its pretty damn clear to a child (over the age of 11 anyway) whether they are filesharing illegally or not. They should be responsible for checking their actions, not the parents.
Parents are legally liable for the actions of their children. Just because the child knows/doesn't know that downloading copyrighted material is illegal doesn't release their parents from responsibility.
There are literally TONS of people who currently don't buy online music because.99 is too much money to pay.
And there are even more people that will refuse any price, no matter how low.
People who download music now are used to getting it for nothing. How do you propose to convince someone to pay for something that they are used to getting for free?
I have absolutely no problem with Memory Stick media and I don't think that many others do either. I also don't have a particular problem with DRM - I have an iPod and am ok with the DRM on iTunes. What I do have a problem with Sony's DRM and MagicGate media.
I have a bit of experience with how Sony players handle music as I once owned a memory stick player. First of all, only MagicGate media works in the players. You can use a the memory stick if you want to transfer data and you can place MP3 files on it, but actually play your music, it has to be on MagicGate. Does Sony mention that MagicGate sticks are up to three times more expensive than standard memory sticks?
And the fun doesn't stop there. The only software that you can use to transfer music to a Sony player is their own software. Why? Because the "Magic" part of the MagicGate media is a proprietary encoding scheme. You can't play a file without the encoding and you can't encode the file without the Sony software.
Additionally, the software creates a unique key when it's installed so you can't play the encoded file on another system. And some times it loses the key. If you haven't backed it up or the key doesn't restore properly, you get to start from scratch. Fun, huh?
As I said before, I do understand and am partially ok with DRM schemes - just so long as they are transparent or, at the very least, the manufacturer doesn't hit me over the head with them.
Oh, I wasn't worried. There's more than enough blame (if that's the right word for it) to go around. I understand that the lawyers may not be totally to blame for the lawsuits but they're not blameless either. They had the choice to take or reject the contract and they decided to take it.
Besides, I didn't say who was next in line for smackdowns...
What do the lawyers have to do with this? They are doing what SCO hired them to do. If you RTFA (especilly the Groklaw commentary) the judge was commenting on SCO's comments to the press versus what they have provided in court.
I don't believe that lawyers are always on the same side as the angels, but they're not the ones to blame this time. SCO is the party that brought suit - if there's smackdown to be done, SCO should be first in line...
My HP 11C calculator is far more than nostalgia to me. I still use it for all but the most complex calculations because, well, it still works.
In the amount of time that it takes me to start up the spreadsheet program, create a new spreadsheet, enter the formulas and then the data, I've already finished what I needed to do on my ancient calculator and am on to the next thing...
What nobody here seems to remember is that not all copyrights are held by large companies, so a loss of sale *does* mean somthing. In order to somewhat address this, I present another possible punishment:
Make the malefactor pay the original license holder(s) for each license that they verifiably fraudulently sold/distributed. So it isn't too onerous, make it the cost generally required for a mid-sized volume discount. In the case of published works, photographs, etc, the cost should be set by the originator. The remainder, if any, will be taken out in either prison time or volunteer service, their choice.
Copyright holders get paid, miscreant gets more than a slap on the wrist, folks that believe that there are worse crimes are happy, everyone (except those who are completely against copyrights of any kind) rests better.
Yes, using a computer is more complex than driving a car. The point that I tried unsuccessfully to make was that comparing the two tasks isn't appropriate or informative. Yes, maintaing a computer is "more complex" in that there are more individual tasks that have to be done more often (patching, virus updates, dropping it on the ground from a significant height when it fails again, etc.) and maintaing a car is "less complex" in that the only thing that a driver can really do themselves is add fuel when necessary, but it misses the point. The reason that cars are as easy to use as they are today is that there is over a hundred years development involved in desiging a car for a human to use easily and safely. Granted that computers have been around for a lot less time, but can one really say that computers now are better and easier to use for the people that use them than the systems that preceeded them? In what other discipline would we tolerate this?
Using a computer is a lot more complex than driving a car
The two don't compare. When was the last time that you heard of someone either being killed or killing someone else because they didn't know enough about how to use a computer?
Actually, driving is a lot simpler - the rules are finite and don't change very often, traffic controls are standardized and the only real threat are idiots who insist on driving too fast, talking on cell phones (or eating, drinking, fixing their hair, etc.) or thinking that they can mix alcohol and driving. Oh yeah, and teenagers.
Obviously you don't know any game developers. Or artists. Or programmers. Or Q/A people. Or perhaps you do and just don't care.
Most of the folks that I know who are in the game biz don't really get paid a whole lot when you factor in the hundreds of hours of overtime that they work getting a game out the door. What makes it worthwhile is bonuses based upon sales of the games that they worked on. Fewer sales, smaller bonuses. The folks that own the game companies don't lose money when you rip them off - they'll just raise the prices of the other games to make up the difference. It's the people who actually produce the games that feel the pain.
Unless Sony changes they way that you record music to the player, there's much chance of Sony taking over Apple's share.
I once owned had a Sony mp3 player - the player was very slick (about the size of a pack of gum), but you had to use Sony's software to talk to it. The software encoded the files (ATRAC3) so the music couldn't be transferred to another system. That wasn't too much of a problem , but the software took up so many resources encoding the music that I could never use it on my system without crashing it. And, every once and a while, it lost the encryption key. Time to start over... I have an iPod now.
I understand that they are planning to use (a later version) of the same software on their new hard-disk-based player.
Major continuing vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer
No real changes to IE in how many years?
Popup protection took how long?
The problem with monopolies is they are under no pressure to change things. If there's no competition, why bother? Microsoft left an opening by moving their development efforts somewhere else and the folks at Netscape/Mozilla seem to have the experience and expertise to fill it. I say good for them - the browser market is due for some change.
Maybe more money would have flowed to space science,
Really?
Do you honestly think that NASA would have gotten anywhere close to the same amount of funding without the shuttle than they did with it? I doubt it. A disturbingly large number of the population of the U.S. think the whole space program - shuttle, robots, satellites, etc.) is a waste of money. There may have been some interest, for a while, but this would have disappeared (along with funding) when people got bored and looked away. The only way NASA can keep getting money is to stage high-visibiity projects, such as the Shuttle, which may not do fantastic science, but are interesting to look at and have people directly involved.
A short history of science funding in Congress:
Large science projects get killed in committee
Large science projects with people in them get funded (sometimes).
Large science projects with people in them that benefit large compaines in multiple locations (pleasing multiple constituencies) get funded (often).
Large science projects with people in them which make lots of money for someone that allow us to poke our fingers in the eye of another country get funded (always).
They (advertisers) pay per view because that's the way it works in print and tv/radio ads and that's the only model that they have to work from. Advertising costs are based upon the total number of people who watch or listen (from ratings) or who read (from circulation) in whichever media that they chose to advertise in.
They can't tell how many people actually will watch an ad, but they have a pretty good idea what percentage of the people who are tuned to the station (or reading the magazine) will respond to an ad. This is what pisses them off about TiVo with the 30-second skip enabled or about people recording shows and fast-forwarding through the commercials (which was a big thing when VCRs became generally available and someone figured out that they could use the signal that the networks used to warn local stations that a commercial was coming to skip the commercials). The total number of viewers stays the same - because ratings services didn't notice skipping - so their cost is the same, but the actual number of people who watch the commercial goes down.
With web ads, however, advertisers *can* tell how many times their ad was skipped because it was blocked and can adjust the amount of money that they pay the site. So it's great for the advertisers that you don't view the ad - they don't have to pay - and the number of people who respond to the ads that are seen stays pretty much the same, so they don't lose much money. They'll just use the money to advertise in more sites. The only one who really loses here is the site owner/publisher.
I hate ads as much as the next guy, but I've decided to live with them to a certain degree so the sites that I like can stick around a while...
Other than having the music on some other media, there's very little similarity between taping an LP in the 70's and ripping music today.
Media:
Cheap tapes were far more expensive then than CD media is today and good ones (CrO2 and the like) could cost the pretty much the same as an album.
Time:
Copying an album to tape occurred in real time - if the album was 46 minutes, it took you 50 minutes (46 minutes of music, 4 minutes of getting the needle in the right place, making sure that the tape leader in the right place, etc) to do it. If you wanted to pass it around to a few friends, multiply the time by the number of friends to get the result...
Distribution:
If you wanted some friend in New York to have a copy and you lived in California, time to pay a visit to the post office...
A lot of us who copied albums to tape did it to preserve the album or to get a good copy before the disk got dirty/scratched/etc - which was a real possibility, unlike the "I want to back up the CD in case it gets scratched" excuses some people like to use today.
>"Why the fuck should I have to pay extra for something I'm never going to use anyway"
Who, exactly, is forcing you to buy this? If you don't want it, don't buy it. Did you scream at companies that made five-disk players or any other features that you didn't want at the time just because you didn't want it and didn't want to pay for it or did you just buy what you wanted?
Take a couple of breaths. Mellow out. It's ok for some people to want something that you don't think is important...
Slashdot Mirror
SPIT=SPam over Internet Telephony
Parents are legally liable for the actions of their children. Just because the child knows/doesn't know that downloading copyrighted material is illegal doesn't release their parents from responsibility.
...that women who decided not to enter the IT field may know something that the rest of us haven't figured out yet?
And there are even more people that will refuse any price, no matter how low.
People who download music now are used to getting it for nothing. How do you propose to convince someone to pay for something that they are used to getting for free?
I have a bit of experience with how Sony players handle music as I once owned a memory stick player. First of all, only MagicGate media works in the players. You can use a the memory stick if you want to transfer data and you can place MP3 files on it, but actually play your music, it has to be on MagicGate. Does Sony mention that MagicGate sticks are up to three times more expensive than standard memory sticks?
And the fun doesn't stop there. The only software that you can use to transfer music to a Sony player is their own software. Why? Because the "Magic" part of the MagicGate media is a proprietary encoding scheme. You can't play a file without the encoding and you can't encode the file without the Sony software.
Additionally, the software creates a unique key when it's installed so you can't play the encoded file on another system. And some times it loses the key. If you haven't backed it up or the key doesn't restore properly, you get to start from scratch. Fun, huh?
As I said before, I do understand and am partially ok with DRM schemes - just so long as they are transparent or, at the very least, the manufacturer doesn't hit me over the head with them.
Yes, iPods play MP3s just fine and without DRM. DRM is only used on songs that are purchased from iTunes.
...is to determine the origins of the word "I" and determine how it relates to all book titles that contain it.
With the small screens on most mobile phones, I'd need really big eyes to see it.
Besides, I didn't say who was next in line for smackdowns...
I don't believe that lawyers are always on the same side as the angels, but they're not the ones to blame this time. SCO is the party that brought suit - if there's smackdown to be done, SCO should be first in line...
In the amount of time that it takes me to start up the spreadsheet program, create a new spreadsheet, enter the formulas and then the data, I've already finished what I needed to do on my ancient calculator and am on to the next thing...
Why? Because ENTER > = .
Walking is a hardware function...
No sig for you!
Make the malefactor pay the original license holder(s) for each license that they verifiably fraudulently sold/distributed. So it isn't too onerous, make it the cost generally required for a mid-sized volume discount. In the case of published works, photographs, etc, the cost should be set by the originator. The remainder, if any, will be taken out in either prison time or volunteer service, their choice.
Copyright holders get paid, miscreant gets more than a slap on the wrist, folks that believe that there are worse crimes are happy, everyone (except those who are completely against copyrights of any kind) rests better.
Problem resolved.
Maybe you should offer a warranty. Or, better yet, a money-back guarantee...
Using the same logic that you just did, there's nothing inherently wrong with stealing anything. You didn't pay for it, so it has no value...
Yes, using a computer is more complex than driving a car. The point that I tried unsuccessfully to make was that comparing the two tasks isn't appropriate or informative. Yes, maintaing a computer is "more complex" in that there are more individual tasks that have to be done more often (patching, virus updates, dropping it on the ground from a significant height when it fails again, etc.) and maintaing a car is "less complex" in that the only thing that a driver can really do themselves is add fuel when necessary, but it misses the point. The reason that cars are as easy to use as they are today is that there is over a hundred years development involved in desiging a car for a human to use easily and safely. Granted that computers have been around for a lot less time, but can one really say that computers now are better and easier to use for the people that use them than the systems that preceeded them? In what other discipline would we tolerate this?
And rather than fix it, we blame the user.
The two don't compare. When was the last time that you heard of someone either being killed or killing someone else because they didn't know enough about how to use a computer?
Actually, driving is a lot simpler - the rules are finite and don't change very often, traffic controls are standardized and the only real threat are idiots who insist on driving too fast, talking on cell phones (or eating, drinking, fixing their hair, etc.) or thinking that they can mix alcohol and driving. Oh yeah, and teenagers.
Obviously you don't know any game developers. Or artists. Or programmers. Or Q/A people. Or perhaps you do and just don't care.
Most of the folks that I know who are in the game biz don't really get paid a whole lot when you factor in the hundreds of hours of overtime that they work getting a game out the door. What makes it worthwhile is bonuses based upon sales of the games that they worked on. Fewer sales, smaller bonuses. The folks that own the game companies don't lose money when you rip them off - they'll just raise the prices of the other games to make up the difference. It's the people who actually produce the games that feel the pain.
I once owned had a Sony mp3 player - the player was very slick (about the size of a pack of gum), but you had to use Sony's software to talk to it. The software encoded the files (ATRAC3) so the music couldn't be transferred to another system. That wasn't too much of a problem , but the software took up so many resources encoding the music that I could never use it on my system without crashing it. And, every once and a while, it lost the encryption key. Time to start over... I have an iPod now.
I understand that they are planning to use (a later version) of the same software on their new hard-disk-based player.
I wish them luck
Major continuing vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer
No real changes to IE in how many years?
Popup protection took how long?
The problem with monopolies is they are under no pressure to change things. If there's no competition, why bother? Microsoft left an opening by moving their development efforts somewhere else and the folks at Netscape/Mozilla seem to have the experience and expertise to fill it. I say good for them - the browser market is due for some change.
Really?
Do you honestly think that NASA would have gotten anywhere close to the same amount of funding without the shuttle than they did with it? I doubt it. A disturbingly large number of the population of the U.S. think the whole space program - shuttle, robots, satellites, etc.) is a waste of money. There may have been some interest, for a while, but this would have disappeared (along with funding) when people got bored and looked away. The only way NASA can keep getting money is to stage high-visibiity projects, such as the Shuttle, which may not do fantastic science, but are interesting to look at and have people directly involved.
A short history of science funding in Congress:
Large science projects get killed in committee
Large science projects with people in them get funded (sometimes).
Large science projects with people in them that benefit large compaines in multiple locations (pleasing multiple constituencies) get funded (often).
Large science projects with people in them which make lots of money for someone that allow us to poke our fingers in the eye of another country get funded (always).
Star Wars isn't a fantasy, it's a western.
They can't tell how many people actually will watch an ad, but they have a pretty good idea what percentage of the people who are tuned to the station (or reading the magazine) will respond to an ad. This is what pisses them off about TiVo with the 30-second skip enabled or about people recording shows and fast-forwarding through the commercials (which was a big thing when VCRs became generally available and someone figured out that they could use the signal that the networks used to warn local stations that a commercial was coming to skip the commercials). The total number of viewers stays the same - because ratings services didn't notice skipping - so their cost is the same, but the actual number of people who watch the commercial goes down.
With web ads, however, advertisers *can* tell how many times their ad was skipped because it was blocked and can adjust the amount of money that they pay the site. So it's great for the advertisers that you don't view the ad - they don't have to pay - and the number of people who respond to the ads that are seen stays pretty much the same, so they don't lose much money. They'll just use the money to advertise in more sites. The only one who really loses here is the site owner/publisher.
I hate ads as much as the next guy, but I've decided to live with them to a certain degree so the sites that I like can stick around a while...
Media: Cheap tapes were far more expensive then than CD media is today and good ones (CrO2 and the like) could cost the pretty much the same as an album.
Time: Copying an album to tape occurred in real time - if the album was 46 minutes, it took you 50 minutes (46 minutes of music, 4 minutes of getting the needle in the right place, making sure that the tape leader in the right place, etc) to do it. If you wanted to pass it around to a few friends, multiply the time by the number of friends to get the result...
Distribution: If you wanted some friend in New York to have a copy and you lived in California, time to pay a visit to the post office...
A lot of us who copied albums to tape did it to preserve the album or to get a good copy before the disk got dirty/scratched/etc - which was a real possibility, unlike the "I want to back up the CD in case it gets scratched" excuses some people like to use today.
Who, exactly, is forcing you to buy this? If you don't want it, don't buy it. Did you scream at companies that made five-disk players or any other features that you didn't want at the time just because you didn't want it and didn't want to pay for it or did you just buy what you wanted?
Take a couple of breaths. Mellow out. It's ok for some people to want something that you don't think is important...