My biggest wish is that people would actually report problems when they have them. This is how hardware and software is improved: users say what's wrong with it.
One of the things I hate to hear techs tell non-techs is that "all computers crash". Too often, when I worked in tech support, I had people let real hardware problems go until the warranty ran out because, well, "don't computers all crash?"
Also, how best to report problems. Error messages are important, even if you can't understand them. Copy and paste them if you can, or do a screen dump if you can't. While it's true that if e-mail is most important to you, then "I'm not getting any e-mail" is a valid description of your concern, it isn't going to help tech support help you when the real problem is that everything is frozen and you can't even move the mouse.
I suppose then you've got to have a section on dealing with tech support.
I would also recommend some reference to the expert effect: if you rely on advice only from tech geeks when purchasing hardware or software, you'll get hardware and software that only a dedicated tech geek would enjoy. King Ludd.
Jerry
I block ads that block the web page I'm trying to
on
Why Do You Block Ads?
·
· Score: 1
pop-ups and pop-unders. I disable pop-ups for a reason; it gets in the way of the web page I'm trying to read. If I see a pop-up despite that, I block the server or ad type.
music. I'm listening to iTunes while I'm browsing the web. I don't want to hear your ad.
CPU time. If I have to read a pop-up window telling me that some flash animation appears to be entering an infinite loop and may adversely affect web browsing, I'm going to block that ad type or server.
What about in a magazine? Do you not buy a magazine because it has too many?
Yes. Food magazines are practically impossible to read. I have a huge collection of cookbooks, but I don't buy recipe magazines because the ads make it too time-consuming to determine if an issue is worth picking up.
I don't spend much time blocking ads on the web, though. If it isn't easy and obvious what I need to do to block the ad's server, I'll just stop reading that web site.
If you buy an entire album (at least on iTMS) you don't pay 99 cents per song, generally. For example, Foo Fighters "The Color and the Shape", 13 songs, is $9.99.
I think that most albums on the iTMS are $9.99. While some are less expensive and some are more expensive, it generally isn't going to cost more for the album on iTMS than for a new CD.
I agree that used CDs are usually a great deal; and that often the album that a hit appears on also has great stuff that never made it to radio. (I tend to avoid "best of" albums for this reason also.)
>would Dashboard have existed in the form it does, using the >underlying technologies it does, trying to serve the purpose it >does and look how it does if Konfabulator never had existed ?
Meanwhile, other posters are complaining that Dashboard *doesn't* copy Konfabulator and requires (barring developer mode) looking at all of them at once.
Yes, Dashboard would have existed without Konfabulator. Dashboard is based on WebKit. WebKit is part of OS X. WebKit is what powers Safari and Mail's HTML rendering (and probably most other third-party HTML renderers at this point).
Dashboard came at the same time that Automator did; Apple appears to be trying to ensure that their technologies are easy to automate and script into small, useful apps. After AppleScript, Automator, and the various scripting languages on the command line, it made perfect sense to build a javascript/HTML development tool based on WebKit.
I suspect that the only thing that would have changed if Konfabulator did not exist is that Apple would not have called their widgets "gadgets" for a few days.
I actually tried to do this when our site still used that form of authentication. It doesn't really work and it's confusing to the user.
Remember that authentication of the sort under discussion is under control of the browser; the potential solution you've described is trying to "fool" the browser into failing.
What actually happened with the browsers I used for testing was:
1) the browser pops up a new request for a username and password. Even with instructions on the previous page, this was very confusing for the user.
2) unless the user actually typed in a valid username and password combination (i.e., one that returns a "good" result to the browser) the browsers I used for testing did not forget the old password! But most users wouldn't do that; first, because it required following instructions that are no longer visible, and really, why should they? That's an ugly hack. Most of the time they just hit cancel and go somewhere else; but now that browser is not logged out, because nothing has replaced the known-working username/password for that realm.
But even if it works in some browsers, you'd be relying on browser behavior that is not, as far as I know, required as part of the standard. That was the main reason I gave up; it just wasn't likely to be a reliable solution over time even if it had been a reliable solution then.
Not sure if that link will continue to work, but the solution was:
"Go to the Library (on the hard drive, not the user), then Preferences and take the SystemConfiguration folder out and place it on the desktop. Then restart and set up your network preferences again."
That solved the problem for me. My computer now once again autoconnects on wakeup from sleep.
>"If you can solve problems without going to court you're better >off," said Russell J. Rotter, a lawyer for Panasonic, a division of >Matsushita.
"We're hoping that if enough of us give in, we'll have established that it *is* possible to trademark common words for all uses. Then we can do it, too," he added.
Big companies don't get shafted even when they get hit by lawsuits like this. Apple will either win in court, or they will pay the fee for using the patent, or they will find some way around the patent.
Apple, Microsoft, and other established businesses can afford the lawyers, the fee, and/or the extra programming time. Lawsuits like this are just one of the costs of doing business.
For established companies an out-of-control patent system is useful, despite the costs. It helps block competition by increasing the costs that potential competitors face when starting new companies.
>If I steal a $5 object from a store and I get caught, it >doesn't cost me $5. There is a penalty above what it >would have cost me to purchase it
If you steal a $5 object from a store, you are in fact stealing. Copyright infringement is not automatically stealing. Copyright infringement needs to reach a fairly high threshold to be criminal.
Unless you download $1,000 worth of music, downloading music without purchasing it isn't stealing. Not legally, anyway, at least in the United States (this is 17 U.S.C. 506).
At $5/month, you would have to keep downloading infringing material for 200 months, or about 17 years, to reach the point of it legally being "stealing".
But since the $1,000 threshold has to be reached within a 180-day period, that's impossible. So if downloading unlimited music files is worth $5/month, then downloading infringing copies can never be worth $1,000. At best, it will only be worth $30 (over any 6-month period), and thus is not legally stealing.
Incidentally, your argument about the penalty for stealing being more than the cost of the object stolen "because there is a chance that you won't get caught" (a) follows from a faulty premise (the penalty is not always going to be more than the cost of the object stolen), and (b) is not in any way the basis for U.S. criminal law as far as I can tell.
Buyer beware. In 2003 the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed suit against Moller International in federal court for selling unregistered securities. The suit alleged that while Moller, who has been designing and building vertical-lift vehicles since the early 1960s, had touted the Skycar's promise to investors, "in reality, the Skycar was and still is a very early developmental-stage prototype that has no meaningful flight testing, proof of aeronautical feasibility, or proven commercial viability." The SEC also alleged that Moller misled investors about the firm's financial prospects. Moller paid $50,000 to settle the suit.
To their credit, Moller doesn't seem to be trying to hide that in their company history.
I'd love this to be legit, just thirty years late.
>Several posters, including yourself, attempt to assert that >people have traditionally been able to do whatever they >wanted with the things they have purchased.
>You reply that I'm agreeing with your stupidity because I >concur that copyright laws restrict users from using a >product however they desire.
Most specifically, because the example of a restriction that you gave was the restriction on distributing copies. From my first post on the subject, the one to which you first replied:
"Normally, when a person buys something, they have the right to do whatever they want with it. This includes copying it and distributing those copies. If that something they bought is copyrightable, however, then the consumer is restricted from exercising that right. The person holding the copyright has a monopoly on exercising that right."
This is the "stupidity" that you have come around to agreeing to.
>>"says only that I'm not allowed to "reproduce" it except >>for reviews"
>I hope your realize that the statement you made above >quite clearly and irrevocably makes clear to you that you >DO NOT have the right to do what you want with a book >that you purchase.
If you would like to win the argument by agreeing with me, you are welcome to do so. As I said from the start, the copyright monopoly specifically restricts us from, and only restricts us from, copy and distribution ("reproduction") of a copyrighted work. Items not covered by the copyright monopoly don't have that restriction. Books are covered by the copyright monopoly; ergo, unless I hold the monopoly in a book, I cannot legally copy and distribute it. But I *can* legally make copies of parts of it or the entire thing for my own use, just as I can make copies of parts of my CDs and vinyl or the whole album, for my own use. The copyright monopoly is a limited monopoly on copy and distribution. Beyond that, I can do whatever I want with that book.
This is what I've been saying from the start. The normal state of things is that when somone purchases something they can do whatever they want with it. If that something is restricted by a copyright monopoly, then they can do whatever they want except violate the monopoly, which restricts specifically, and only, their otherwise existing right to copy and distribute that item.
BTW, I'm more interested in your answer to this, when you said:
>You didn't have the right to copy DVD and VHS types >arbitrarily at any time before, now it is just being >enforced.
Are you seriously saying when I copy music from CDs and vinyl--that I have purchased and still own--to my iTunes library, that I am violating the law? Not even the RIAA is claiming that.
If congress were talking about forbidding DRM in general, instead of just regulating Apple's, I suspect most people here would be fine with it. But Congress loves DRM; they want to strengthen its uses.
I suspect they're annoyed that Apple pioneered relatively restrictionless online music sales. Apple's DRM is annoying as hell, but it's the least annoying I've seen, and the only DRM I've seen that I'm willing to use, even if only rarely.
When congress addresses the DMCA's making it illegal to bypass DRM, then maybe I'll trust them to block proprietary DRMs. But right now, I find it hard to believe that they want less DRM.
When congress addresses music DRM in general and not just Apple's, I might trust them more. But right now, I find it hard to believe that they want to encourage less restrictive DRM over the more restrictive DRM they aren't talking about.
I suspect that the real worry is that Apple's lock on restricted music for iPods is only going to encourage restriction-less music formats. Because anybody who wants to sell music for iPods can do so without having to pay Apple anything.
I've bought a couple of albums at mp3tunes.com and had no problem loading them into iTunes and onto my iPod. At least one of those albums was also available on the iTunes Music Store.
In this case, mp3tunes.com made a sale and the iTMS lost it, because mp3tunes.com sells me music restriction-free.
I agree with you: big business needs to get slapped in the face over DRM. But that's not what congress is likely to do here, and it isn't what congress appears to be talking about. It is more likely that congress will help other big businesses find new and better ways to screw over consumers.
What congress is likely to do is make it easier for "big businesses" to sell restricted music for the iPod.
>Sellers DO place restrictions on using a book. Try reading >the inside cover.
The inside front cover of the book I'm reading right now, Mike Royko: A Life in Print, says only that I'm not allowed to "reproduce" it except for reviews. It is clearly expressing the copyright monopoly: no copying and distributing without permission. There are no other restrictions listed, and if there were, they would be invalid.
>BTW, try reading your link to the Supreme Court ruling. It >is a dismissal of the complaintant because they linked the >restriction to copyright law and the restriction was a price >of resell restriction.
More specifically, because they linked it to copyright law and it had nothing to do with copying and distributing the work, which is what the copyright monopoly restricts.
The Supreme Court continued this interpretation in the Betamax case, when they said that "Even unauthorized uses of a copyrighted work are not necessarily infringing. An unlicensed use of the copyright is not an infringement unless it conflicts with one of the specific exclusive rights conferred by the copyright statute."
>You didn't have the right to copy DVD and VHS types >arbitrarily at any time before, now it is just being >enforced.
Are you seriously saying when I copy music from CDs and vinyl--that I have purchased and still own--to my iTunes library, that I am violating the law? Not even the RIAA is claiming that.
Your interpretation of copyright law is wrong today, but if it is allowed to become real I won't even be able to listen to the music I have purchased without breaking the law.
This was in response to a statement about DRM, which is about sellers placing restrictions on what buyers can do. None of your examples have anything to do with sellers placing restrictions on what buyers can do. They are about laws having to be specially written to restrict what people can do with specific items. My statement stands: normally, when a person buys something, they have the right to do what they want with it. What restrictions do normally exist are not imposed by the seller.
I will answer this one, however, because it shows just how clueless you are:
>What are the restrictions on buying a book?
This is about *using* what we purchase. Sellers cannot place restrictions on using a book. The Supreme Court in 1906 ruled that EULAs placed on a book have no legal force. See Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus. (http://eon.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/DVD/cases/Bobb s-Merrill_v_Straus_2Cir.html) They have since ruled that the same is true of shampoo and most every other thing that people purchase. Once purchased, the seller can place no restrictions on the use of what was purchased.
Yes, it is about the restriction of consumer's rights. Normally, when a person buys something, they have the right to do whatever they want with it. This includes copying it and distributing those copies.
If that something they bought is copyrightable, however, then the consumer is restricted from exercising that right. The person holding the copyright has a monopoly on exercising that right.
The restrictions do not affect the copyright holder's rights, nor do they give that person any rights; the copyright holder's rights are the same as they would be if copyright didn't exist. The restrictions only affect the consumer's rights, by restricting those things the consumer can normally do but that the copyright monopoly explicitly restricts (monopolizes).
>'ve always wondered why they let you BROWSE other- >country iTMS stores? I mean, what's the point?
Probably some naive idea that music fans would: complain to their lawmakers about the stupid laws that require Apple to make separate stores for each country, even in the EU; rather than just post complaints about Apple on discussion groups.
>You are (and always have) bought a license to use a copy, >and the rights you have on how you can use that copy are >limited.
>You do not have, for example, distribution rights.
Funny. It's true, you don't have distribution rights. But it's not an example, it's the part that the copyright monopoly covers. The copyright monopoly is a monopoly on distribution.
When (in the United States) we purchase CDs, books, or anything else that is copyrighted, we own that copy. We can do whatever we want with it--make copies for personal use, destroy it, modify it--as long as we do not infringe on the temporary copyright monopoly that someone else holds.
The holder of the copyright monopoly is not even allowed at add further restrictions, such as adding a EULA forbidding resale. This has been taken all the way to the Supreme Court, as far back as the early 1900s (a publisher tried to add a EULA to their books) and as recently as Adobe trying to enforce the EULA on their software forbidding resale.
The court has also explicitly stated that the copyright monopoly must be interpreted as thinly as possible: we own the things we purchase, and the copyright monopoly is a restriction on what we can do with the things we own.
Yes and no. The default user is an "administrative" user. They must type their username and password to gain root access. However, there have been some exploits that allow someone gaining control of an administrative user account to parley that into root access. Some of this has to do with what parts of the file system the administrative user has write access to.
For example, up until at least 10.2, the admin user could write files to/Library/StartupItems/; if they get the startup format correct, then on reboot those files would be run as root.
I always recommend that people set up a non-admin user as their normal account. But of course, few people are going to go to the trouble of going beyond the default settings.
That said, even if security on that front were perfect, all it would do is keep malware from gaining root access. For the average user, malware that only has write access to their own files is going to be just as catastrophic.
The system does now warn you if this is the first time you've run an app.
I don't see how that can count as "chipping away". There were a grand total of two restrictions in that article:
1) dropping the number of times a playlist with restricted music in it can be burned from ten to seven times.
2) having iTunes not respond to requests outside of its own subnet for the iTunes sharing feature.
Number 1 is so ridiculously trivial I can't even count that as a further restriction; it's more on the order of Apple offering the record companies a "restriction" that doesn't restrict users at all. They dropped the number of times a *playlist* can be burned. This does not limit the number of times the *song* can be burned. Put it in a different playlist, and you can burn it another seven times.
Further, this does not restrict the number of CDs you can make. Macs, at least, already include a feature that allows you to duplicate as many CDs as you want. If you really need more than seven copies of the *same playlist*, you can burn those copies more easily in Disk Utility than in iTunes anyway.
The second restriction is more substantial, as it blocks something that people might normally want to do without providing an easier alternative elsewhere on a stock system. However, from a technical standpoint it is also trivially easy to overcome through port forwarding or simply using another app, and the steps are widely available.
So, while they should certainly not have done the second one, and they probably should have gotten more concessions for the first one, I can't see this as chipping rights over time. The overall trend on iTunes remains either towards less restrictive DRM, or has remained steady.
You mean, cable TV? No, I don't. I don't rent DVDs either; new DVDs don't cost much more than than renting them, and I have a backlog of purchased DVDs to watch.
The same applies to "renting" music I wouldn't want to listen to a lot. Because that's what Napster is: a system for listening to music you don't really want to listen to that much. I have more than enough music I want to listen to, to fill up my hard drive, let alone my portable music player.
Even if I had the disk space to store music I don't want to keep, I wouldn't want to pay for the privilege of doing so.
If I want to hear music I've never heard before, I will:
1) listen to the radio 2) listen to a friend's music (something iTunes makes easier than Napster appears to, but CDs make easier yet) 3) listen to previews on iTunes or mp3tunes.com
Music I want to listen to, I buy. I'm sure some people will enjoy the Napster rental service; but personally I can't see paying a monthly fee so that I can listen to music I don't enjoy enough to buy.
I agree. I just re-read V last night. The first issue would work perfectly directly translated into a movie. The others are pretty close.
Then again, I think the best trailer would be the Vicious Cabaret song in the middle. No fucking way will that get done.
Sometimes good things happen in translations like this. I remember being floored by the radio ad for "Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas". But that sort of thing doesn't happen very often.
Anyway, having just re-read the book, I have no hope whatsoever that the movie is going to be anything more than a few explosions, a mask, and an otherwise complete subversion of the text.
"There's thrills and chills and girls galore! There's sing-songs and surprises! There's something here for everyone, reserve your seat today! There's mischiefs and malarkies, but no queers, or yids, or darkies... within this bastard's carnival, this vicious cabaret!"
To reasonably compare drug laws to murder laws, as the previous poster did, 30% of the people in the United States would have to have committed at least one murder in their lives. 10% of the people in the United States would have to have committed at least one murder in the last month. And they would have to care so little about breaking the laws against murder that they'd be willing to let a federal researcher (NIDA, in the case of drug laws) know.
Unless and until those numbers are true, the comparison to murder laws makes no sense.
When over 30% of people in the United States have murdered someone at least once in their lifetime, and 10% have murdered someone in the last month, and they are willing to admit this to a cold-calling phone researcher, your counter argument will make more sense.
Slashdot Mirror
My biggest wish is that people would actually report problems when they have them. This is how hardware and software is improved: users say what's wrong with it.
One of the things I hate to hear techs tell non-techs is that "all computers crash". Too often, when I worked in tech support, I had people let real hardware problems go until the warranty ran out because, well, "don't computers all crash?"
Also, how best to report problems. Error messages are important, even if you can't understand them. Copy and paste them if you can, or do a screen dump if you can't. While it's true that if e-mail is most important to you, then "I'm not getting any e-mail" is a valid description of your concern, it isn't going to help tech support help you when the real problem is that everything is frozen and you can't even move the mouse.
I suppose then you've got to have a section on dealing with tech support.
I would also recommend some reference to the expert effect: if you rely on advice only from tech geeks when purchasing hardware or software, you'll get hardware and software that only a dedicated tech geek would enjoy. King Ludd.
Jerry
What about in a magazine? Do you not buy a magazine because it has too many?
Yes. Food magazines are practically impossible to read. I have a huge collection of cookbooks, but I don't buy recipe magazines because the ads make it too time-consuming to determine if an issue is worth picking up.
I don't spend much time blocking ads on the web, though. If it isn't easy and obvious what I need to do to block the ad's server, I'll just stop reading that web site.
JerryIf you buy an entire album (at least on iTMS) you don't pay 99 cents per song, generally. For example, Foo Fighters "The Color and the Shape", 13 songs, is $9.99.
I think that most albums on the iTMS are $9.99. While some are less expensive and some are more expensive, it generally isn't going to cost more for the album on iTMS than for a new CD.
I agree that used CDs are usually a great deal; and that often the album that a hit appears on also has great stuff that never made it to radio. (I tend to avoid "best of" albums for this reason also.)
Jerry
Look to the bottom of Apple PR page: "Mighty Mouse © Viacom International Inc. All Rights Reserved"
>would Dashboard have existed in the form it does, using the
>underlying technologies it does, trying to serve the purpose it
>does and look how it does if Konfabulator never had existed ?
Meanwhile, other posters are complaining that Dashboard *doesn't* copy Konfabulator and requires (barring developer mode) looking at all of them at once.
Yes, Dashboard would have existed without Konfabulator. Dashboard is based on WebKit. WebKit is part of OS X. WebKit is what powers Safari and Mail's HTML rendering (and probably most other third-party HTML renderers at this point).
http://webkit.opendarwin.org/
Dashboard came at the same time that Automator did; Apple appears to be trying to ensure that their technologies are easy to automate and script into small, useful apps. After AppleScript, Automator, and the various scripting languages on the command line, it made perfect sense to build a javascript/HTML development tool based on WebKit.
I suspect that the only thing that would have changed if Konfabulator did not exist is that Apple would not have called their widgets "gadgets" for a few days.
Jerry
I actually tried to do this when our site still used that form of authentication. It doesn't really work and it's confusing to the user.
Remember that authentication of the sort under discussion is under control of the browser; the potential solution you've described is trying to "fool" the browser into failing.
What actually happened with the browsers I used for testing was:
1) the browser pops up a new request for a username and password. Even with instructions on the previous page, this was very confusing for the user.
2) unless the user actually typed in a valid username and password combination (i.e., one that returns a "good" result to the browser) the browsers I used for testing did not forget the old password! But most users wouldn't do that; first, because it required following instructions that are no longer visible, and really, why should they? That's an ugly hack. Most of the time they just hit cancel and go somewhere else; but now that browser is not logged out, because nothing has replaced the known-working username/password for that realm.
But even if it works in some browsers, you'd be relying on browser behavior that is not, as far as I know, required as part of the standard. That was the main reason I gave up; it just wasn't likely to be a reliable solution over time even if it had been a reliable solution then.
Jerry
>Still not auto-connecting to wireless networks as in 10.3.9
L aLeWY5K.0@.68b170ea/0
I realize that this is still Apple's fault, but there may be a solution; I had the same problem, until I ran across this:
http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?13@778.k1I
Not sure if that link will continue to work, but the solution was:
"Go to the Library (on the hard drive, not the user), then Preferences and take the SystemConfiguration folder out and place it on the desktop. Then restart and set up your network preferences again."
That solved the problem for me. My computer now once again autoconnects on wakeup from sleep.
Jerry
>"If you can solve problems without going to court you're better
>off," said Russell J. Rotter, a lawyer for Panasonic, a division of
>Matsushita.
"We're hoping that if enough of us give in, we'll have established that it *is* possible to trademark common words for all uses. Then we can do it, too," he added.
Jerry
Big companies don't get shafted even when they get hit by lawsuits like this. Apple will either win in court, or they will pay the fee for using the patent, or they will find some way around the patent.
Apple, Microsoft, and other established businesses can afford the lawyers, the fee, and/or the extra programming time. Lawsuits like this are just one of the costs of doing business.
For established companies an out-of-control patent system is useful, despite the costs. It helps block competition by increasing the costs that potential competitors face when starting new companies.
Jerry
>If I steal a $5 object from a store and I get caught, it
>doesn't cost me $5. There is a penalty above what it
>would have cost me to purchase it
If you steal a $5 object from a store, you are in fact stealing. Copyright infringement is not automatically stealing. Copyright infringement needs to reach a fairly high threshold to be criminal.
Unless you download $1,000 worth of music, downloading music without purchasing it isn't stealing. Not legally, anyway, at least in the United States (this is 17 U.S.C. 506).
At $5/month, you would have to keep downloading infringing material for 200 months, or about 17 years, to reach the point of it legally being "stealing".
But since the $1,000 threshold has to be reached within a 180-day period, that's impossible. So if downloading unlimited music files is worth $5/month, then downloading infringing copies can never be worth $1,000. At best, it will only be worth $30 (over any 6-month period), and thus is not legally stealing.
Incidentally, your argument about the penalty for stealing being more than the cost of the object stolen "because there is a chance that you won't get caught" (a) follows from a faulty premise (the penalty is not always going to be more than the cost of the object stolen), and (b) is not in any way the basis for U.S. criminal law as far as I can tell.
Jerry
The coolest looking one was the SkyCar, so I looked up more information.
No idea how reliable these are:
Paul Moller and his flying car
His 1974 flying car looked pretty cool, too, from a 1974 perspective. I could see wanting one of those as a teen-ager in the seventies.
Artful Dodger, with Eyes on the Prize
From the Popular Science article:
To their credit, Moller doesn't seem to be trying to hide that in their company history.
I'd love this to be legit, just thirty years late.
>Several posters, including yourself, attempt to assert that
>people have traditionally been able to do whatever they
>wanted with the things they have purchased.
>You reply that I'm agreeing with your stupidity because I
>concur that copyright laws restrict users from using a
>product however they desire.
Most specifically, because the example of a restriction that you gave was the restriction on distributing copies. From my first post on the subject, the one to which you first replied:
"Normally, when a person buys something, they have the right to do whatever they want with it. This includes copying it and distributing those copies. If that something they bought is copyrightable, however, then the consumer is restricted from exercising that right. The person holding the copyright has a monopoly on exercising that right."
This is the "stupidity" that you have come around to agreeing to.
Jerry
>>"says only that I'm not allowed to "reproduce" it except
>>for reviews"
>I hope your realize that the statement you made above
>quite clearly and irrevocably makes clear to you that you
>DO NOT have the right to do what you want with a book
>that you purchase.
If you would like to win the argument by agreeing with me, you are welcome to do so. As I said from the start, the copyright monopoly specifically restricts us from, and only restricts us from, copy and distribution ("reproduction") of a copyrighted work. Items not covered by the copyright monopoly don't have that restriction. Books are covered by the copyright monopoly; ergo, unless I hold the monopoly in a book, I cannot legally copy and distribute it. But I *can* legally make copies of parts of it or the entire thing for my own use, just as I can make copies of parts of my CDs and vinyl or the whole album, for my own use. The copyright monopoly is a limited monopoly on copy and distribution. Beyond that, I can do whatever I want with that book.
This is what I've been saying from the start. The normal state of things is that when somone purchases something they can do whatever they want with it. If that something is restricted by a copyright monopoly, then they can do whatever they want except violate the monopoly, which restricts specifically, and only, their otherwise existing right to copy and distribute that item.
BTW, I'm more interested in your answer to this, when you said:
>You didn't have the right to copy DVD and VHS types
>arbitrarily at any time before, now it is just being
>enforced.
Are you seriously saying when I copy music from CDs and vinyl--that I have purchased and still own--to my iTunes library, that I am violating the law? Not even the RIAA is claiming that.
Jerry
If congress were talking about forbidding DRM in general, instead of just regulating Apple's, I suspect most people here would be fine with it. But Congress loves DRM; they want to strengthen its uses.
I suspect they're annoyed that Apple pioneered relatively restrictionless online music sales. Apple's DRM is annoying as hell, but it's the least annoying I've seen, and the only DRM I've seen that I'm willing to use, even if only rarely.
When congress addresses the DMCA's making it illegal to bypass DRM, then maybe I'll trust them to block proprietary DRMs. But right now, I find it hard to believe that they want less DRM.
When congress addresses music DRM in general and not just Apple's, I might trust them more. But right now, I find it hard to believe that they want to encourage less restrictive DRM over the more restrictive DRM they aren't talking about.
I suspect that the real worry is that Apple's lock on restricted music for iPods is only going to encourage restriction-less music formats. Because anybody who wants to sell music for iPods can do so without having to pay Apple anything.
I've bought a couple of albums at mp3tunes.com and had no problem loading them into iTunes and onto my iPod. At least one of those albums was also available on the iTunes Music Store.
In this case, mp3tunes.com made a sale and the iTMS lost it, because mp3tunes.com sells me music restriction-free.
I agree with you: big business needs to get slapped in the face over DRM. But that's not what congress is likely to do here, and it isn't what congress appears to be talking about. It is more likely that congress will help other big businesses find new and better ways to screw over consumers.
What congress is likely to do is make it easier for "big businesses" to sell restricted music for the iPod.
Jerry
>Sellers DO place restrictions on using a book. Try reading
>the inside cover.
The inside front cover of the book I'm reading right now, Mike Royko: A Life in Print, says only that I'm not allowed to "reproduce" it except for reviews. It is clearly expressing the copyright monopoly: no copying and distributing without permission. There are no other restrictions listed, and if there were, they would be invalid.
>BTW, try reading your link to the Supreme Court ruling. It
>is a dismissal of the complaintant because they linked the
>restriction to copyright law and the restriction was a price
>of resell restriction.
More specifically, because they linked it to copyright law and it had nothing to do with copying and distributing the work, which is what the copyright monopoly restricts.
The Supreme Court continued this interpretation in the Betamax case, when they said that "Even unauthorized uses of a copyrighted work are not necessarily infringing. An unlicensed use of the copyright is not an infringement unless it conflicts with one of the specific exclusive rights conferred by the copyright statute."
>You didn't have the right to copy DVD and VHS types
>arbitrarily at any time before, now it is just being
>enforced.
Are you seriously saying when I copy music from CDs and vinyl--that I have purchased and still own--to my iTunes library, that I am violating the law? Not even the RIAA is claiming that.
Your interpretation of copyright law is wrong today, but if it is allowed to become real I won't even be able to listen to the music I have purchased without breaking the law.
Jerry
This was in response to a statement about DRM, which is about sellers placing restrictions on what buyers can do. None of your examples have anything to do with sellers placing restrictions on what buyers can do. They are about laws having to be specially written to restrict what people can do with specific items. My statement stands: normally, when a person buys something, they have the right to do what they want with it. What restrictions do normally exist are not imposed by the seller.
b s-Merrill_v_Straus_2Cir.html) They have since ruled that the same is true of shampoo and most every other thing that people purchase. Once purchased, the seller can place no restrictions on the use of what was purchased.
I will answer this one, however, because it shows just how clueless you are:
>What are the restrictions on buying a book?
This is about *using* what we purchase. Sellers cannot place restrictions on using a book. The Supreme Court in 1906 ruled that EULAs placed on a book have no legal force. See Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus. (http://eon.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/DVD/cases/Bob
Jerry
Yes, it is about the restriction of consumer's rights. Normally, when a person buys something, they have the right to do whatever they want with it. This includes copying it and distributing those copies.
If that something they bought is copyrightable, however, then the consumer is restricted from exercising that right. The person holding the copyright has a monopoly on exercising that right.
The restrictions do not affect the copyright holder's rights, nor do they give that person any rights; the copyright holder's rights are the same as they would be if copyright didn't exist. The restrictions only affect the consumer's rights, by restricting those things the consumer can normally do but that the copyright monopoly explicitly restricts (monopolizes).
Jerry
>'ve always wondered why they let you BROWSE other-
>country iTMS stores? I mean, what's the point?
Probably some naive idea that music fans would: complain to their lawmakers about the stupid laws that require Apple to make separate stores for each country, even in the EU; rather than just post complaints about Apple on discussion groups.
Jerry
>You are (and always have) bought a license to use a copy,
>and the rights you have on how you can use that copy are
>limited.
>You do not have, for example, distribution rights.
Funny. It's true, you don't have distribution rights. But it's not an example, it's the part that the copyright monopoly covers. The copyright monopoly is a monopoly on distribution.
When (in the United States) we purchase CDs, books, or anything else that is copyrighted, we own that copy. We can do whatever we want with it--make copies for personal use, destroy it, modify it--as long as we do not infringe on the temporary copyright monopoly that someone else holds.
The holder of the copyright monopoly is not even allowed at add further restrictions, such as adding a EULA forbidding resale. This has been taken all the way to the Supreme Court, as far back as the early 1900s (a publisher tried to add a EULA to their books) and as recently as Adobe trying to enforce the EULA on their software forbidding resale.
The court has also explicitly stated that the copyright monopoly must be interpreted as thinly as possible: we own the things we purchase, and the copyright monopoly is a restriction on what we can do with the things we own.
I can rant quite a bit longer on this:
http://www.hoboes.com/Mimsy/?ART=9
Yes and no. The default user is an "administrative" user. They must type their username and password to gain root access. However, there have been some exploits that allow someone gaining control of an administrative user account to parley that into root access. Some of this has to do with what parts of the file system the administrative user has write access to.
/Library/StartupItems/; if they get the startup format correct, then on reboot those files would be run as root.
For example, up until at least 10.2, the admin user could write files to
I always recommend that people set up a non-admin user as their normal account. But of course, few people are going to go to the trouble of going beyond the default settings.
That said, even if security on that front were perfect, all it would do is keep malware from gaining root access. For the average user, malware that only has write access to their own files is going to be just as catastrophic.
The system does now warn you if this is the first time you've run an app.
Jerry
I don't see how that can count as "chipping away". There were a grand total of two restrictions in that article:
1) dropping the number of times a playlist with restricted music in it can be burned from ten to seven times.
2) having iTunes not respond to requests outside of its own subnet for the iTunes sharing feature.
Number 1 is so ridiculously trivial I can't even count that as a further restriction; it's more on the order of Apple offering the record companies a "restriction" that doesn't restrict users at all. They dropped the number of times a *playlist* can be burned. This does not limit the number of times the *song* can be burned. Put it in a different playlist, and you can burn it another seven times.
Further, this does not restrict the number of CDs you can make. Macs, at least, already include a feature that allows you to duplicate as many CDs as you want. If you really need more than seven copies of the *same playlist*, you can burn those copies more easily in Disk Utility than in iTunes anyway.
The second restriction is more substantial, as it blocks something that people might normally want to do without providing an easier alternative elsewhere on a stock system. However, from a technical standpoint it is also trivially easy to overcome through port forwarding or simply using another app, and the steps are widely available.
So, while they should certainly not have done the second one, and they probably should have gotten more concessions for the first one, I can't see this as chipping rights over time. The overall trend on iTunes remains either towards less restrictive DRM, or has remained steady.
Jerry
You mean, cable TV? No, I don't. I don't rent DVDs either; new DVDs don't cost much more than than renting them, and I have a backlog of purchased DVDs to watch.
The same applies to "renting" music I wouldn't want to listen to a lot. Because that's what Napster is: a system for listening to music you don't really want to listen to that much. I have more than enough music I want to listen to, to fill up my hard drive, let alone my portable music player.
Even if I had the disk space to store music I don't want to keep, I wouldn't want to pay for the privilege of doing so.
If I want to hear music I've never heard before, I will:
1) listen to the radio
2) listen to a friend's music (something iTunes makes easier than Napster appears to, but CDs make easier yet)
3) listen to previews on iTunes or mp3tunes.com
Music I want to listen to, I buy. I'm sure some people will enjoy the Napster rental service; but personally I can't see paying a monthly fee so that I can listen to music I don't enjoy enough to buy.
Jerry
I agree. I just re-read V last night. The first issue would work perfectly directly translated into a movie. The others are pretty close.
Then again, I think the best trailer would be the Vicious Cabaret song in the middle. No fucking way will that get done.
Sometimes good things happen in translations like this. I remember being floored by the radio ad for "Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas". But that sort of thing doesn't happen very often.
Anyway, having just re-read the book, I have no hope whatsoever that the movie is going to be anything more than a few explosions, a mask, and an otherwise complete subversion of the text.
"There's thrills and chills and girls galore! There's sing-songs and surprises! There's something here for everyone, reserve your seat today! There's mischiefs and malarkies, but no queers, or yids, or darkies... within this bastard's carnival, this vicious cabaret!"
Try a different parser...
To reasonably compare drug laws to murder laws, as the previous poster did, 30% of the people in the United States would have to have committed at least one murder in their lives. 10% of the people in the United States would have to have committed at least one murder in the last month. And they would have to care so little about breaking the laws against murder that they'd be willing to let a federal researcher (NIDA, in the case of drug laws) know.
Unless and until those numbers are true, the comparison to murder laws makes no sense.
Jerry
When over 30% of people in the United States have murdered someone at least once in their lifetime, and 10% have murdered someone in the last month, and they are willing to admit this to a cold-calling phone researcher, your counter argument will make more sense.
Jerry