Yet in practice, business owners can and do ban you for life from their premises for operating your own video camera. Even in places that sell their own disposable still cameras for the use of patrons.
You do have a choice not to buy an iPod, however, you can't use AAC format files on some other players, so you can't put music from iTunes on them. So choices have consequences? What a revelation!
iTunes does have music in file formats other than AAC.
Since when is playing WMA files considered a desirable feature in a portable music player? Though it has the capability, I haven't had the need to play them in my Honda Fit.
The lawsuit's point is that the iPod, by its numbers is a monopoly device that can thus restrict the sales of competing formats. As evidenced by the number of sites hawking WMA files, i.e. everyone but Apple?
What's next, suing Walmart for not carrying Jimmy Dean Blueberry Pancakes and Sausage On a Stick in every store?
I would feel much more comfortable being judged by a computer algorithm. At least then trials would be deterministic. Should I cite examples of the trials of Roge Blake or Space Commander Travis of Blakes 7, the law system of The Cluster in the Lexx four-part miniseries Tales from a Parallel Universe (especially the trial of Thodin), the system of instant justice in the megacities of Judge Dredd, or the legal system of the Edo in Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Justice"? I can't decide!
The primary function of negative dreams is rehearsal for similar real events, so that threat recognition and avoidance happens faster and more automatically in comparable real situations, So in some episode of The Simpsons, when faced with some life-or-death situation, we should expect Ralph Wiggum to transform into a Viking?
If you take the server as being an agent of its owner, then there's liability. But the server in P2P applications is often set up automatically without the informed consent of the owner. They are set up to automatically offer to serve anything the user downloads and rarely offer to download to a different directory than their serving directory. The RIAA is not concerned about the owner's intent, but the courts should be.
So anything in that directory the user doesn't own they could prosecute as a downloader. Anything the user does own needs evidence of downloading to prosecute as a server. (There are no uploaders.)
Bit Torrent is an exception in that its function relies on being part of the swarm and the general-purpose implementations make that very clear. Typical P2P applications don't have that functional requirement. So in Bit Torrent, if the content is infringing, then each member of the swarm is a contributory infringer, regardless of how much or little they've shared or received (as long as it is non-zero).
Attempted file-sharing is wrong even though no sharing took place (please note here that I am *not* saying it is a crime, just wrong). Until attempted copyright infringement is a crime on the books, it can't be prosecuted as one, nor as actual copyright infringement.
This makes me want to hack a client so that it looks like it allows downloading but is in fact coded to not allow actual downloading if only to destroy the RIAA's "making available" argument. A list of songs in a search result won't be sufficient evidence to allege infringement, possibly not even enough to subpoena identities from ISPs (not required to prove downloadability).
In fact, why are they even bothering with the "making available" argument when they can easily prove actual infringement? So that they can make their case with a minimum of investigative cost and practically no evidentiary requirements.
Sorry, I have a real problem with Congress taking away my own rights to my own music after just five years. But they aren't taking away your rights. They're just giving those rights to everyone. You're still part of everyone, aren't you?
What they'd be taking away is your exclusivity of those rights. Just because anyone can republish your music doesn't mean you cannot with whatever value-added stuff you can create every five years.
What I find strange, the money for the politicians come from the RIAA suing the people. The people are the ones that vote these politicians in! If we just vote them out, i.e. keep reminding everyone which politicians are RIAA stooges and to remind them that voting for them is voting for the RIAA to sue them it should be a fairly straight forward way of cleaning up the mess. From So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish by Douglas Adams:
"It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like to straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"
"What?"
"I said," said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, "have you got any gin?"
"I'll look. Tell me about the lizards."
Ford shrugged again.
"Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happened to them," he said. "They're completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone's got to say it."
Of its time, natch. There are plenty of other PCs for under $600 that even include a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. From January-July 2005, under $500, and capable of running Vista? The first Mac Minis can run Leopard today with only a memory upgrade.
Besides, aalu.paneer was talking about corporate secrecy, not price.
A guy ripped a CD, which is unauthorized but legal for backup purposes according to fair use. However he put it in his shared directory, which is NOT backing up. You're letting them get away with their "making available" argument and be able to level charges without any real evidence of a crime taking place.
Just because it is in a shared directory does not constitute actual sharing. It may just be there for display purposes, a way of showing people what he has, for braggadocio. Until someone tries to download it, no illegal copying takes place (unauthorized !(always)= illegal). And until someone tries, you can't know whether anyone could actually succeed.
And if such a download is successful, he's still not the one making the illegal copy. His copy is still legal; it's the downloader without whose action a new copy would not have been made making the illegal copy.
Normal backing-up is permitted under "fair use". However, if the directory holding all these "backups" is shared with millions over the Internet: "Real Men don't make backups. They upload it via ftp and let the world mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
i will not buy a high def DVD player only to find its format be the loser and have to buy another one later I guess I'm the opposite. I regret not acquiring a Digital Video eXpress player just to have that piece of history. I have both HD DVD (via XBOX 360 external drive) and Blu-ray (PS3) players, and recently purchased the Blade Runner 5-disc collection in limited edition cases in DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray formats. Though I doubt I'll be making another such triple-format purchase. (One other movie for which I'd consider it is already out on DVD and is not coming out on Blu-ray.)
The ability for HD DVD to completely replace DVD by selling only hybrid disks at same-as-DVD prices should be the killer feature for HD DVD to win, yet finding burners and blank media for HD DVD is nigh impossible in brick-and-mortar stores. Blu-ray may yet win being so early to market with burners and blank media, but still hard drives cost a quarter the amount per unit capacity these days and a failed encoding doesn't ruin the whole drive.
A grass-roots platform of HD HDD drives with content from independent filmmakers and home video recording could wipe both of the HD disk formats and their DRM off the map.
My assumption is that this is the result of lots of new XBLA users logging in with Christmas 360s. Not an assumption of mine. On the Firehose before Christmas weekend there were submissions reporting of problems. Though that could have been from people celebrating Christmas early, it seemed far too early still for that.
Actually most of bigger squatting operations don't pay a dime on a per name basis. They hold the name for 30 days, then release it at no cost. Well, there's your solution. Don't just search for availability: register with presumption of availability and hold onto it for 30 days instead, and if you decide you don't want it, release it at no cost.
The phrase, "You owe me," is in my copyrighted song's lyrics and you both are engaging in unauthorized reprints of it. It's only worth $1, but I'll settle for $3000. Mind you, if you go up against me in court and lose, you each could end up statutorily owing me $200,000.
Slashdot Mirror
Yet in practice, business owners can and do ban you for life from their premises for operating your own video camera. Even in places that sell their own disposable still cameras for the use of patrons.
iTunes does have music in file formats other than AAC.
What's next, suing Walmart for not carrying Jimmy Dean Blueberry Pancakes and Sausage On a Stick in every store?
A classroom? Are you kidding? Think about using this in a White House Press Room Briefing to project video evidence of the lies!
If you take the server as being an agent of its owner, then there's liability. But the server in P2P applications is often set up automatically without the informed consent of the owner. They are set up to automatically offer to serve anything the user downloads and rarely offer to download to a different directory than their serving directory. The RIAA is not concerned about the owner's intent, but the courts should be.
So anything in that directory the user doesn't own they could prosecute as a downloader. Anything the user does own needs evidence of downloading to prosecute as a server. (There are no uploaders.)
Bit Torrent is an exception in that its function relies on being part of the swarm and the general-purpose implementations make that very clear. Typical P2P applications don't have that functional requirement. So in Bit Torrent, if the content is infringing, then each member of the swarm is a contributory infringer, regardless of how much or little they've shared or received (as long as it is non-zero).
This makes me want to hack a client so that it looks like it allows downloading but is in fact coded to not allow actual downloading if only to destroy the RIAA's "making available" argument. A list of songs in a search result won't be sufficient evidence to allege infringement, possibly not even enough to subpoena identities from ISPs (not required to prove downloadability).
In fact, why are they even bothering with the "making available" argument when they can easily prove actual infringement? So that they can make their case with a minimum of investigative cost and practically no evidentiary requirements.
What they'd be taking away is your exclusivity of those rights. Just because anyone can republish your music doesn't mean you cannot with whatever value-added stuff you can create every five years.
How about taxing copyright portfolios according to market value? and couple that with tax breaks for relinquishing copyrights to the public domain?
One question: how much under that scheme would it cost Disney now to re-register the first Mickey Mouse cartoons covered by copyright?
Because if Disney can still afford it, it might have a chance of passing.
Ooh, lots of little cuts and a bath in lemon juice?
Besides, aalu.paneer was talking about corporate secrecy, not price.
Just because it is in a shared directory does not constitute actual sharing. It may just be there for display purposes, a way of showing people what he has, for braggadocio. Until someone tries to download it, no illegal copying takes place (unauthorized !(always)= illegal). And until someone tries, you can't know whether anyone could actually succeed.
And if such a download is successful, he's still not the one making the illegal copy. His copy is still legal; it's the downloader without whose action a new copy would not have been made making the illegal copy.
Of its time, natch.
-- Linus Torvalds
The ability for HD DVD to completely replace DVD by selling only hybrid disks at same-as-DVD prices should be the killer feature for HD DVD to win, yet finding burners and blank media for HD DVD is nigh impossible in brick-and-mortar stores. Blu-ray may yet win being so early to market with burners and blank media, but still hard drives cost a quarter the amount per unit capacity these days and a failed encoding doesn't ruin the whole drive.
A grass-roots platform of HD HDD drives with content from independent filmmakers and home video recording could wipe both of the HD disk formats and their DRM off the map.
Oh, and by the way, this article is a dupe.
The phrase, "You owe me," is in my copyrighted song's lyrics and you both are engaging in unauthorized reprints of it. It's only worth $1, but I'll settle for $3000. Mind you, if you go up against me in court and lose, you each could end up statutorily owing me $200,000.