RIAA. If you want to avoid RIAA, go buy used CDs and then send the money you saved directly to the artists.
No. I don't believe in buying used CDs. Here's why: When I buy a new CD, I am buying a license to listen to the music. But when I buy a used CD, I'm not. I want the ability to buy a license for an MP3 file, too. That's what this is all about. But I won't be able to do it without some sort of digital protest against the RIAA, because they are standing in the way.
I don't want to avoid the RIAA and the record companies. I want them gone, period. They are the problem. And I'm not sending the artists the price of a full CD just because they are unwilling to "band" together and help fix this problem.
Theft? Who's talking about theft? I was talking about copyright infringement.
...and onerous pricing of music is the same as being treated as an inferior race.
Not sure I agree with that. I doubt Martin Luther King would, either.
If you really believe that you goal is to reform the laws, you need to understand that you are currently hurting your cause. When you take music without paying for it, you ensure that the public thinks you only care about obtaining things without paying for them...
Nonsense. You might think that, but you don't speak for John Q. Public--especially not the 65 or 70 million online music traders (or copiers, whatever).
Any artist who doesn't want to sign a contract with a record company has that right.
Of course they do. And you have the right to be unemployed if you want to.
O'Leary was incorrect in stating that *all* laws should be obeyed - the civil rights movement was an proper form of law breaking - but "because I want this" is not a valid reason to break the law.
The civil rights movement *wanted* something: their perceived rights. So do we vis-a-vis music. Sometimes it's necessary to exercise civil disobedience when you *want* something (e.g., copyright reform, artists to be free from the RIAA and the record companies, etc.), especially when corporate America has your government in its back pocket and refuses to adapt to the marketplace. I can't think of a better way to do this than to *show* the powers that be that we want to buy our music online in a free and unfettered way. This demonstration is being done peacefully online.
For example, as mentioned, the *maximum* sentence you can receive for one count of copyright infringement is 60 months, while the *minimum* for someone convicted federally of aggravated sexual assault is generally between 70 to 87 months.
So I'll only have to be careful for a maximum of 60 months in prison while bending over for the soap, as opposed to 70 to 87. That's good news.
I don't think these Universities should be promoting solar power. The sun is a finite resource. In about 4 billion years it'll be done for. Wasting its energy like this is not helpful.
I think the old saying "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" applies here.
We have billion dollar record companies going after teeny-boppers, who, despite the fact that they may have snarfed a few mp3 files, are nevertheless either current or future buyers of music.
Brilliant. If this was about money, the record companies wouldn't risk alienating their current and future customer base. It's about power, instead--domination of the market by force instead of adaptation and competitive product.
Slashdot Mirror
Let us not forget the iLoo, Microsoft's crappiest idea yet.
This is a good point. I remember a game in the 1980s for the Atari 800 that I cracked by changing a couple of bytes on the floppy (replaced with 6502 machine-language NOP instructions) that made it skip the copy-protection mechanism. I needed to do that so I could have a fair use floppy disk backup of the game that I purchased. I don't think copy protection will ever work. Better to try to market your product in a way that makes it hard to resist buying, like value-added features that you can only get by purchasing the product.
...no matter what operating system you're running.
I shall arrive too late to provide any interesting commentary, since anything useful or funny will have already been said in the preceeding 12 replies. And yet, the lure of attaching my post to the "4" and "5" scores above in the hopes of acheiving a "2" score will cause me to make an attempt, anyway. It is akin to the jackal fighting the vulture for the wildebeest left over from the lions' feast, on the wild plains of intellectualism and opinion.
If a = b, then why have two letters?
...I see the Blue Screen of Death on Linux.
We know human life is incompatible with life on the sun. But we don't know what kind of life (if any) exists on Mars, so it's presumptuous to state that there can't be any life on Mars bigger than a microbe. That's at best a theory or a personal belief.
I choose to assert a right for access to a free-flow of information. Information that comes in different forms: text, audio, visual, etc. Just because one or two industries feel that they might lose money is no justification for trying to deprive me of the right I choose to assert.
I understand your point, but those are things that don't have the potential to disrupt our society in a serious way. Contrast that with life elsewhere, and it's potential impact on religion when doubt is perceived to be cast on what the Bible says.
Let's say there is life on Mars. There won't be cows or zebra or fish or anything like that. No, there will be microbes.
On what grounds do you make that assertion? Have you been there?
I appreciate your reply and think you are an intelligent person, but I disagree with you on these points.
I think there is life there and the U.S. government thinks we can't handle the truth, so hence we don't go.
Along the same lines, why haven't we gone back to the moon? Why didn't we finish the last few Apollo flights that were already bought and paid for?
"Say, you're Hilary Rosen, aren't you?" he asks. "You used to work for the R.I.A.A."
"That's right," Hilary says, more than a little surprised. "Ten years ago."
The employee's face becomes sad. "Eight years ago, I was in college and getting pretty good grades," he moans. "But then the R.I.A.A. sued me for downloading a few songs off the Internet. I settled out of court, but had to quit college and get a job to pay the money agreed to in the settlement."
Hilary is unmoved. "That is too bad," she says, "But the law is the law."
Another employee, an old woman, hears the conversation and walks over to join in. "My grandson used my computer to download music," the old woman says with sadness in her eyes. "The R.I.A.A. sued me, too, even though I didn't know anything about the Internet. Now I have to work here to pay the settlement money."
Hilary doesn't flinch. "That is unfortunate," she says, "but after all, the law is the law." The old woman shuffles away.
At this point Hilary decides it would be better to get her food somewhere else and walks toward the door. A thin and attractive woman in her early thirties enters through the door as Hilary approaches it.
Hilary is pleasantly surprised. The woman sold a million records eleven years ago while signed up with one of the record companies the R.I.A.A. represents, and was famous for a while. They had met at parties on more than one occasion.
After exchanging greetings, the two talk about old times. After a while Hilary, pressed for time, excuses herself. "It was very nice talking with you, my dear," Hilary says, "but I'm in a hurry and I have to go now." Thinking of the two unhappy workers behind the counter, and their probable dislike of people connected to music, Hilary adds, "By the way, I don't recommend that you get anything to eat here."
"Oh, you don't have to tell me about that," the former pop star says, "I work here."
Wah. Did I hurt your feelings?
Copyright infringement is a piss poor way of fighting RIAA. If you want to avoid RIAA, go buy used CDs and then send the money you saved directly to the artists.
No. I don't believe in buying used CDs. Here's why: When I buy a new CD, I am buying a license to listen to the music. But when I buy a used CD, I'm not. I want the ability to buy a license for an MP3 file, too. That's what this is all about. But I won't be able to do it without some sort of digital protest against the RIAA, because they are standing in the way.
I don't want to avoid the RIAA and the record companies. I want them gone, period. They are the problem. And I'm not sending the artists the price of a full CD just because they are unwilling to "band" together and help fix this problem.
I don't modify my beliefs based on the audience.
Theft? Who's talking about theft? I was talking about copyright infringement.
Not sure I agree with that. I doubt Martin Luther King would, either.
If you really believe that you goal is to reform the laws, you need to understand that you are currently hurting your cause. When you take music without paying for it, you ensure that the public thinks you only care about obtaining things without paying for them...
Nonsense. You might think that, but you don't speak for John Q. Public--especially not the 65 or 70 million online music traders (or copiers, whatever).
Any artist who doesn't want to sign a contract with a record company has that right.
Of course they do. And you have the right to be unemployed if you want to.
The civil rights movement *wanted* something: their perceived rights. So do we vis-a-vis music. Sometimes it's necessary to exercise civil disobedience when you *want* something (e.g., copyright reform, artists to be free from the RIAA and the record companies, etc.), especially when corporate America has your government in its back pocket and refuses to adapt to the marketplace. I can't think of a better way to do this than to *show* the powers that be that we want to buy our music online in a free and unfettered way. This demonstration is being done peacefully online.
So I'll only have to be careful for a maximum of 60 months in prison while bending over for the soap, as opposed to 70 to 87. That's good news.
Let's not resort to name-calling, Mr. Poopy-Pants.
Indeed. I saw a Mike Tyson fight on paper view once, but for some reason his image never moved.
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Looks like a crop circle I saw once.
I don't think these Universities should be promoting solar power. The sun is a finite resource. In about 4 billion years it'll be done for. Wasting its energy like this is not helpful.
We have billion dollar record companies going after teeny-boppers, who, despite the fact that they may have snarfed a few mp3 files, are nevertheless either current or future buyers of music.
Brilliant. If this was about money, the record companies wouldn't risk alienating their current and future customer base. It's about power, instead--domination of the market by force instead of adaptation and competitive product.
Yeah, what a pansy...makes me glad my nickname is hottdude0588@Kazaa.
Damn skippy! Only Microsoft has a license to blackmail.
Like I said, wouldn't the money go to the lawyer?
Why do I keep getting ads for watches and chocolate now?