They're using statutory damages, not actual damages. Statutory damages are always inflated to deter career criminals from engaging in systematic infringement.
Unfortunately the statute does not discriminate between the head of a mass producing piracy ring making millions of dollars in illegal sales and an individual downloading three backup copies and one unpurchased movie for personal use.
Inflated figures you see when they seek to make a small-time CD duplication operation among friends seem like a major criminal enterprise by multiplying the number of actual CD burners by their top burn speeds. Then one person with a single burner can be labeled as a mass pirate by saying he had equipment equivalent to 52 1x CD burners!
Like other cases where computer tresspassing incurs lots of crippling damages against one hacker discovering a vulnerability, Russinovich should determine how long it took him to find the problem, how much his time is worth per hour, and how much work he lost because of his having to deal with this intrusion... and sue Sony.
I worked in the machine room for my university for awhile. At one point they needed to build a database of their users accounts with information they could verify with the user over the phone later. They chose me to call up every user and ask for their student ID numbers.
At this university one's student ID number was one's social security number prefixed with a letter (e.g. U for undergrads) and followed by three numbers (the first of the three signifying how many times the student had to replace a lost student ID).
The administration felt it was fine for each user to use some other sequence, but I was to request the student ID number. Of all the calls I made, only one gave an obviously false ID number (random letters spelling nothing).
Jack Thompson would say that the kids who got shot at Columbine weren't raised by shit parents, the kids who did the shooting were.
These are the kids who they say trained on Doom, right?
Doom (the game) was released in 1993. The ESRB was founded in 1994.
Columbine happened in 1999, but has it been determined whether Harris (18) or Klebold (17) acquired the game, if he bought it, it was bought for him by a parent, or if it was pirated?
Until that is determined, I don't want to hear anything about ESRB self-regulation failures in the context of Columbine, because you're going to be hard pressed to find grounds for it to have been rated AO.
BTW, Doom's content ratings: USA: M (T for Game Boy Advance version) and UK: 15. You know what? Everyone can just STFU about Doom and Columbine from now on.
But I digress... the point is that as long as resistors, capacitors, ICs, and soldering irons are sold, the analog hole will never be closed.
At least not until all electronic parts vendors require all purchases of each part to be bought in $1000 bulk purchases. And it's already happening: the only local vendor for a part to fix the power connector on my Joust machine would only sell to me if I bought $1000 worth of the part.
The parts will be kept in the hands of those trusted to assemble them into compliant devices. Individuals will still be able to get soldering irons and solder; just not anything to solder with them. (It will become harder and harder to harvest parts from existing devices as well. Entire circuit boards will be covered in black epoxy.)
Not only that, but look how they define a "professional device" that is exempt from the restrictions:
(n) "professional device" means a device that is designed, manufactured, marketed and intended for use by a person who regularly employs such a device for lawful business or industrial purposes, such as making, performing, displaying, distributing or transmitting copies of audiovisual works on a commercial scale at the request of or with the explicit permission of the copyright owner.
It seems they're implying that not even the copyright owner can possess such a device; only publishers can have them. That would make sense since anyone who creates anything is a copyright owner and could potentially legally own such a device. Does this not codify freedom of the press to only those who can afford one and solidify their control over the market?
How do they determine "regularly employs"? Will that mean that professional devices will come with a time lock tied to a dead man's switch that will permanently disable it if you try to use it at irregular intervals or fail to use it at regular intervals? (This paragraph is not serious and only seeking to be funny through ridicule.)
Further:
If a device is marketed to or is commonly purchased by persons other than described in the foregoing sentence, then such device shall not be considered a "professional device";
so if you price your device too low so that people not in the publishing business can and do purchase it, your device is illegal and you face a $500,000 fine or 5 years imprisonment or both for first offense, and double for additional offenses.
That creates contributory infringement just for making a popular device!
Does it fix the problem where other apps will open their windows in front of the current app? That's one thing Mac OS 9 had gotten right that Mac OS X has still failed to do.
Also, try opening 20-or-so QuickTime Player video files at once and watch your display get corrupted beyond the borders of the windows. Try it with files that use various codecs and video sizes.
I'd try it myself, but I can't do it until tonight, and the one report of failure to recognize the built-in Firewire ports on a B&W G3 is of great concern to me.
Using Mozilla 1.7.11 on Red Hat 9, I can scroll up and down too in the Acid2 test with my scrollwheel. Indeed, I can scroll up past the top of the page. No special drivers installed.
I do however use a userContent.css draw an inner border for divs. I find this works around a problem with some pages on Apple's website where, if your browser window isn't wide enough, content is positioned off the left side of the window where you cannot scroll to it.
Re:What will it be for early downloaders...
on
Mac OS X 10.4.3 Released
·
· Score: 2, Informative
That still was not as bad as an earlier version which would overwrite the partition map of random Firewire drives on launch of Final Cut Pro. An OS update fixed that (10.0 to 10.1 or 10.1 to 10.2--this was also when FCP would run on a non-AGP Mac without modification).
My guess was it was attempting to communicate with every Firewire device to query if it was a capture device and for drives the query was written atop the start of the disk. After it ate my drive the 5th time I disconnected all Firewire drives and it would run non-destructively.
Amazon has been known to alter the titles of products in their catalog. However, in my experience the copy of the title in one's order history does not get revised (I make many preorders).
Mark Russinovich should check his order history for the presence of that text there to determine if it was present at the time he ordered.
Because music has far more inherent replay value than video.
The opportunity isn't there. Maybe if my car had a DVD player that let me listen to the audio without being distracted by the video I'd give it more replay time. Give me the audio and I can remember the video. There isn't as much socially acceptable time to have one's eyes directed to a video screen showing entertainment than there is for one's ears.
there is no way apple can stop them if they wanted.
Apple could push an update for video iPods that restricts playback to Apple-signed content and locks out non-updated iPods from being used with iTMS. It would however also kill any video podcasts that aren't distributed through iTMS and any other personally converted video content not submitted to Apple for approval.
Not that that would be smart (it would be a damn fool thing to do), only that it would be possible. I don't think Apple would.
I think some states' window tinting laws also make polarized auto glass illegal. A search comes up with Pensylvania and Rhode Island requiring 70% of light to pass through. Polarized windows let through only 50%. But I don't know if those state's laws include exceptions for polarized glass.
How such laws preventing your privacy in your car affect the admissability of evidence discovered in plain sight in a closed-window car (such as porn playing on an in-car DVD player's screen) I don't know. IANAL.
But it might make for an funny case for Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law if Wonder Woman gets arrested for playing Wonder Twin Porn in her invisible jet's DVD player while flying next to a Dr. Quest's private jet where Jonny and Hadji could see it.
Sorry, it's just that "stop using the word..." is looking like it could become the next troll meme.
"First you tell me *what* innovation you're speaking of, and then we'll find a way not to stifle it."
If I knew what my innovations would be in advance, they wouldn't be innovative.
Will my high-latency VOIP by tamper-evident avian carriers have to be trained to fly to a special government office for inspection before they are allowed to reach their intended destination?
I can't say I can beyond a shadow of a doubt. But the question I have is, is this law for AO games? Or M games as well? Or does it define a new standard?
It totally disregards the ESRB ratings and defines it by content, which could include content found in T or E-rated games. It would apply to any boxing game as that sport meets the criteria "maiming", "depraved", "serious physical abuse", and "torture" as it defines them. Wrestling games could also qualify.
Though peppered with the criteria "killing", this bill has interpretations that allow the prosecution over a game that has no death in it at all. Particuarly note how a single "or" defeats a three-prong "and" test.
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They're using statutory damages, not actual damages. Statutory damages are always inflated to deter career criminals from engaging in systematic infringement.
Unfortunately the statute does not discriminate between the head of a mass producing piracy ring making millions of dollars in illegal sales and an individual downloading three backup copies and one unpurchased movie for personal use.
Inflated figures you see when they seek to make a small-time CD duplication operation among friends seem like a major criminal enterprise by multiplying the number of actual CD burners by their top burn speeds. Then one person with a single burner can be labeled as a mass pirate by saying he had equipment equivalent to 52 1x CD burners!
Like other cases where computer tresspassing incurs lots of crippling damages against one hacker discovering a vulnerability, Russinovich should determine how long it took him to find the problem, how much his time is worth per hour, and how much work he lost because of his having to deal with this intrusion... and sue Sony.
Too bad the show is one of the worst pieces of dreck I've seen on TV since "Enterprise".
There's a reason for that.
I worked in the machine room for my university for awhile. At one point they needed to build a database of their users accounts with information they could verify with the user over the phone later. They chose me to call up every user and ask for their student ID numbers.
At this university one's student ID number was one's social security number prefixed with a letter (e.g. U for undergrads) and followed by three numbers (the first of the three signifying how many times the student had to replace a lost student ID).
The administration felt it was fine for each user to use some other sequence, but I was to request the student ID number. Of all the calls I made, only one gave an obviously false ID number (random letters spelling nothing).
The whole thing made me very uncomfortable.
Of course you're right. I just couldn't remember "USDA" and went with the Food and Drug Administration instead.
For the enlightenment of those who didn't get it, I link for you Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal".
and one gigantic 200-inch big screen TV where players can weep knowing that they will never be able to have this kind of setup in their own home.
"That's the second biggest TV I've ever seen."
-- Maxwell Smart (RIP)
And still not as big as Frank's 2000 inch TV.
Jack Thompson would say that the kids who got shot at Columbine weren't raised by shit parents, the kids who did the shooting were.
These are the kids who they say trained on Doom, right?
Doom (the game) was released in 1993.
The ESRB was founded in 1994.
Columbine happened in 1999, but has it been determined whether Harris (18) or Klebold (17) acquired the game, if he bought it, it was bought for him by a parent, or if it was pirated?
Until that is determined, I don't want to hear anything about ESRB self-regulation failures in the context of Columbine, because you're going to be hard pressed to find grounds for it to have been rated AO.
BTW, Doom's content ratings: USA: M (T for Game Boy Advance version) and UK: 15. You know what? Everyone can just STFU about Doom and Columbine from now on.
No, no, no. "A modest proposal" would be to empower the FDA to approve and grade meat made from lobbyists.
But I digress... the point is that as long as resistors, capacitors, ICs, and soldering irons are sold, the analog hole will never be closed.
At least not until all electronic parts vendors require all purchases of each part to be bought in $1000 bulk purchases. And it's already happening: the only local vendor for a part to fix the power connector on my Joust machine would only sell to me if I bought $1000 worth of the part.
The parts will be kept in the hands of those trusted to assemble them into compliant devices. Individuals will still be able to get soldering irons and solder; just not anything to solder with them. (It will become harder and harder to harvest parts from existing devices as well. Entire circuit boards will be covered in black epoxy.)
How do they determine "regularly employs"? Will that mean that professional devices will come with a time lock tied to a dead man's switch that will permanently disable it if you try to use it at irregular intervals or fail to use it at regular intervals? (This paragraph is not serious and only seeking to be funny through ridicule.)
Further: so if you price your device too low so that people not in the publishing business can and do purchase it, your device is illegal and you face a $500,000 fine or 5 years imprisonment or both for first offense, and double for additional offenses.
That creates contributory infringement just for making a popular device!
Personally I hate "shaded" or three-dimensional logos. They quickly become tiresome.
Four-dimensional logos however, they give me dreams of forests made of glass.
Does it fix the problem where other apps will open their windows in front of the current app? That's one thing Mac OS 9 had gotten right that Mac OS X has still failed to do.
Also, try opening 20-or-so QuickTime Player video files at once and watch your display get corrupted beyond the borders of the windows. Try it with files that use various codecs and video sizes.
I'd try it myself, but I can't do it until tonight, and the one report of failure to recognize the built-in Firewire ports on a B&W G3 is of great concern to me.
Using Mozilla 1.7.11 on Red Hat 9, I can scroll up and down too in the Acid2 test with my scrollwheel. Indeed, I can scroll up past the top of the page. No special drivers installed.
I do however use a userContent.css draw an inner border for divs. I find this works around a problem with some pages on Apple's website where, if your browser window isn't wide enough, content is positioned off the left side of the window where you cannot scroll to it.
That still was not as bad as an earlier version which would overwrite the partition map of random Firewire drives on launch of Final Cut Pro. An OS update fixed that (10.0 to 10.1 or 10.1 to 10.2--this was also when FCP would run on a non-AGP Mac without modification).
My guess was it was attempting to communicate with every Firewire device to query if it was a capture device and for drives the query was written atop the start of the disk. After it ate my drive the 5th time I disconnected all Firewire drives and it would run non-destructively.
Amazon has been known to alter the titles of products in their catalog. However, in my experience the copy of the title in one's order history does not get revised (I make many preorders).
Mark Russinovich should check his order history for the presence of that text there to determine if it was present at the time he ordered.
Because music has far more inherent replay value than video.
The opportunity isn't there. Maybe if my car had a DVD player that let me listen to the audio without being distracted by the video I'd give it more replay time. Give me the audio and I can remember the video. There isn't as much socially acceptable time to have one's eyes directed to a video screen showing entertainment than there is for one's ears.
Go talk to your cable company and get them to provide you with an HD box, specifically the Motorola DCT6200.
What if your cable company doesn't use Motorola boxes? What if they like Scientific Atlanta? Are suitable boxes available under that brand?
Your Aibo wants man beef.
there is no way apple can stop them if they wanted.
Apple could push an update for video iPods that restricts playback to Apple-signed content and locks out non-updated iPods from being used with iTMS. It would however also kill any video podcasts that aren't distributed through iTMS and any other personally converted video content not submitted to Apple for approval.
Not that that would be smart (it would be a damn fool thing to do), only that it would be possible. I don't think Apple would.
I think some states' window tinting laws also make polarized auto glass illegal. A search comes up with Pensylvania and Rhode Island requiring 70% of light to pass through. Polarized windows let through only 50%. But I don't know if those state's laws include exceptions for polarized glass.
How such laws preventing your privacy in your car affect the admissability of evidence discovered in plain sight in a closed-window car (such as porn playing on an in-car DVD player's screen) I don't know. IANAL.
But it might make for an funny case for Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law if Wonder Woman gets arrested for playing Wonder Twin Porn in her invisible jet's DVD player while flying next to a Dr. Quest's private jet where Jonny and Hadji could see it.
May have used hands-free. ...
For the phone.
Thanks for the clarification. Here I was thinking he'd cover himself in dried tobacco leaves and set himself on fire.
Should we reprint and remove or rewrite politically uncorrect sequences and dialog from Anne Frank
Already done when they left out the portions of her diary where she said she never wanted anyone to read it.
Sebastian Shaw was the face of Darth Vader before the re-edit.
They edited him out as his ghost, but the removal of the mask wasn't changed.
Sorry, it's just that "stop using the word..." is looking like it could become the next troll meme.
"First you tell me *what* innovation you're speaking of, and then we'll find a way not to stifle it."
If I knew what my innovations would be in advance, they wouldn't be innovative.
Will my high-latency VOIP by tamper-evident avian carriers have to be trained to fly to a special government office for inspection before they are allowed to reach their intended destination?
I can't say I can beyond a shadow of a doubt. But the question I have is, is this law for AO games? Or M games as well? Or does it define a new standard?
It totally disregards the ESRB ratings and defines it by content, which could include content found in T or E-rated games. It would apply to any boxing game as that sport meets the criteria "maiming", "depraved", "serious physical abuse", and "torture" as it defines them. Wrestling games could also qualify.
Though peppered with the criteria "killing", this bill has interpretations that allow the prosecution over a game that has no death in it at all. Particuarly note how a single "or" defeats a three-prong "and" test.
IANAL