But you can't find out who the owner is. The "companies" the article discusses are fly-by-night operations that don't provide any information about themselves. There's nothing but a website where you can input your address and your credit card number. No business license, no address, no phone number. Before this sort of thing started happening, you could at least find out who was hosting the website. Now, to actually find out something substantial about the company requires you to make a purchase, then see who billed your credit card.
There were like 15 million TurboTax returns in 2001 - and 5.5 million copies of TurboTax sold.
This does not mean that there were 10 million pirated copies of TurboTax. This means that people did their own taxes and their mom's taxes and maybe their neighbor's taxes with the software they bought. I don't care what the EULA says, that is not piracy. You don't have to buy a new copy of Microsoft Office each time you write a letter.
It gets into another big argument, but the idea that companies can tell you how you are allowed to use their product after you legally purchase it is pretty flawed. The reason so many average people commit the crime of piracy so often is because the restrictions companies are trying to place on ridiculous. Why would someone think it would be illegal to do their mom's taxes with the software they bought? You don't have to buy another car if you let your friend drive it.
One of the advantages that using software has over using a CPA is that it can be used over again for the same price. Part of Intuit's problem was that what consumers saw as a big advantage in using their product, Intuit saw as a crime. In order to stop this percieved crime, Intuit took away one of the big selling points of their software.
I'm glad they eventually learned their lesson, but I'm with a lot of folks here on/. After being ripped off by Intuit once, why should I go back?
Pajitnov never made a dime on Tetris. He wrote the game while working for the Computer Center of the Academy of Science, a Soviet government R&D lab. The Soviet government owned all copyrights to the game.
Pajitnov's notariety from making Tetris allowed him to emigrate to the US and make a lot of money working at several game companies, but this was years after the Tetris craze had hit it's peak.
Sisko was by far the baddest captain on Star Trek. Before he joined Star Fleet, he kicked ass on the mean streets of Boston as A Man Called Hawk. They don't come tougher than that.
It seems to me that sometimes there is a difference between being ethical and acting legally. Is it ethical for the law to limit my rights, if I am not harming anyone?
The issue of arcade ROMs illustrates perfectly the problem with our messed up copyright system. We can't legally play many old games because they are not for sale, nor will they ever be. The companies that made them are out of business, and their copyrights are either lost or packed away in some warehouse. They won't be dusted off and offered to the public, because it's not financially worth the trouble. This keeps ideas and information, in the form of old games, legally out of the public's hands. These ideas and information are roped off from the public not to benifit the creators of the games, the ostensible reason for copyright, but to protect the status quo of copyright in general, and keep "piracy" in all it's forms outside the law. This is not confined to old video games, but books, movies, recordings, and almost any form of expression.
It seems to me that many of these games do not use the standard joystick configuration. I don't have a spinner or a track ball, let alone something weird like Warlords 4 spinners, set up on my MAME machine. Games like Battlezone, Marble Madness, Missle Command, Millipede (hmm, lots of the 'M' games) Super Breakout, some of the driving games, etc., all require different controller layouts. Someday I hope to have a trackball control shelf for my game, and a spinner one, too. I'd like to see more available games with a standard joystick and buttons control layout.
That's less than 1/1000th of one percent of the estimated number of P2P users worldwide.
The slashdot story perpetuates the same fallacy that the RIAA is constantly trying to promote, namely, that P2P == piracy. Not all of the P2P users worldwide need to be granted amnesty, because many have not done anything illegal. True, that 836 number is a tiny fraction of the number of pirates the RIAA estimates, but their numbers are skewed to help their cause. Still, ther are probably more than 836 people violating copyrights via P2P networks.
When I first looked over the top 25 list, I thought I read Donkey Kong 64, and agreed completely. That was an overhyped game with tedious play and no big advance in graphics. I was shocked when I noticed they were talking about Donkey Kong Country.
Donkey Kong Country really blew everything else out of the water. It breathed new life into the aging SNES platform. The level of detail and the animation really pushed the envelope for the SNES hardware, and was way better than anything else at the time. I can't believe anyone who actually was a gamer when it came out would have any other opinion.
Extreme? Whenever I hear that word in an advertising campaign, I think of Homer Simpson as Poochy the Pooch: "Hey kids, remember to recycle... to the extreme!"
It only costs you 30 pounds to read the whole report here, so if you want to know the methodology, it will cost you. I guess that's better than Microsoft paying for the report...
Last time I checked you couldn't really copyright a bottle of laundry detergent.
Well now, that's what the people at Static Control Components thought, but it turned out to be not true. They are the ones making printer ink cartridges and getting sued by Lexmark. Any data on the RFID could be copyrighted. Formatting code for the product ID could be copyrighted. The product ID number itself might even be copyrighted. Using a device that read the tags could conceivably be in violation of the DMCA.
However, destroying any data contained on an RFID is not the same thing, if you don't read any it first. You are not violating a copyright if you don't even see the data you are supposedly copying.
Some have proposed a self-destruct switch in the RFID's as a way to placate privacy fans. This would switch of the RFID after an item is purchased. However, if you had some personal device that checked to see if the RFID was actually turned off, that could be in violation of the DMCA. Which goes to show what a badly written law it is, when it could conceivably thwart the industry's own privacy measures.
I went to see the Matrix opening weekend, and I counted 5 GBA's in the audience while we waited for the show to start. Since this was a rated R movie, it was mainly comprised of the demographic that Mr. Raiskinen says would be too embarassed to use a GameBoy. So, based on my experience, he's pretty wrong. But I'm not the guy who's trying to sell crappy cell phone/video game thingies.
Atari had a lot of problems, and inventory management was one of them. A large and clueless beauracracy at Atari made some incredibly stupid decisions. But crappy games were a big part too. Its not just that they made more PacMan cartridges than there were existing consoles, it's that PacMan sucked and the people who bought it felt screwed and vowed not to get suckered again. I know I did.
Games like PacMan and ET, which were hyped to high heaven and were some of the worst games for the system really turned off consumers. Ask people who remember that era what the best Atari games were. You'll hear stuff like Combat and Adventure, stuff that came out early in the 2600's life cycle. Ask them what games they hated, and they'll tell you games that came out just before the crash, like PacMan and ET.
That's part of one formula for success. Yes, Sony's embrace of 3rd party developers helped pave the way for their PS1 success. But Nintendo set the bar high for developers for a reason. In the early '80's, a glut of shitty games for the Atari 2600 killed the video game industry. When Nintendo started shopping the NES to retailers in 1984, no one wanted to touch video games. Toy stores told Nintendo that video games were poison, and they would never sell. Nintendo single handedly revived the industry in part by keeping a tight rein on developers and insuring only realatively quality stuff got published.
I know times are different now. There are a lot of media that cover games, and people have a lot better idea what they are buying than they did in the Atari age. Nintendo has been slow to adapt, but it has made changes.
The GameCube is very programmer friendly. Its graphics API is based on openGL, so programmers can start out without having to learn a whole new system. Compared to the PS2, it is a snap to program for.
Nintendo is much more open to third party developers today. They don't have any quality or content restrictions, other than some standard control systems for memory cards and open console lids and that sort of thing. But they haven't done much to publicise that to the developer community. Many studios still think they have to deal with that "Mario Club" stuff.
I would also agree that smaller studios have a hard time getting dev kits. You have to have a publisher before Nintendo will sell you one. This creates a catch-22. Many studios want to create a demo on a dev kit and shop it to publishers, but they can't get a dev kit without a publisher.
But the war is over for now. Sony has 50 million or so for an installed base. Developers want to publish on the console that has the most potential customers. The PS2 has about 5 times as many potential customers than either the XBox or GameCube.
Nintendo's strategy has been to make some incredible exclusive content. Many of best games available for any platform are available only on the GameCube. Metroid, Zelda, Mario Sunshine, are the big guns. They are also trying to leverage their huge install base of the GameBoy by making games that interact with the handheld and the console.
All these things seem like good ideas to me, but Nintendo is still paying for mistakes it made on the N64 (sticking with the cartridge format, not having enough games ready at launch, and yes, not embracing 3rd party developers). That's when the big switch to Sony took place, and it might be a couple console generations, if ever, before Nintendo can recover.
Gun rights? We are under UN disarmament rules right this second, they just choose to do it slowly to avoid revolt. Kennedy signed it, IIRC.
If they started implementing some sort of UN mandated gun control 40 years ago (when Kennedy was president), I would say it is a testament to the strength of the constitution that not only do I still have a gun at home, but I could legally get several more in a matter of days. At some point, if it is slow enough, slowly implementing these UN disarmament rules becomes not implementing them. If this in fact the case, I think it makes the point of the original poster, that treaties can't take away constitutional rights.
That sounds about right, although I remember them being more forceful about leaving their options open. Thanks for finding that. I would agree that after the response to Intuit's missteps, H&R Block is unlikely to pursue any sort of activation.
In February, when this brouhaha first kicked up, I read an article with quotes from an H&R Block spokesdrone. He said they were happy because people were showing interest in their product, but they had been researching anti-piracy measures and were considering adding some sort of authentication to next year's release.
I spent some time googleing for the article, but I couldn't find it, and since I'm not a reporter, but just some guy spouting off on the internet, I'm not going to work any harder to find it.
Okay, why you would want to browse on your gameboy vs. your PDA or cell phone is beyond me. For the same cost you can get a device designed for wireless web access, with much better UI and button layout. The main advantage I see in this technology would be for wireless multiplayer games, and they have zero developer support for that. According to their website, they are taking applications from developers. Without some seriously good game support, no one is going to buy this.
I don't see this being purchased by more than just a few hobbyists who love to use Linux on weird platforms.
Thank goodness enough people got pissed about this. Intuit justified the DRM scheme by exaggerating their software losses. They said they sold x copies of TurboTax, yet 2x tax returns were filed using their software, implying that piracy cut their sales in half. They didn't mention how someone might legally do their own taxes and their mom's taxes on the same piece of software.
Ironically, H&R Block, the main benificiary of the consumer ire towards Intuit, is considering adding DRM to their TaxCut software for next year.
It's not only been announced, it's been out since last October. Trouble is, only one game currently supports it. The broadband adapter came out with Phantasy Star Online, the same time the modem came out. You could use either one with PSO. They didn't make that many, and they are hard to find. I assume they will make more available before Mario Kart DD comes out. Info here.
Amazon shows some details, but it is out of stock and discontinued.
Got a chance to play the Japanese version yesterday. The game looks gorgeous, but the gameplay is not what I expected. It's not really a "third person action" game, but more like a shooter. It has more in common with Panzer Dragoon Zwei or Sin and Punishment than it does with Devil May Cry or Tomb Raider (hot chick main character aside).
It was fun, but I hear it gets repetitive. I didn't get to play it long enough to find out. The main character, Vanessa, does these sexy little dance moves while she is fighting. Kind of odd, but cool. The environments are beautiful. The camera takes some getting used to, but after I got the hang of it, I didn't have any problems.
I'm definetly buying this one when it is released in the US.
This game will have up to 8 players. You can connect up several GameCubes with broadband adapters and a LAN hub, similiar to the PS2's setup for Gran Turismo III. Each car has two characters, one to drive and one to attack. You can have them switch seats to utilize the different characters strengths at different times. The version I played didn't have a great sensation of speed, but it is still a ways from release, so that might get fixed.
I didn't mean to suggest that there are no great artists out there who could take the art form further. I meant that the current legal landscape stifles creativity and limits the artists. Current laws will have to be drastically revised before the medium can truly expand and reach its potential.
Taking a recorded track and using it in your own recording in a studio is called sampling. I call it theft.
I understand the sentiment, but I disagree. When you put your music or your story or your ideas out there for people to enjoy, people take them and make them a part of their lives. Your work becomes more than your work, it becomes what people take from it and what people add to it. That's our culture. To fence this culture off from everyone, to refuse to let people build on your ideas, is wrong and unnatural.
If someone takes a few notes of your song and weaves it into new music, I don't see how that is stealing from you. What have you lost? The idea of sampling as theft is worse than that of copying as theft. If the new song is radically different than the sampled song, then the sampled artist hasn't even lost a theoretical sale.
Slashdot Mirror
But you can't find out who the owner is. The "companies" the article discusses are fly-by-night operations that don't provide any information about themselves. There's nothing but a website where you can input your address and your credit card number. No business license, no address, no phone number. Before this sort of thing started happening, you could at least find out who was hosting the website. Now, to actually find out something substantial about the company requires you to make a purchase, then see who billed your credit card.
There were like 15 million TurboTax returns in 2001 - and 5.5 million copies of TurboTax sold.
/. After being ripped off by Intuit once, why should I go back?
This does not mean that there were 10 million pirated copies of TurboTax. This means that people did their own taxes and their mom's taxes and maybe their neighbor's taxes with the software they bought. I don't care what the EULA says, that is not piracy. You don't have to buy a new copy of Microsoft Office each time you write a letter.
It gets into another big argument, but the idea that companies can tell you how you are allowed to use their product after you legally purchase it is pretty flawed. The reason so many average people commit the crime of piracy so often is because the restrictions companies are trying to place on ridiculous. Why would someone think it would be illegal to do their mom's taxes with the software they bought? You don't have to buy another car if you let your friend drive it.
One of the advantages that using software has over using a CPA is that it can be used over again for the same price. Part of Intuit's problem was that what consumers saw as a big advantage in using their product, Intuit saw as a crime. In order to stop this percieved crime, Intuit took away one of the big selling points of their software.
I'm glad they eventually learned their lesson, but I'm with a lot of folks here on
Pajitnov never made a dime on Tetris. He wrote the game while working for the Computer Center of the Academy of Science, a Soviet government R&D lab. The Soviet government owned all copyrights to the game.
Pajitnov's notariety from making Tetris allowed him to emigrate to the US and make a lot of money working at several game companies, but this was years after the Tetris craze had hit it's peak.
Sisko was by far the baddest captain on Star Trek. Before he joined Star Fleet, he kicked ass on the mean streets of Boston as A Man Called Hawk. They don't come tougher than that.
It seems to me that sometimes there is a difference between being ethical and acting legally. Is it ethical for the law to limit my rights, if I am not harming anyone?
The issue of arcade ROMs illustrates perfectly the problem with our messed up copyright system. We can't legally play many old games because they are not for sale, nor will they ever be. The companies that made them are out of business, and their copyrights are either lost or packed away in some warehouse. They won't be dusted off and offered to the public, because it's not financially worth the trouble. This keeps ideas and information, in the form of old games, legally out of the public's hands. These ideas and information are roped off from the public not to benifit the creators of the games, the ostensible reason for copyright, but to protect the status quo of copyright in general, and keep "piracy" in all it's forms outside the law. This is not confined to old video games, but books, movies, recordings, and almost any form of expression.
It seems to me that many of these games do not use the standard joystick configuration. I don't have a spinner or a track ball, let alone something weird like Warlords 4 spinners, set up on my MAME machine. Games like Battlezone, Marble Madness, Missle Command, Millipede (hmm, lots of the 'M' games) Super Breakout, some of the driving games, etc., all require different controller layouts. Someday I hope to have a trackball control shelf for my game, and a spinner one, too. I'd like to see more available games with a standard joystick and buttons control layout.
That's less than 1/1000th of one percent of the estimated number of P2P users worldwide.
The slashdot story perpetuates the same fallacy that the RIAA is constantly trying to promote, namely, that P2P == piracy. Not all of the P2P users worldwide need to be granted amnesty, because many have not done anything illegal. True, that 836 number is a tiny fraction of the number of pirates the RIAA estimates, but their numbers are skewed to help their cause. Still, ther are probably more than 836 people violating copyrights via P2P networks.
When I first looked over the top 25 list, I thought I read Donkey Kong 64, and agreed completely. That was an overhyped game with tedious play and no big advance in graphics. I was shocked when I noticed they were talking about Donkey Kong Country.
Donkey Kong Country really blew everything else out of the water. It breathed new life into the aging SNES platform. The level of detail and the animation really pushed the envelope for the SNES hardware, and was way better than anything else at the time. I can't believe anyone who actually was a gamer when it came out would have any other opinion.
Extreme? Whenever I hear that word in an advertising campaign, I think of Homer Simpson as Poochy the Pooch: "Hey kids, remember to recycle... to the extreme!"
It only costs you 30 pounds to read the whole report here, so if you want to know the methodology, it will cost you. I guess that's better than Microsoft paying for the report...
My money's on Goldberg!
Well, Spider-man kicked Randy "Macho Man" (or is it Macho-man?) Savage's ass in the movie version, so I think he could handle a wrestler.
As for Goldberg and comics, I think they should've had Goldberg play the Hulk in the movie version.
Last time I checked you couldn't really copyright a bottle of laundry detergent.
Well now, that's what the people at Static Control Components thought, but it turned out to be not true. They are the ones making printer ink cartridges and getting sued by Lexmark. Any data on the RFID could be copyrighted. Formatting code for the product ID could be copyrighted. The product ID number itself might even be copyrighted. Using a device that read the tags could conceivably be in violation of the DMCA.
However, destroying any data contained on an RFID is not the same thing, if you don't read any it first. You are not violating a copyright if you don't even see the data you are supposedly copying.
Some have proposed a self-destruct switch in the RFID's as a way to placate privacy fans. This would switch of the RFID after an item is purchased. However, if you had some personal device that checked to see if the RFID was actually turned off, that could be in violation of the DMCA. Which goes to show what a badly written law it is, when it could conceivably thwart the industry's own privacy measures.
I went to see the Matrix opening weekend, and I counted 5 GBA's in the audience while we waited for the show to start. Since this was a rated R movie, it was mainly comprised of the demographic that Mr. Raiskinen says would be too embarassed to use a GameBoy. So, based on my experience, he's pretty wrong. But I'm not the guy who's trying to sell crappy cell phone/video game thingies.
Atari had a lot of problems, and inventory management was one of them. A large and clueless beauracracy at Atari made some incredibly stupid decisions. But crappy games were a big part too. Its not just that they made more PacMan cartridges than there were existing consoles, it's that PacMan sucked and the people who bought it felt screwed and vowed not to get suckered again. I know I did.
Games like PacMan and ET, which were hyped to high heaven and were some of the worst games for the system really turned off consumers. Ask people who remember that era what the best Atari games were. You'll hear stuff like Combat and Adventure, stuff that came out early in the 2600's life cycle. Ask them what games they hated, and they'll tell you games that came out just before the crash, like PacMan and ET.
That's part of one formula for success. Yes, Sony's embrace of 3rd party developers helped pave the way for their PS1 success. But Nintendo set the bar high for developers for a reason. In the early '80's, a glut of shitty games for the Atari 2600 killed the video game industry. When Nintendo started shopping the NES to retailers in 1984, no one wanted to touch video games. Toy stores told Nintendo that video games were poison, and they would never sell. Nintendo single handedly revived the industry in part by keeping a tight rein on developers and insuring only realatively quality stuff got published.
I know times are different now. There are a lot of media that cover games, and people have a lot better idea what they are buying than they did in the Atari age. Nintendo has been slow to adapt, but it has made changes.
The GameCube is very programmer friendly. Its graphics API is based on openGL, so programmers can start out without having to learn a whole new system. Compared to the PS2, it is a snap to program for.
Nintendo is much more open to third party developers today. They don't have any quality or content restrictions, other than some standard control systems for memory cards and open console lids and that sort of thing. But they haven't done much to publicise that to the developer community. Many studios still think they have to deal with that "Mario Club" stuff.
I would also agree that smaller studios have a hard time getting dev kits. You have to have a publisher before Nintendo will sell you one. This creates a catch-22. Many studios want to create a demo on a dev kit and shop it to publishers, but they can't get a dev kit without a publisher.
But the war is over for now. Sony has 50 million or so for an installed base. Developers want to publish on the console that has the most potential customers. The PS2 has about 5 times as many potential customers than either the XBox or GameCube.
Nintendo's strategy has been to make some incredible exclusive content. Many of best games available for any platform are available only on the GameCube. Metroid, Zelda, Mario Sunshine, are the big guns. They are also trying to leverage their huge install base of the GameBoy by making games that interact with the handheld and the console.
All these things seem like good ideas to me, but Nintendo is still paying for mistakes it made on the N64 (sticking with the cartridge format, not having enough games ready at launch, and yes, not embracing 3rd party developers). That's when the big switch to Sony took place, and it might be a couple console generations, if ever, before Nintendo can recover.
Gun rights? We are under UN disarmament rules right this second, they just choose to do it slowly to avoid revolt. Kennedy signed it, IIRC.
If they started implementing some sort of UN mandated gun control 40 years ago (when Kennedy was president), I would say it is a testament to the strength of the constitution that not only do I still have a gun at home, but I could legally get several more in a matter of days. At some point, if it is slow enough, slowly implementing these UN disarmament rules becomes not implementing them. If this in fact the case, I think it makes the point of the original poster, that treaties can't take away constitutional rights.
That sounds about right, although I remember them being more forceful about leaving their options open. Thanks for finding that. I would agree that after the response to Intuit's missteps, H&R Block is unlikely to pursue any sort of activation.
In February, when this brouhaha first kicked up, I read an article with quotes from an H&R Block spokesdrone. He said they were happy because people were showing interest in their product, but they had been researching anti-piracy measures and were considering adding some sort of authentication to next year's release.
I spent some time googleing for the article, but I couldn't find it, and since I'm not a reporter, but just some guy spouting off on the internet, I'm not going to work any harder to find it.
Okay, why you would want to browse on your gameboy vs. your PDA or cell phone is beyond me. For the same cost you can get a device designed for wireless web access, with much better UI and button layout. The main advantage I see in this technology would be for wireless multiplayer games, and they have zero developer support for that. According to their website, they are taking applications from developers. Without some seriously good game support, no one is going to buy this.
I don't see this being purchased by more than just a few hobbyists who love to use Linux on weird platforms.
Thank goodness enough people got pissed about this. Intuit justified the DRM scheme by exaggerating their software losses. They said they sold x copies of TurboTax, yet 2x tax returns were filed using their software, implying that piracy cut their sales in half. They didn't mention how someone might legally do their own taxes and their mom's taxes on the same piece of software.
Ironically, H&R Block, the main benificiary of the consumer ire towards Intuit, is considering adding DRM to their TaxCut software for next year.
It's not only been announced, it's been out since last October. Trouble is, only one game currently supports it. The broadband adapter came out with Phantasy Star Online, the same time the modem came out. You could use either one with PSO. They didn't make that many, and they are hard to find. I assume they will make more available before Mario Kart DD comes out. Info here.
Amazon shows some
details, but it is out of stock and discontinued.
Got a chance to play the Japanese version yesterday. The game looks gorgeous, but the gameplay is not what I expected. It's not really a "third person action" game, but more like a shooter. It has more in common with Panzer Dragoon Zwei or Sin and Punishment than it does with Devil May Cry or Tomb Raider (hot chick main character aside).
It was fun, but I hear it gets repetitive. I didn't get to play it long enough to find out. The main character, Vanessa, does these sexy little dance moves while she is fighting. Kind of odd, but cool. The environments are beautiful. The camera takes some getting used to, but after I got the hang of it, I didn't have any problems.
I'm definetly buying this one when it is released in the US.
This game will have up to 8 players. You can connect up several GameCubes with broadband adapters and a LAN hub, similiar to the PS2's setup for Gran Turismo III. Each car has two characters, one to drive and one to attack. You can have them switch seats to utilize the different characters strengths at different times. The version I played didn't have a great sensation of speed, but it is still a ways from release, so that might get fixed.
I didn't mean to suggest that there are no great artists out there who could take the art form further. I meant that the current legal landscape stifles creativity and limits the artists. Current laws will have to be drastically revised before the medium can truly expand and reach its potential.
Taking a recorded track and using it in your own recording in a studio is called sampling. I call it theft.
I understand the sentiment, but I disagree. When you put your music or your story or your ideas out there for people to enjoy, people take them and make them a part of their lives. Your work becomes more than your work, it becomes what people take from it and what people add to it. That's our culture. To fence this culture off from everyone, to refuse to let people build on your ideas, is wrong and unnatural.
If someone takes a few notes of your song and weaves it into new music, I don't see how that is stealing from you. What have you lost? The idea of sampling as theft is worse than that of copying as theft. If the new song is radically different than the sampled song, then the sampled artist hasn't even lost a theoretical sale.