Only a damn fool thinks that he can predict even the *near* future. The human mind is capable of seeing into the short-range future with reasonable accuracy.
For example, imagine that you are standing on the edge of a cliff. There are a number of alternative futures: you could take a pace forward and plunge to your death; the cliff could crumble under your feet - with the same result; a gust of wind could carry you over; but the probability is that you would turn around and walk away again. That's a prediction based on the known facts. But a prediction is not immutable fact: if you hadn't gone near the cliff in the first place, you wouldn't have had to face any of the inherent dangers.
two products that I'm aware of (to capture s-video) are the ADS pyro media bridge and the canopus advc100 (not sure I have all the model #'s right).... and imagine that: both products ignore macrovision. for the canopus one, you have to press the power button for 30secs (or like that) at power on to enable that 'debug' mode where MV is ignored. on the pyro, I think its always ignored.
I used to have a working Dazzle* Hollywood DV Bridge and suspected it was Macrovision-immune, but never had a definitive test. One day it just stopped working properly and I replaced it. (It could also have been an early sign of the Firewire port on my B&W G3 dying.)
I now have a Canopus ADVC-300 (I think that's the model). I did not know about that debug mode feature. First search hit (on google: canopus advc macrovision debug) says the 100 and 110, and 15 seconds, so it may not work on my 300, but I'll have to try it this weekend. With the restrictions on all current downloaded video podcasts on the TiVo (every video podcaster elected to disable Save to VCR/DVD and TiVoToGo transfers?), I expect those to have Macrovision enabled on playback. I haven't tried capturing them yet, but now I'm motivated to try.
My only problem with the Canopus may be due to how I access another Firewire device--a Scientific Atlanta HD cable box--on my Mac. I tend to have to reboot after using the cable box to re-enable use of the Canopus in Final Cut Pro. I suspect the AV/C Browser and/or VirtualDVHS to be the culprits.
I think most of them end up working for government agencies, particularly the state highway administrations. Pretty easy to lean against the shovel and watch the one guy actually doing some amount of work.
Maybe they should sue homeowners who don't have burglar alarms, cuz, you know, locks-only = invite to thieves, which means you're an accessory to burglary of your own house.
That's the "making available" the RIAA wants to prosecute for having songs in a shared folder, regardless of whether anyone did any downloading.
It shall be illegal to put a pie on an open windowsill to cool.
Lack of implementation can't possibly (can it?) be the same as circumvention. In order to circumvent something, it has to be there to begin with.
You create a video recorder. Your recorder isn't like a VCR that gets tripped up by it in a technical manner; it's a digital recorder. It can record Macrovision-protected content without difficulty. You are forced to either add recognition of the protection and prevent recording (ReplayTV) or re-add Macrovision protection on playback (TiVo) so further copying by VCRs is prevented. And now that they have their foot in the door, you can be expected to comply to future enhancements that limit how long you're permitted to keep the recordings (TiVo again).
You create ATSC tuner cards for PCs to record HDTV. The FCC wants authority to require recognition of the Broadcast Flag. If they get it and exercise it, and your cards don't know about the flag, they will become illegal circumvention tools. You'll have to scrap your unsold inventory and re-engineer new cards that recognize the flag and prevent recording. So you start engineering recognition of the flag before it is required so that you won't have to scrap your inventory.
Please somebody defeat this non-issue with a black magic marker and have it permanently over with already. I'd be more than happy to highlight the relevant portions(*) of the DMCA with a black magic marker!
Macrovision once threatened to sue our company if we wouldn't license their DRM - because their DRM doesn't work.
The codecs we licensed for our products unintentionally ignored the Macrovision DRM. It was simply caught by the error correction. Macrovision threatened to sue the company I work at for violating the DMCA. This could only be avoided if we explicitly checked their DRM so we wouldn't ignore it accidentally. To check for their DRM, we would need to license their system.
Indeed, the case of Macrovision was what I was going to cite. Failure to make a technology vulnerable to a particular DRM scheme would be seen as creating circumventing technology. As I recall, there used to be VCRs that were not vulnerable to Macrovision protection, able to record the signal from a deck playing a Macrovision-protected tape. I used to have one, but it finally died. (It also recorded better with one head than modern 4-head VCRs.) Now all VCRs are engineered to be vulnerable to Macrovision. (Probably integrated into the VHS technology license.)
So instead, I'll point out that it is rumored that early development versions of TiVo were so good at extracting a video signal from noise that they accidentally were very effective at defeating most analog cable scrambling in use at the time. They then had to re-engineer the TiVo so it was no longer capable of that function.
This case though should still be thrown out. The DMCA only prevents circumvention of effective controls. That one has to look for a particular protection and react accordingly does not make it effective. If not for expected FCC regulations to require its recognition, the Broadcast Flag would similarly be ineffective, as it is with HDTV tuner cards created without including such a flag's recognition.
You need a law making recognition of your particular crackpot protection scheme mandated before you can argue that someone is violating the DMCA by not recognizing your particular crackpot protection scheme.
either they tried to play games with the floppy disk by adding a certain number of bad sectors, etc. or else at the beginning of the game you had to "enter the first word of the second paragraph of page 46 of the manual".
Oh, they were more clever than that. On the Apple II you could make the drive do all sorts of bizarre things by writing your own controller code. You'd boot off of a 5.25" disk for practically everything. I heard at least one game came on a disk formatted in a very unusual manner: with spiral tracks.
Nowadays they just assume the presence of a network and have the software phone home.
And here I thought referencing Blake's 7 "Moloch" was more apropo:
Vila: Where are we going? Tarrant: To destroy a computer. Vila: Why? Tarrant: It knows too much about me.
The only weapons system I can think of that have the ability to fully cut humans out of the loop are defensive weapons on naval ships and (soon to be?) on tanks.
"New target acquired." "That's not a target. That's Church!" "Target locked. Firing main cannon."
Online retailers would only purchase the 'non-chipped' DVDs for sale. Only stores with a high risk of physical theft would need to install this type of system.
Yeah, I'm sure no one steals from a palette of DVDs placed on a loading dock.
I have a tie wrap from a hard drive purchase they neglected to remove. It didn't set off the alarm.
I'm a frequent enough customer at my local Best Buy that they wave me out when I do set off the alarm. I assume it happens frequently enough at certain registers that they know it's either checker error or a problem with the register station. (I don't exploit this.)
I once walked in and set off the alarm. I only figured it out when I went back out and it tripped again: I had the bar code cut from another hard drive purchase in my pocket to mail in for a rebate. The security tag was still on the back side of the bar code, and it was still active.
I tend to remove such things from my DVD purchases when I finally open them. I hate it when doing so mars the artwork on the cardboard packaging. I really should open my DVD purchases immediately: the ST:TNG Season 7 box set was missing a disk.
What if one of the devices in this story was faulty and didn't come completely clear on deactivation? What if, like some LCDs, they get stuck or dead pixels? Are they sure it won't unbalance the DVD and make it a fragmentation hazard in the player?
Cate Blanchett arrived and looked gorgeous. She looked completely unlike the picture that ran everywhere Tuesday that depicted her as an anorexic skeleton. Lighting is everything, so are makeup, clothes and the angle from which a picture is taken.
Indeed, a sheet of paper can look very substantial as long as you don't take a picture of it from the side. (I count four things there that are each in and of themselves "everything" according to that hack.)
I was hoping someone else would have posted this article with a better link before it made it to the front page. I too could have done without the opening celebrity gossip and poorly formatted text (paragraphs not indented and no inter-paragraph spacing--gotta have one or the other at least).
I know you cant be charged with a crime if it wasn't legal when you committed it, but what if the crime became illegal at the precise moment you committed it. . .
Sure the chances of them both being exactly equal (when they are accurate to the milli- or even nanosecond) is extremely remote, you must take into account all possible cases.
If you must take into account all possible cases, then you first need to solve the problem of determining simultaneity under relativity.
Anyway, this is the 21st Century USA. We don't care about the prohibition of ex post facto laws anymore.
Blake: What was the original purpose of the project? Novara: Genetic engineering. The main aims were to halt the aging process in humans. To find a way to maintain continuous life. Blake: Immortality. Novara: And to create a new species of animal. Creatures that would be able to perform simple menial tasks. Animal machines that cost nothing to produce and little to maintain. Blake: [laughs] Experiments like that have been banned for centuries. Geela: Which is why we had to establish our laboratory on an uninhabited planet. Blake: Were any of these creatures made? Novara: Yes. We engineered an efficient four-function animal. Using the same basic genetic form we then increased it to ten functions. The Decimas. Blake: You made the Decimas? Geela: The prototypes. They breed naturally, but a mutant strain has become dominant. They seem capable of thought. They exhibit primitive emotions, weaknesses we thought we had eradicated. Novara: They will all have to be eliminated so that we can be certain the mutant strain is destroyed. Blake: They're intelligent, living creatures. You can't just wipe them out. Geela: We gave them life. We have the right to take it from them. Please don't concern yourself. They're simply laboratory constructed animals as are we. Blake: You? You are made? Novara: We were genetically engineered, allowed to grow to maturity, then our aging processes were stopped. We have no lives of our own. We are simply flesh and blood creatures operated by our creators.
Historically we see too many examples of a "National I.D." system being abused by government to control it's own population as the primary focus after having been sold as a 'protect us from our outside enemies' measure to the population.
Except it will be true, because they didn't disclose that "us" == "the government" and "our outside enemies" == "people not in the government".
Though if they did disarm the minefield by driving a flock of sheep across it as we had done in the past, at least the soldiers would have mutton for chow afterwards.
The number is akin to a musket ball: it may be used as an element of a firearm, even designed to have no other use than as a firearm's projectile, but in absence of the other required elements, it's just a useless lump of matter, and sure to become more obsolete over time.
It also has the added side benefit (for the lawyers) of racking up thousands of billable hours in record time... Isn't that like the intermix ratio of matter and antimatter: the only legal ratio is 1:1?
Will I have to show ID when I go buy a CD at the store?
And have a networked CD player, because only half the code will be visible to the checker, enabling the use of the other half of the code inside the case so people can't just copy down the codes in the aisle to authorize their copies. That would also cut down on shoplifted CDs as the CD would be useless without activation.
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For example, imagine that you are standing on the edge of a cliff. There are a number of alternative futures: you could take a pace forward and plunge to your death; the cliff could crumble under your feet - with the same result; a gust of wind could carry you over; but the probability is that you would turn around and walk away again. That's a prediction based on the known facts. But a prediction is not immutable fact: if you hadn't gone near the cliff in the first place, you wouldn't have had to face any of the inherent dangers.
I now have a Canopus ADVC-300 (I think that's the model). I did not know about that debug mode feature. First search hit (on google: canopus advc macrovision debug) says the 100 and 110, and 15 seconds, so it may not work on my 300, but I'll have to try it this weekend. With the restrictions on all current downloaded video podcasts on the TiVo (every video podcaster elected to disable Save to VCR/DVD and TiVoToGo transfers?), I expect those to have Macrovision enabled on playback. I haven't tried capturing them yet, but now I'm motivated to try.
My only problem with the Canopus may be due to how I access another Firewire device--a Scientific Atlanta HD cable box--on my Mac. I tend to have to reboot after using the cable box to re-enable use of the Canopus in Final Cut Pro. I suspect the AV/C Browser and/or VirtualDVHS to be the culprits.
It shall be illegal to put a pie on an open windowsill to cool.
You create ATSC tuner cards for PCs to record HDTV. The FCC wants authority to require recognition of the Broadcast Flag. If they get it and exercise it, and your cards don't know about the flag, they will become illegal circumvention tools. You'll have to scrap your unsold inventory and re-engineer new cards that recognize the flag and prevent recording. So you start engineering recognition of the flag before it is required so that you won't have to scrap your inventory.
(*) By "the relevant portions" I mean "all".
So instead, I'll point out that it is rumored that early development versions of TiVo were so good at extracting a video signal from noise that they accidentally were very effective at defeating most analog cable scrambling in use at the time. They then had to re-engineer the TiVo so it was no longer capable of that function.
This case though should still be thrown out. The DMCA only prevents circumvention of effective controls. That one has to look for a particular protection and react accordingly does not make it effective. If not for expected FCC regulations to require its recognition, the Broadcast Flag would similarly be ineffective, as it is with HDTV tuner cards created without including such a flag's recognition.
You need a law making recognition of your particular crackpot protection scheme mandated before you can argue that someone is violating the DMCA by not recognizing your particular crackpot protection scheme.
IANAL.
Nowadays they just assume the presence of a network and have the software phone home.
Tarrant: To destroy a computer.
Vila: Why?
Tarrant: It knows too much about me.
"That's not a target. That's Church!"
"Target locked. Firing main cannon."
I have a tie wrap from a hard drive purchase they neglected to remove. It didn't set off the alarm.
I'm a frequent enough customer at my local Best Buy that they wave me out when I do set off the alarm. I assume it happens frequently enough at certain registers that they know it's either checker error or a problem with the register station. (I don't exploit this.)
I once walked in and set off the alarm. I only figured it out when I went back out and it tripped again: I had the bar code cut from another hard drive purchase in my pocket to mail in for a rebate. The security tag was still on the back side of the bar code, and it was still active.
I tend to remove such things from my DVD purchases when I finally open them. I hate it when doing so mars the artwork on the cardboard packaging. I really should open my DVD purchases immediately: the ST:TNG Season 7 box set was missing a disk.
What if one of the devices in this story was faulty and didn't come completely clear on deactivation? What if, like some LCDs, they get stuck or dead pixels? Are they sure it won't unbalance the DVD and make it a fragmentation hazard in the player?
I was hoping someone else would have posted this article with a better link before it made it to the front page. I too could have done without the opening celebrity gossip and poorly formatted text (paragraphs not indented and no inter-paragraph spacing--gotta have one or the other at least).
"Sun Microsystems is here to talk about it's code, `savage'."
"That's not it's name!"
"I'm sorry, its code, `sah-vah-hey'."
"No, no, no! It's spelt `sah-vah-hey' but it's pronounced `Throatwarbler Mangrove'."
Anyway, this is the 21st Century USA. We don't care about the prohibition of ex post facto laws anymore.
Though if they did disarm the minefield by driving a flock of sheep across it as we had done in the past, at least the soldiers would have mutton for chow afterwards.
The number is akin to a musket ball: it may be used as an element of a firearm, even designed to have no other use than as a firearm's projectile, but in absence of the other required elements, it's just a useless lump of matter, and sure to become more obsolete over time.