The illegal copy happens when the uploader sends a copy of a local file over the line. At that moment, we go from having one copy to two. As far as downloaders, well, they just take that copy and place it on the hard drive - which is simply a transfer: the copy on the line disappears after saving. Hence, to prosecute, they love to go after folks uploading lots of files. In a case where you've only downloaded one file, the defense will have a strong case as I stated above. I can certainly see a found-the-illegal-copy-of-a-book-on-the-street type defense in this case.
A smart prosecutor would suggest that the copy was only made at the downloader's request however, which could certainly muddle the issue, and would in fact be a good defense for uploaders: "I didn't make the copies! A program running on my computer did, and it only did because THAT GUY asked it to, not me!"
I'm very keen on seeing how all this will play out in the next few years.
GBA has no hardware 3D. DS does, but that's brand new, and is essentially a scaled down N64. For comparison, a GBA is a scaled down SNES - no 3D there either.
There have been successful attempts to emulate GBA on handhelds, but most of them have been the higher end Zaurus/Pocket PC types - palm doesn't cut it.
Grandparent is correct in pointing out that a particular method of controlling your body requires practice. Any physical activity you've learned bears this out, as do mental activites; it's simply learning.
In fact, though you assert that the analogy has "nothing to do with what might or might not be possible", I'd argue that it does. If you read the article, they mention that as the two subjects practiced, they got better at controlling what was happening on-screen with their minds.
That is actually a pretty good indicator that someone who grew up doing it would be better than someone who was just learning later in life - such as someone that grew up in the Matrix versus a Child of Zion.
It may be only a story but the parallels are real (pong vs. The Matrix, electrodes placed on the brain vs. steel rod inserted in brain).
All you're saying is that lawyers have a job. This is akin to complaining that you must have talent that others do not have to be a (lawyer, software engineer, plumber, cabinet maker, writer, editor, artist, sculptor, welder, car mechanic). This is unrelated to the underlying point of the discussion, and it is the second time you've done this. Whether someone chooses to be a lawyer (your first post to which I responded), and who laws are written for (parent of this post) has no bearing on whether or not you should be casting judgement on someone because they are a "lawyer".
On the other hand, I spend a lot of time reading law, which I can understand. I am particularly interested in copyright law and patent law. By trade, I am a software engineer. So your argument that laws are written for lawyers is patently false...rather, I would say reading laws and understanding them requires you to be literate.
Further, the real area that lawyers specialize in, rather than reading and writing law, as you assert, is in interpreatation and application of law - similar to the same expertise a judge has. Even if your statement were relevant, it is incorrect.
Justifying your actions by arguing that he would have revealed certain information to defend himself if he had been able is a shallow and meaningless defense. You are once again assuming something in the absence of any good information to conclude "I was pretty close to the truth." I do not understand why you're on a crusade against this man's father. If you had a bad experience with a lawyer (or the law), accept it for what it is: an incident isolated to those circumstances. Don't deride others you do not know because you're unhappy with the outcome of a particular incident in your life.
Actually the analogy is perfect. It doesn't matter to his argument whether the status is chosen, only that you are succumbing to common conception of how a certain status ("black", "lawyer") defines a person in ethical and moral terms.
Basically, you're arguing that an assigned label allows you to be justified in making certain ethical and moral judgements about a person. I simply disagree. You can no more make an ethical judgement about a person based on their profession than you can based on skin color or religion. There may be trends, but that simply doesn't justify applying it on a case-to-case basis without further information.
In the end, lawyers, blacks, christians, jews, muslims, plumbers, asians, and software engineers are just people, and you cannot really judge them any better after assigning them a label than you can beforehand. This applies less strictly in some situations than others ("murderer", "thief"), but even then, the individual case matters: do you know anyone who has never stolen anything? People change, and circumstances matter. Judge them after you know what they've done, not before. For all you know, the guy is a lawyer working for the EFF to preserve fair use rights with movies and music.
"The Linux desktop also was impenetrable, but only was only targeted by 0.26% of all attacks."
They act like how often it's attacked is a detractor from how secure it is ("it's not exploited because no one ever attacks it!") In fact, I'd say the systems that are attacked the least is *because* they are so difficult to exploit. Well, that and they only are about 2 or 3 out of every 100 systems you'll ping.
I think it's news because it's the music industry's first foray into commercialized p2p music distribution, and apparently they've managed to convince some large companies that it's a worthwhile endevour. News to me.
I really don't want to get into an extended argument here, but I will say this:
It absolutly matters how hard your life is if you don't agree to a contract when determining if it is an adhesion contract. In the extreme case, a contract would not be binding if I said I would kill you (or sell you into slavery, whatever) if you did not agree.
The current situation with software lies somewhere between a perfectly reasonable situation and the slavery/death example. I assert that it lies too far towards the slavery/death scenario, and that we need to balance things a bit. I also therefore assert that the current clickwrap agreements attached to software are adhesion contracts, and are not binding. The current trend in court judgements does not agree with me, however.
No, his point is the same point I made in an article I wrote concerning adhesion contracts:
It is not reasonable to expect someone to pay money for something whose use is restricted by a contract whose terms are not known at the point of sale. That's essentially saying:
"I'll sell you this software, but you can only use it in ways that are specifically outlined in this contract that's in the drawer over there. That contract may also say things about certain information you have to give me about yourself before you can use the software. In fact, I'm not even selling you the software, I'm licensing the software to you. And no, you can't see the contract or terms of said license until you pay me for the software."
Combined this with the fact that you often cannot return the software to the guy who sold it to you, and instead have to call the manufacturer, get an RMA, and then pay for packaging and postage to to send it back, I'd say that is a pretty unreasonable deal for the customer.
The point here is that with software, you are basically coerced into pressing "I Agree" because of the non-trivial amount of time necessary to read and agree to the EULA, as well as the time and money required to return it to a publisher, all occuring after your money is in someone else's hands. You must remember, as long as you hold the money, you have a certain measure of bargaining power. After you let go of the money, you are basically at the mercy of a company's good will. This is why companies are eager to get you to part with your money as quickly as possible, and as early in the process, with the least amount of information as possible.
I argue that any software company MUST make the terms of any contract readily accessible as the point of sale, BEFORE and money changes hands. There will still be unfair bargaining power in favor of the publisher (as was cited by a judge on 30 Sept in the bnetd case - mainly because that particular publisher is the only source of legal licenses for that software), but at least it will be more balanced than it is now.
Your peaches analogy is not appropriate in this context, because peaches are a consumable that has no license, and whose condition is apparent at the point of sale. Neither of these conditions hold for software.
You P4? Did you mean Athlon 64? P4 is not 64-bit...
Gentoo's official word is not to compile anything to support 32 bit through Portage. I downloaded from CVS, set my CFLAGS to include -m32, used GCC with multilib, emerged all the emul libraries (since both my kernel and most programs are 64 bit), and compiled a 32 bit binary. This then works with the windows 32 bit games, as well as the NVidia drivers.
With a P4 (if that's what you've got), just grab CVS,./configure and make. War3, WoW and most newer games should work pretty well. No 64 bit worries that that procesor.
That letter is Lambda, which is the notation used in Chemistry to denote the half-life of a radioactive isotope.
Incidentally, they use the lower case lambda, since using upper case would look like and upside down V, which people would probably think was just an A and Valve had "stylized" it.
1. WineX source available free on Transgaming's CVS
2. I run x86_64 (AMD Athon 64) and run WineX all the time - just compile it as a 32 bit application. Run with NVidia drivers.
3. You're not going to get a OpenGL port. So the decision is to either play HL2, or not play, but waiting won't help much, besides lowering th price in a few months.
You're right, it is a violation of the GPL, but Cedega is released under the Aladdin License, not GPL.
Besides, you can go into the Transgaming CVS and grab all the source free (when I say "all", it doesn't include their licensed cd copy protection code) and compile it yourself, though they offer no support if you do.
But the geek side of me has to acknowledge that the idea of downloading premium game content over the net versus having to walk/drive to the store is a great advance, and while it may havebeen inevitable, its good to see it actually working today (albeit with some growing pains in the first few hours/days/weeks).
This is exaclty the business model I'd like to see pursued with software, music and movies. It puts the money into the hands of the developers, rather than the publishers, and has the potential to eventually lower prices, if competition is good.
I'd like to see $40 premium games on release day, rather than the push for $55-$60 pricetags, along with knowing that even though I pay $15-$20 less, more money is actually going to the guys who wrote the software.
I'm not sure whether to jump at this or the Nintendo DS. To be honest, I love the Playstation 2, but after all the anti-hype about battery life on the PSP, I think its a tough question.
Certainly the hardware on the PSP is extremely impressive, but I question whether it's impressive enough to warrant the two hour battery life (or less) that I'll have to spend another $45 for a spare battery (BTW, I like that you can buy a spare battery!).
DS might have taken the safer road with the long battery times while still providing a very good graphical experience. I'll probably end up waiting and seeing how much Sony can squeeze from the PSP, and see what games come out for what platform. After all, SOny did say that in "later revisions" of the firmware, they would be able to extend battery life out to 6 hours and beyond for high end games. Sounds ridiculous, but one can always hope.
My argument didn't really boil down to "Since I paid money for it, it's legitimate." It instead pointed to copyright law.
I welcome input regarding the legality of allofmp3 that is based on law/fact, since I think it is a topic that is open to question. My research so far has indicated that it is legal, assuming it is legal in Russia, which I believe it is, based on their own statements.
IANAL either, so if anyone is better informed, please advise. Until then, I feel bad not supporting arists, but I'd rather support Allofmp3 that supports OGG and Linux than line the pockets of the RIAA.
Err, parent isn't flamebait. He is just stating a fact. AllofMP3 is a very good deal. And if you read copyright law, I think you'll find that if you don't redistribute the music you get from the service, it is quite legal in the US, so long as it was provided legally in Russia, which the website states it is. There is a what-was-legal-in-another-country-is-legal-here-fo r -personal-use provision in copyright law regarding imports.
To be honest, I'm often surprised that iTunes basically gives you only about a 33% discount off of CD based distribution (assume an album has 13 tracks - that's $13 versus $17-$18). Its doing very well, and yet I still don't think its that great of a deal, especially considering it's lossy and DRM'd, doesn't include media (the CD), or a case insert with info. AllofMP3 offers lossless encoding, as well as MP3s, Oggs, AAC, etc, in a variety of bitrates.
I'm different than most iTunes users though, since I view the base unit of music as an album, and most users view their base unit of music as a song. I like to see progression and themes develop through an album, mainly because I listen to music that has themed albums. Not much point in buying one track then. It's a different story with pop music.
- You pay monthly subscription for the cable service.
- You pay monthly subscription for the internet access to setup the Tivo.
- You pay for the Tivo itself, probably getting a new one every 3 years or so (that's what Tivo says life expectancy is, anyway).
- You pay subscription for any premium channels per month.
- You pay monthly subscription for the Tivo service.
And now you say, after all that, I'm supposed to lie down and pay with my time watching commercials as well?
I don't think so. At some point you have to say "Hey, I have paid enough. Now I should get to watch the programs I paid for, not advertising."
I'm at that point. You spend so much for all the services (easily over $100 a month for internet+ cable + tivo + special subscription channels + amortized Tivo + amortized TV) that it starts making a huge dent in people's finances.
Also, from the sounds of it, this would end up effectively inserting commercials onto premium channels if you ever wanted to fast-forward HBO's between-the-movies-previews crap. Its easy to say each thing isn't that much worse than the thing before it, but you have to see the overall trend, and draw the line somewhere.
Asking one or two people with glaucoma qualifies as anecdotal, whereas reading lab results, etc., is more authoritative.
It kind of like asking someone how it feels to be drunk, what pain medicine works the best, or what the best decongestant is. The answer in all cases is: "It varies depending on who you ask."
Studies can then provide more info: "But 74% of people generally find brand X decongestant to be the most effective."
Whereas Bob-with-a-cold can only say "I think brand Y works the best. Try it!"
In any case, calling someone a dumb ass because they didn't do what you would do is a bit derisive.
Re:he is obviously sharing with others
on
The Music Man
·
· Score: 1
You misunderstood - my argument was based on a technicality that he said he had never shared something that was part of his library. I realize you upload while downloading. What I was saying was that until he was finished downloading, those uploads didn't count because they were not finished, and therefore not yet part of his library.
Re:he is obviously sharing with others
on
The Music Man
·
· Score: 1
Yeah, but they're not part of his library until he *finishes* downloading them, so technically, he's right. No one has downloaded anything from his library.
I suppose he'd have to close that torrent window pretty quick though after they finish...
Gentoo user here, and quite happy. But for my laptop, I tried a few different "easy" distros, and found Mepis to be very impressive. Comes on one CD - has most of what I want out of the box. Used kpackage with debian repositories for the rest.
Unauthorized copies of software is not theft, its copyright infringement. The whole argument that pirating music, movies, or software without paying is theft is a misconception propogated by the industry. It is illegal however. Enforcement has traditionally been left to the copyright holders, however, not the feds or state police, as is starting to be the case now.
Also, I would beg to differ regarding "cannot". Obviously, they can profit - the issue here is that they are not legally permitted to profit from it.
But you miss grandparent's point: Microsoft retains the copyright on Windows, and this does not permit you to pirate it, just because (for whatever reason) they included some shady.wav files.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm, it doesn't seem you read the second half of my post before replying.
The illegal copy happens when the uploader sends a copy of a local file over the line. At that moment, we go from having one copy to two. As far as downloaders, well, they just take that copy and place it on the hard drive - which is simply a transfer: the copy on the line disappears after saving. Hence, to prosecute, they love to go after folks uploading lots of files. In a case where you've only downloaded one file, the defense will have a strong case as I stated above. I can certainly see a found-the-illegal-copy-of-a-book-on-the-street type defense in this case.
A smart prosecutor would suggest that the copy was only made at the downloader's request however, which could certainly muddle the issue, and would in fact be a good defense for uploaders: "I didn't make the copies! A program running on my computer did, and it only did because THAT GUY asked it to, not me!"
I'm very keen on seeing how all this will play out in the next few years.
GBA has no hardware 3D. DS does, but that's brand new, and is essentially a scaled down N64. For comparison, a GBA is a scaled down SNES - no 3D there either.
There have been successful attempts to emulate GBA on handhelds, but most of them have been the higher end Zaurus/Pocket PC types - palm doesn't cut it.
Grandparent is correct in pointing out that a particular method of controlling your body requires practice. Any physical activity you've learned bears this out, as do mental activites; it's simply learning.
In fact, though you assert that the analogy has "nothing to do with what might or might not be possible", I'd argue that it does. If you read the article, they mention that as the two subjects practiced, they got better at controlling what was happening on-screen with their minds.
That is actually a pretty good indicator that someone who grew up doing it would be better than someone who was just learning later in life - such as someone that grew up in the Matrix versus a Child of Zion.
It may be only a story but the parallels are real (pong vs. The Matrix, electrodes placed on the brain vs. steel rod inserted in brain).
All you're saying is that lawyers have a job. This is akin to complaining that you must have talent that others do not have to be a (lawyer, software engineer, plumber, cabinet maker, writer, editor, artist, sculptor, welder, car mechanic). This is unrelated to the underlying point of the discussion, and it is the second time you've done this. Whether someone chooses to be a lawyer (your first post to which I responded), and who laws are written for (parent of this post) has no bearing on whether or not you should be casting judgement on someone because they are a "lawyer".
On the other hand, I spend a lot of time reading law, which I can understand. I am particularly interested in copyright law and patent law. By trade, I am a software engineer. So your argument that laws are written for lawyers is patently false...rather, I would say reading laws and understanding them requires you to be literate.
Further, the real area that lawyers specialize in, rather than reading and writing law, as you assert, is in interpreatation and application of law - similar to the same expertise a judge has. Even if your statement were relevant, it is incorrect.
Justifying your actions by arguing that he would have revealed certain information to defend himself if he had been able is a shallow and meaningless defense. You are once again assuming something in the absence of any good information to conclude "I was pretty close to the truth." I do not understand why you're on a crusade against this man's father. If you had a bad experience with a lawyer (or the law), accept it for what it is: an incident isolated to those circumstances. Don't deride others you do not know because you're unhappy with the outcome of a particular incident in your life.
It was a sarcastic reponse to the same verbage present in the post to which he was responding.
Actually the analogy is perfect. It doesn't matter to his argument whether the status is chosen, only that you are succumbing to common conception of how a certain status ("black", "lawyer") defines a person in ethical and moral terms.
Basically, you're arguing that an assigned label allows you to be justified in making certain ethical and moral judgements about a person. I simply disagree. You can no more make an ethical judgement about a person based on their profession than you can based on skin color or religion. There may be trends, but that simply doesn't justify applying it on a case-to-case basis without further information.
In the end, lawyers, blacks, christians, jews, muslims, plumbers, asians, and software engineers are just people, and you cannot really judge them any better after assigning them a label than you can beforehand. This applies less strictly in some situations than others ("murderer", "thief"), but even then, the individual case matters: do you know anyone who has never stolen anything? People change, and circumstances matter. Judge them after you know what they've done, not before. For all you know, the guy is a lawyer working for the EFF to preserve fair use rights with movies and music.
"The Linux desktop also was impenetrable, but only was only targeted by 0.26% of all attacks."
They act like how often it's attacked is a detractor from how secure it is ("it's not exploited because no one ever attacks it!") In fact, I'd say the systems that are attacked the least is *because* they are so difficult to exploit. Well, that and they only are about 2 or 3 out of every 100 systems you'll ping.
I think it's news because it's the music industry's first foray into commercialized p2p music distribution, and apparently they've managed to convince some large companies that it's a worthwhile endevour. News to me.
I really don't want to get into an extended argument here, but I will say this:
It absolutly matters how hard your life is if you don't agree to a contract when determining if it is an adhesion contract. In the extreme case, a contract would not be binding if I said I would kill you (or sell you into slavery, whatever) if you did not agree.
The current situation with software lies somewhere between a perfectly reasonable situation and the slavery/death example. I assert that it lies too far towards the slavery/death scenario, and that we need to balance things a bit. I also therefore assert that the current clickwrap agreements attached to software are adhesion contracts, and are not binding. The current trend in court judgements does not agree with me, however.
This does not mean I endorse piracy.
No, his point is the same point I made in an article I wrote concerning adhesion contracts:
It is not reasonable to expect someone to pay money for something whose use is restricted by a contract whose terms are not known at the point of sale. That's essentially saying:
"I'll sell you this software, but you can only use it in ways that are specifically outlined in this contract that's in the drawer over there. That contract may also say things about certain information you have to give me about yourself before you can use the software. In fact, I'm not even selling you the software, I'm licensing the software to you. And no, you can't see the contract or terms of said license until you pay me for the software."
Combined this with the fact that you often cannot return the software to the guy who sold it to you, and instead have to call the manufacturer, get an RMA, and then pay for packaging and postage to to send it back, I'd say that is a pretty unreasonable deal for the customer.
The point here is that with software, you are basically coerced into pressing "I Agree" because of the non-trivial amount of time necessary to read and agree to the EULA, as well as the time and money required to return it to a publisher, all occuring after your money is in someone else's hands. You must remember, as long as you hold the money, you have a certain measure of bargaining power. After you let go of the money, you are basically at the mercy of a company's good will. This is why companies are eager to get you to part with your money as quickly as possible, and as early in the process, with the least amount of information as possible.
I argue that any software company MUST make the terms of any contract readily accessible as the point of sale, BEFORE and money changes hands. There will still be unfair bargaining power in favor of the publisher (as was cited by a judge on 30 Sept in the bnetd case - mainly because that particular publisher is the only source of legal licenses for that software), but at least it will be more balanced than it is now.
Your peaches analogy is not appropriate in this context, because peaches are a consumable that has no license, and whose condition is apparent at the point of sale. Neither of these conditions hold for software.
You P4? Did you mean Athlon 64? P4 is not 64-bit...
./configure and make. War3, WoW and most newer games should work pretty well. No 64 bit worries that that procesor.
Gentoo's official word is not to compile anything to support 32 bit through Portage. I downloaded from CVS, set my CFLAGS to include -m32, used GCC with multilib, emerged all the emul libraries (since both my kernel and most programs are 64 bit), and compiled a 32 bit binary. This then works with the windows 32 bit games, as well as the NVidia drivers.
With a P4 (if that's what you've got), just grab CVS,
Hope you can make it work.
That letter is Lambda, which is the notation used in Chemistry to denote the half-life of a radioactive isotope.
Incidentally, they use the lower case lambda, since using upper case would look like and upside down V, which people would probably think was just an A and Valve had "stylized" it.
1. WineX source available free on Transgaming's CVS
2. I run x86_64 (AMD Athon 64) and run WineX all the time - just compile it as a 32 bit application. Run with NVidia drivers.
3. You're not going to get a OpenGL port. So the decision is to either play HL2, or not play, but waiting won't help much, besides lowering th price in a few months.
You're right, it is a violation of the GPL, but Cedega is released under the Aladdin License, not GPL.
Besides, you can go into the Transgaming CVS and grab all the source free (when I say "all", it doesn't include their licensed cd copy protection code) and compile it yourself, though they offer no support if you do.
Indeed...Valve is not the gold standard.
But the geek side of me has to acknowledge that the idea of downloading premium game content over the net versus having to walk/drive to the store is a great advance, and while it may havebeen inevitable, its good to see it actually working today (albeit with some growing pains in the first few hours/days/weeks).
This is exaclty the business model I'd like to see pursued with software, music and movies. It puts the money into the hands of the developers, rather than the publishers, and has the potential to eventually lower prices, if competition is good.
I'd like to see $40 premium games on release day, rather than the push for $55-$60 pricetags, along with knowing that even though I pay $15-$20 less, more money is actually going to the guys who wrote the software.
That would be the The Right Thing.
I'm not sure whether to jump at this or the Nintendo DS. To be honest, I love the Playstation 2, but after all the anti-hype about battery life on the PSP, I think its a tough question.
Certainly the hardware on the PSP is extremely impressive, but I question whether it's impressive enough to warrant the two hour battery life (or less) that I'll have to spend another $45 for a spare battery (BTW, I like that you can buy a spare battery!).
DS might have taken the safer road with the long battery times while still providing a very good graphical experience. I'll probably end up waiting and seeing how much Sony can squeeze from the PSP, and see what games come out for what platform. After all, SOny did say that in "later revisions" of the firmware, they would be able to extend battery life out to 6 hours and beyond for high end games. Sounds ridiculous, but one can always hope.
My argument didn't really boil down to "Since I paid money for it, it's legitimate." It instead pointed to copyright law.
I welcome input regarding the legality of allofmp3 that is based on law/fact, since I think it is a topic that is open to question. My research so far has indicated that it is legal, assuming it is legal in Russia, which I believe it is, based on their own statements.
IANAL either, so if anyone is better informed, please advise. Until then, I feel bad not supporting arists, but I'd rather support Allofmp3 that supports OGG and Linux than line the pockets of the RIAA.
Err, parent isn't flamebait. He is just stating a fact. AllofMP3 is a very good deal. And if you read copyright law, I think you'll find that if you don't redistribute the music you get from the service, it is quite legal in the US, so long as it was provided legally in Russia, which the website states it is. There is a what-was-legal-in-another-country-is-legal-here-fo r -personal-use provision in copyright law regarding imports.
To be honest, I'm often surprised that iTunes basically gives you only about a 33% discount off of CD based distribution (assume an album has 13 tracks - that's $13 versus $17-$18). Its doing very well, and yet I still don't think its that great of a deal, especially considering it's lossy and DRM'd, doesn't include media (the CD), or a case insert with info. AllofMP3 offers lossless encoding, as well as MP3s, Oggs, AAC, etc, in a variety of bitrates.
I'm different than most iTunes users though, since I view the base unit of music as an album, and most users view their base unit of music as a song. I like to see progression and themes develop through an album, mainly because I listen to music that has themed albums. Not much point in buying one track then. It's a different story with pop music.
I really have to disagree.
- You pay monthly subscription for the cable service.
- You pay monthly subscription for the internet access to setup the Tivo.
- You pay for the Tivo itself, probably getting a new one every 3 years or so (that's what Tivo says life expectancy is, anyway).
- You pay subscription for any premium channels per month.
- You pay monthly subscription for the Tivo service.
And now you say, after all that, I'm supposed to lie down and pay with my time watching commercials as well?
I don't think so. At some point you have to say "Hey, I have paid enough. Now I should get to watch the programs I paid for, not advertising."
I'm at that point. You spend so much for all the services (easily over $100 a month for internet+ cable + tivo + special subscription channels + amortized Tivo + amortized TV) that it starts making a huge dent in people's finances.
Also, from the sounds of it, this would end up effectively inserting commercials onto premium channels if you ever wanted to fast-forward HBO's between-the-movies-previews crap. Its easy to say each thing isn't that much worse than the thing before it, but you have to see the overall trend, and draw the line somewhere.
Well, not really.
Asking one or two people with glaucoma qualifies as anecdotal, whereas reading lab results, etc., is more authoritative.
It kind of like asking someone how it feels to be drunk, what pain medicine works the best, or what the best decongestant is. The answer in all cases is:
"It varies depending on who you ask."
Studies can then provide more info:
"But 74% of people generally find brand X decongestant to be the most effective."
Whereas Bob-with-a-cold can only say
"I think brand Y works the best. Try it!"
In any case, calling someone a dumb ass because they didn't do what you would do is a bit derisive.
You misunderstood - my argument was based on a technicality that he said he had never shared something that was part of his library. I realize you upload while downloading. What I was saying was that until he was finished downloading, those uploads didn't count because they were not finished, and therefore not yet part of his library.
Yeah, but they're not part of his library until he *finishes* downloading them, so technically, he's right. No one has downloaded anything from his library.
I suppose he'd have to close that torrent window pretty quick though after they finish...
Gentoo user here, and quite happy. But for my laptop, I tried a few different "easy" distros, and found Mepis to be very impressive. Comes on one CD - has most of what I want out of the box. Used kpackage with debian repositories for the rest.
Unauthorized copies of software is not theft, its copyright infringement. The whole argument that pirating music, movies, or software without paying is theft is a misconception propogated by the industry. It is illegal however. Enforcement has traditionally been left to the copyright holders, however, not the feds or state police, as is starting to be the case now.
.wav files.
Also, I would beg to differ regarding "cannot". Obviously, they can profit - the issue here is that they are not legally permitted to profit from it.
But you miss grandparent's point: Microsoft retains the copyright on Windows, and this does not permit you to pirate it, just because (for whatever reason) they included some shady