I love it, but can we work this into a new catchy acronym to replace DRM? All I can come up with are variations on Entitlement Enforcing Technical Measures (EETM, which is not catchy), Restriction Causing Entitlements (RCE, not catchy), etc.
Right. As xkcd explained there are two choices: You can have a movie that is legal to obtain but illegal to use, or have a movie that is illegal to obtain but legal to use. The only way to get the movie but not break the law, is wait for an OTA broadcast.
The crack isn't widely distributed, just its output.
I'm not interested in downloading pirated movies (though I'll do it if that's the only thing on the market). I'm interested in inserting a BluRay disc into a MythTV box's optical drive and being able to play it, like you can with a DVD. Unfortunately, there's a dearth of working player software; in fact I've only heard of one package that is reported to really work, and it's proprietary and only available on hardly any platforms.
So yeah, it has been cracked, but not to a sufficient degree that I can start buying BluRay movies.
No, all your computer belong to someone who wants to harm China. This is more of a threat to China itself, than anyone else.
From a point of view outside China, this botnet is not distributed. It all shares a few links (possibly saturating them if the botnets gets too crazy), shares netblocks, etc. This botnet isn't capable of doing anything that the Great Firewall operators aren't already able to do.
From a point of view inside China, the botnet is distributed and its crap looks like it's coming from everywhere.
You can give $10 billion to a company to squander or you can invest $10 billion into a battery research and just give the findings to the whole of the US industry for free.
Let's say I'm a congressman. If I vaguely fund research, who benefits? The public, and not even the current public; this is a public several years in the future. Are they grateful? Will I get something out of this? Fuck no. If I give money to a company, one of the implicit conditions of that, is that the stockholders are going to help with my re-election. Who benefits? I do (indirectly) because a very small targeted group benefits directly, and they know I'm a team player and they owe me one.
As soon as you give congress the power to throw around amounts like $10 billion, it's pretty much guaranteed that it isn't going to be used to advance our interests. If you ask me whether they ought to fund research or divert it to private parties, my answer is that they should never do either; they shouldn't spend the money at all. Pay off the debt, or if it's already paid, then don't collect that $10 billion in taxes in the first place.
Apple has spent the last few years getting people to think that switching from a 3D laptop to a 2D laptop is an upgrade. Now Acer thinks they can make non-thin cool again? Good luck with that.
That sounds like a name of a mascot/fake_superhero the MPAA uses to explain copyright to children.
Jimmy: "Have you seen the new OMG Ponies movie?" Jane: "No. Hey, let's download it!" Jimmy: "Yeah!" [Whooshing noise] Jimmy and Jane in unison: "Anti-Piracy Dog!" Anti-Piracy Dog: "Hi kids. You were about to download a movie. Every time you do that, a pirate throws a puppy into a wood-chipper." Jimmy: "Is it the cute kind of puppy?" Jane (nearly in tears): "That's the only kind of puppy there is! Oh no! I don't want cute puppies to die! What are we going to do?" Jimmy (gravely): "We'll have to buy our movies, and only from authorized resellers." Anti-Piracy Dog: "That's right, kids. So remember, don't pirate those movies." Jane and Jimmy in unison, overflowing with cheer: "Thanks, Anti-Piracy Dog!" Anti-Piracy Dog: "Up, up, and away!" [Whooshing noise]
I think the reason some people get so upset over this issue, is that real estate near an exit ramp is scarce because of simple constraints of reality. That is, usable space near the exit ramp is essentially limited in two dimensions and there really is just only so much of it to go around. It can all be summed up as "life sucks" or "life is unfair" and if you don't like it, blame God. Blame the universe. The "decision" (and I use that term so loosely it's sickening) was the moment the universe as we know it started to exist, and is completely ingrained in our sense of reality. It's just how things are, and it's inconceivable for things to be any different.
Domain scarcity is an ICANN-created condition that could trivially be eliminated. Man decided to create a market where no market need exist.
Economics is based on the idea that resources are scarce, but when resources are not scarce, you get to live in a fantasy land where everything really is free-as-in-beer, and nobody loses. Communist Utopia isn't actually all that bad, once you get outside of the constraints of reality. (Take enough drugs, and you'll think like a hippie.;) But for some reason, ICANN wanted there to be losers, so there are only a few TLDs and for some reason, one of those TLDs is seen as more legitimate or preferable than others, without any reason for that. So this time, life is unfair, but everybody knows there really is someone to blame for it.
Seriously, I'm not sure I understand what you mean. I changed the meaning of "legitimate file sharing" to what?
GP wasn't talking about free itunes songs (as if there were such a thing).
I've never used iTunes so I couldn't say if you're right or wrong, but many (most?) bands offer free music downloads on their websites. Free, not-copyright-infringing downloads are very common. The purpose of this law's special-case language that assigns a nonzero value to these free downloads, is to make them taxable. (What other reason would there be, for assigning a nonzero value to a thing you paid 0 for, if not to tax it?)
No, news.google.com is good for google because the fame of the google name carries through, and because it's well linked from the google web page which is hit billions of times a day.
I think I follow your reasoning, but it raises more questions: Who is com? Are they famous?
How do they plan to handle legitimate file sharing
That is what this law is about. What do you mean "plan to?" This law says what they're going to try to do about it: tax it as though you had paid more than you did.
Legitimate downloads are the whole ostensible point of this law, and people are now noticing that it gives RIAA/MPAA a new angle in dealing with illegitimate downloads.
If they plan to handle it the same, that seems grossly unfair to the artists and independent producers.
So, it's unfair. So what? No politician ever lost re-election votes for creating unfair laws. Voters love this kind of stuff and reward it ever chance they get.
All your analysis focused on the druggies and totally missed the government. I would ask you, "What does marijuana have to do with this?" I think it has nothing to do with this. Legalization vs prohibition of marijuana, though, is a totally different subject:
Strengthen our democracy: Let's declare a bunch of people, none of who are infringing anyone else's rights, criminals. Depending on to what degree we've made them criminals, let's stop allowing them to vote.
Promote efficiency: Let's spend public money on cops, courts, and prisons to enforce laws that have no useful purpose. Let's put people in prison, for no reason, so that they can't contribute to the GDP and their families are weakened so that they become more economically dependent on others. Let's penalize domestic farmers to increase foreign market share. Let's create health care problems that we all end up paying for, by making people turn to black markets with dubious quality products.
Or we could stop doing those things. Which scenario is more democratic? Which is more efficient? (I'll admit I don't, off the top of my head, see how it's related to transparency and collaboration.)
I can almost buy the argument that prohibition is more perversely "democratic" since it actually is some people's nature to want to gang up on others.
But efficient? You've got be kidding. In terms of government efficiency, legalization advocacy is right on topic and directly addresses problems that prohibition is causing. They're not only on-topic, but they crush their opponents without even a close fight. Please, pro-prohibition advocates, bring up efficiency or just about anything else related to the economy. Libertarians will eat you for breakfast.
In other words, it means the same thing as "file server" except that it's usually remote (most people think of a file server as being closer/faster, i.e. on their LAN) and possibly crippled to only store one type of file (music).
However, it is my personal opinion that government really shouldn't be meddling there; I only support it because of the current conditions which require it.
You sound troubled. Don't be. Look closely at the current conditions, where the market consists of a small number of very powerful companies, and you'll see that these "companies" are not just companies; they are corporations. They are entities chartered by government. Without government, none of the market failures that we're experiencing, could have happened.
Government action to control corporations, is never a violation of laissez-faire or a sign of weakness in the virtues of free markets. Those distasteful things happen when corporations are created, and government action to reverse the damage is just confirmation that the decision to switch away from free markets, was possibly an error.
They sold you a broken product. Same with M$. They told you it worked when you bought it, but it's broken.
My problem with that reasoning is that you knew they were lying. When you buy Microsoft stuff, and they say, "this works," BOTH parties are grinning and winking at each other. If you pretend that you thought it was ok to hook that computer up to the internet, then you're just as dishonest as Microsoft. So take at least some of the responsibility, dammit.
If USA were truly pro-free speech they would of permitted the implementation of.sex and.xxx namespaces.
The US does permit the implementation of.sex and.xxx namespaces. IANA simply hasn't done it, because ICANN has decided they don't want those namespaces within their big namespace. But you can set one up today and you won't be breaking any laws. Go for it.
After that, negotiate with a root server to make you the authority for.xxx. If none of them will do it or you don't happen to like their terms, you can even start your own root server.
After that, then you just have to persuade people to use your service. Persuade. Words like "permit" and "prohibit" don't apply here.
It's not about nutjobness. By pointing out how ridiculous some story about Xenu (or Jesus) is, you distract people from the crimes that Scientologists are committing. Lying to people by saying they're inhabited by thetans, or that they're going to spend eternity in the lake of fire if they don't accept Jesus, is not the crime we're talking about here. This isn't what Scientology has been accused of.
Sales don't keep you alive, profit does (to say nothing about destroying your profitable market by serving an unprofitable one).
That is the weirdest argument against being in business, that I ever heard of.
The per unit cost is zero (or a number so close to zero that your float's exponent will underflow) plus a fixed development cost amortized over all your sales. More sales means more margin.
Refusing to sell is the least profitable thing for Sony to do. It's not merely common sense; your own comment about margins happens to confirm it. If they only sell 1 unit, then that unit's price has to contain the whole development budget.
This somehow reminds me of the joke, "We lose money on every sale but make up for it in volume," except inverted. I wish I were sick and twisted enough to be able to phrase that variation of the joke, but I never did enough drugs.
But what has happened online is that if it is 'beyond store hours' and the shop is closed, a lot of people just smash the window and steal what they want.
Not to defend window-smashers, but if people are lining up and begging you to take their money, and your response is "no thank you, we're not interested in money," then I don't know why you're complaining about the windows. Replacing them only costs money, and money is obviously something you don't care about anyway.
If you were a for-profit business, then you would open the store.
Slashdot Mirror
I love it, but can we work this into a new catchy acronym to replace DRM? All I can come up with are variations on Entitlement Enforcing Technical Measures (EETM, which is not catchy), Restriction Causing Entitlements (RCE, not catchy), etc.
Right. As xkcd explained there are two choices: You can have a movie that is legal to obtain but illegal to use, or have a movie that is illegal to obtain but legal to use. The only way to get the movie but not break the law, is wait for an OTA broadcast.
The crack isn't widely distributed, just its output.
I'm not interested in downloading pirated movies (though I'll do it if that's the only thing on the market). I'm interested in inserting a BluRay disc into a MythTV box's optical drive and being able to play it, like you can with a DVD. Unfortunately, there's a dearth of working player software; in fact I've only heard of one package that is reported to really work, and it's proprietary and only available on hardly any platforms.
So yeah, it has been cracked, but not to a sufficient degree that I can start buying BluRay movies.
No, all your computer belong to someone who wants to harm China. This is more of a threat to China itself, than anyone else.
From a point of view outside China, this botnet is not distributed. It all shares a few links (possibly saturating them if the botnets gets too crazy), shares netblocks, etc. This botnet isn't capable of doing anything that the Great Firewall operators aren't already able to do.
From a point of view inside China, the botnet is distributed and its crap looks like it's coming from everywhere.
All your computer are belong to US.
Let's say I'm a congressman. If I vaguely fund research, who benefits? The public, and not even the current public; this is a public several years in the future. Are they grateful? Will I get something out of this? Fuck no. If I give money to a company, one of the implicit conditions of that, is that the stockholders are going to help with my re-election. Who benefits? I do (indirectly) because a very small targeted group benefits directly, and they know I'm a team player and they owe me one.
As soon as you give congress the power to throw around amounts like $10 billion, it's pretty much guaranteed that it isn't going to be used to advance our interests. If you ask me whether they ought to fund research or divert it to private parties, my answer is that they should never do either; they shouldn't spend the money at all. Pay off the debt, or if it's already paid, then don't collect that $10 billion in taxes in the first place.
Apple has spent the last few years getting people to think that switching from a 3D laptop to a 2D laptop is an upgrade. Now Acer thinks they can make non-thin cool again? Good luck with that.
That sounds like a name of a mascot/fake_superhero the MPAA uses to explain copyright to children.
Jimmy: "Have you seen the new OMG Ponies movie?"
Jane: "No. Hey, let's download it!"
Jimmy: "Yeah!"
[Whooshing noise]
Jimmy and Jane in unison: "Anti-Piracy Dog!"
Anti-Piracy Dog: "Hi kids. You were about to download a movie. Every time you do that, a pirate throws a puppy into a wood-chipper."
Jimmy: "Is it the cute kind of puppy?"
Jane (nearly in tears): "That's the only kind of puppy there is! Oh no! I don't want cute puppies to die! What are we going to do?"
Jimmy (gravely): "We'll have to buy our movies, and only from authorized resellers."
Anti-Piracy Dog: "That's right, kids. So remember, don't pirate those movies."
Jane and Jimmy in unison, overflowing with cheer: "Thanks, Anti-Piracy Dog!"
Anti-Piracy Dog: "Up, up, and away!"
[Whooshing noise]
They're just local cache for TPB!
I think the reason some people get so upset over this issue, is that real estate near an exit ramp is scarce because of simple constraints of reality. That is, usable space near the exit ramp is essentially limited in two dimensions and there really is just only so much of it to go around. It can all be summed up as "life sucks" or "life is unfair" and if you don't like it, blame God. Blame the universe. The "decision" (and I use that term so loosely it's sickening) was the moment the universe as we know it started to exist, and is completely ingrained in our sense of reality. It's just how things are, and it's inconceivable for things to be any different.
Domain scarcity is an ICANN-created condition that could trivially be eliminated. Man decided to create a market where no market need exist.
Economics is based on the idea that resources are scarce, but when resources are not scarce, you get to live in a fantasy land where everything really is free-as-in-beer, and nobody loses. Communist Utopia isn't actually all that bad, once you get outside of the constraints of reality. (Take enough drugs, and you'll think like a hippie. ;) But for some reason, ICANN wanted there to be losers, so there are only a few TLDs and for some reason, one of those TLDs is seen as more legitimate or preferable than others, without any reason for that. So this time, life is unfair, but everybody knows there really is someone to blame for it.
Seriously, I'm not sure I understand what you mean. I changed the meaning of "legitimate file sharing" to what?
I've never used iTunes so I couldn't say if you're right or wrong, but many (most?) bands offer free music downloads on their websites. Free, not-copyright-infringing downloads are very common. The purpose of this law's special-case language that assigns a nonzero value to these free downloads, is to make them taxable. (What other reason would there be, for assigning a nonzero value to a thing you paid 0 for, if not to tax it?)
I think I follow your reasoning, but it raises more questions: Who is com? Are they famous?
Never mind. Read it, and it does not apply to software.
That is what this law is about. What do you mean "plan to?" This law says what they're going to try to do about it: tax it as though you had paid more than you did.
Legitimate downloads are the whole ostensible point of this law, and people are now noticing that it gives RIAA/MPAA a new angle in dealing with illegitimate downloads.
So, it's unfair. So what? No politician ever lost re-election votes for creating unfair laws. Voters love this kind of stuff and reward it ever chance they get.
I guess I need to look up the retail price of Oracle.
All your analysis focused on the druggies and totally missed the government. I would ask you, "What does marijuana have to do with this?" I think it has nothing to do with this. Legalization vs prohibition of marijuana, though, is a totally different subject:
Strengthen our democracy: Let's declare a bunch of people, none of who are infringing anyone else's rights, criminals. Depending on to what degree we've made them criminals, let's stop allowing them to vote.
Promote efficiency: Let's spend public money on cops, courts, and prisons to enforce laws that have no useful purpose. Let's put people in prison, for no reason, so that they can't contribute to the GDP and their families are weakened so that they become more economically dependent on others. Let's penalize domestic farmers to increase foreign market share. Let's create health care problems that we all end up paying for, by making people turn to black markets with dubious quality products.
Or we could stop doing those things. Which scenario is more democratic? Which is more efficient? (I'll admit I don't, off the top of my head, see how it's related to transparency and collaboration.)
I can almost buy the argument that prohibition is more perversely "democratic" since it actually is some people's nature to want to gang up on others.
But efficient? You've got be kidding. In terms of government efficiency, legalization advocacy is right on topic and directly addresses problems that prohibition is causing. They're not only on-topic, but they crush their opponents without even a close fight. Please, pro-prohibition advocates, bring up efficiency or just about anything else related to the economy. Libertarians will eat you for breakfast.
In other words, it means the same thing as "file server" except that it's usually remote (most people think of a file server as being closer/faster, i.e. on their LAN) and possibly crippled to only store one type of file (music).
Give her a phone. When you want to know where she is, call her and say, "This is dad. Where are you?"
You sound troubled. Don't be. Look closely at the current conditions, where the market consists of a small number of very powerful companies, and you'll see that these "companies" are not just companies; they are corporations. They are entities chartered by government. Without government, none of the market failures that we're experiencing, could have happened.
Government action to control corporations, is never a violation of laissez-faire or a sign of weakness in the virtues of free markets. Those distasteful things happen when corporations are created, and government action to reverse the damage is just confirmation that the decision to switch away from free markets, was possibly an error.
Well, of course they never win, if you decide that you shouldn't vote for them because they never win.
Vote for them anyway.
Another study showed that 17% of voters had no fingers, thus can't do anything digitally.
My problem with that reasoning is that you knew they were lying. When you buy Microsoft stuff, and they say, "this works," BOTH parties are grinning and winking at each other. If you pretend that you thought it was ok to hook that computer up to the internet, then you're just as dishonest as Microsoft. So take at least some of the responsibility, dammit.
The US does permit the implementation of .sex and .xxx namespaces. IANA simply hasn't done it, because ICANN has decided they don't want those namespaces within their big namespace. But you can set one up today and you won't be breaking any laws. Go for it.
After that, negotiate with a root server to make you the authority for .xxx. If none of them will do it or you don't happen to like their terms, you can even start your own root server.
After that, then you just have to persuade people to use your service. Persuade. Words like "permit" and "prohibit" don't apply here.
It's not about nutjobness. By pointing out how ridiculous some story about Xenu (or Jesus) is, you distract people from the crimes that Scientologists are committing. Lying to people by saying they're inhabited by thetans, or that they're going to spend eternity in the lake of fire if they don't accept Jesus, is not the crime we're talking about here. This isn't what Scientology has been accused of.
That is the weirdest argument against being in business, that I ever heard of.
The per unit cost is zero (or a number so close to zero that your float's exponent will underflow) plus a fixed development cost amortized over all your sales. More sales means more margin.
Refusing to sell is the least profitable thing for Sony to do. It's not merely common sense; your own comment about margins happens to confirm it. If they only sell 1 unit, then that unit's price has to contain the whole development budget.
This somehow reminds me of the joke, "We lose money on every sale but make up for it in volume," except inverted. I wish I were sick and twisted enough to be able to phrase that variation of the joke, but I never did enough drugs.
Not to defend window-smashers, but if people are lining up and begging you to take their money, and your response is "no thank you, we're not interested in money," then I don't know why you're complaining about the windows. Replacing them only costs money, and money is obviously something you don't care about anyway.
If you were a for-profit business, then you would open the store.