The customer complained and said that the product had not been fixed and the computer was still acting up, instead of honoring the 2-year warranty that she had paid $150 for, my manager told me just to tell the customer it had water damage to void the warranty and to send her on her way. If your manager was blatently lying to customers in order to not honor a warrantee, that's a breach of contract. You should have gathered some proof that this was happening, and then placed a call to the Better Business Bureau. If this is an endemic problem in the company, the fallout from a full investigation could be vast, and would give you much more satisfaction than a simple "fuck off" and storming out the door.
If you want to get upset get upset about something important. Music and movies could disappear overnight and we wouldn't loose a single life. But... but... what about that dude in the commercial who worked as 2nd assistant backup grip for Gigli? How will he feed his family?
As nasty as the RIAA is, they don't hold a candle to the tobacco companies: the only industry whose product, used as recommended, causes cancer, emphysema, and heart disease. That's not even close to an accurate comparison.
All the tobacco companies do is sell a product that people still want to buy even though it kills them. Their lobbying efforts are mainly to stem the tide of governmental oversight and restrictions on the sale and advertisement of their product. Imagine if the government passed a law saying it was illegal for McDonalds to advertise the Big Mac on television or radio because it contained trans fats. Do you think McDonalds would not immediately start lobbying heavily to get this restriction removed? The tobacco lobby is simply trying to protect their revenue stream, and stop the government from legislating them out of business.
On the other hand, the RIAA is actively changing laws to create new revenue streams, because it's not the government that's putting them out of business, it's the market. No one wants to buy their product because it sucks. The record companies see that their old way of doing things doesn't work anymore, so instead of adapting and changing like normal businesses should, they buy ridiculous laws that force people to buy their product even when they're *not* buying their product; they force blank media levies and tie up tax-supported courts with their lawsuit extortion schemes designed only to squeeze money out of the little guy and strike fear into the hearts of their market segments. They push for higher royalty payments based on a difference without distinction (analog vs. digital), all in the name of protecting their status as media gatekeepers so they can continue to sell us a product we don't want.
Tobacco companies do none of these things. They do not force people to smoke, nor do they try to illicit money from tangential sources to support a dying business model. The tobacco business model (selling a product people want to buy) works-- they are simply fighting government oversight.*
-----
* Before you start flaming about addictiveness of the product: smoking is a choice. I choose not to smoke. I do not presume the right to make that choice for others.
From the sidebar next to the article:
'Phoenix lights' a UFO? A former governor now says an event in the sky may have been a UFO. CNN's Gary Tuchman reports. Hey, Arizona! UFO != Flying Saucer with Little Green Men!
UFO stands for Unidentified Flying Object. How can you be unsure whether an object is unidentified? Either you've identified it, or you haven't.
The big companies get to lobby 24/7 and 365 if they want. Consumers only get to lobby every four years... What? Consumers (or citizens, as they prefer to be called) lobby all the time. Usually they get together in groups to be heard.
In fact, the key issues that a judge looks at is if the use is necessary to the contested work, and if the contested work shows enough original thought to be considered a separate entity. True, but that's not the whole story.
Here is the fair use provision in its entirety, as written in Title 17, Section 107 of the US Code:
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include-- (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors. Judges are instructed by this section to look at all four of the factors, and not just whether the surrounding commentary constitutes an "original work", although that's the most prolific use of fair use (quotations, citations, commentary, criticism, etc.).
I'm not sure whether abandonware can be considered fair use under criterion 4; I would imagine the alleged infringer would have to prove that there is not a viable market for the work anymore. If this has been tested in court anywere, please feel free to pipe up with case details; I'm interested to hear how it turned out.
In any case, posting videos on YouTube is clearly not fair use, since it doesn't fit any of the four criteria laid out in the law, and I can't see any judge ruling that it did.
All it means is a few bright students are going to set up wireless links to off-campus DSL and charge a small fee for after-hours access. Yes, but think of all the real-world experience those entrepreneurial students are getting in circumventing the law to make a buck!
Mr Prakash Gopalan, the Dean of Student Affairs, says, 'one only had to look at the hard drive of any of the students' computers to see that bad content dominated over good.' Woo! Sample size of one! Now that's what I call a rock-solid statistic.
I don't want to sound abrasive, but -- don't. No-one's forcing you to upgrade. ...yet.
Then support for Win2K and WinXP is dropped, and suddenly, you're forced into it.
The fact of the matter is, you will be forced to upgrade at some point. Whether that upgrade is to Vista or to Debian is left as an exercise for the reader.
Fortunately you can replace window's desktop with a real window manager. Add in Cygwin in a Terminator window and it's almost tolerable. Wow, that seems like a lot of work.
Luckily, you can get all the same functionality with only one install.
Imagine that, active-x, famous security nightmare, responsible for the great and powerful ajax. And the moral of this story is: don't blame the idea for the implimentation.
Some of the best mechanics I've seen have spare parts, dismantled vehicles, and toolboxes seemingly strewn about in a haphazard fashion. Yet they can diagnose and repair an issue inside 15 minutes. They even know how to bring a past-its-prime vehicle back from the dead. That may be true, but it doesn't scale up.
Mechanics like the ones you talk about are very smart, and likely have a lot of know-how about the vehicles they work on, having worked on cars for most of their lives. Diagnosing a problem has nothing to do with messiness; it's a purely mental task. Additionally, these guys are working on tasks that one person can easily do; it's doesn't require a team of people to repair a car.
Now scale up that mentality to something bigger... like manufacturing airplanes. I'm an engineer for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, and let me tell you, the romanticized notion of a single engineer or mechanic being able to diagnose problems off the top of their heads in the middle of a messy manufacturing shop is simply not feasible. The vehicle is simply too complicated, with too many parts and too many engineering drawings for that to be possible. Our factory as a result is spotlessly clean. Parts are tagged, sorted, stored, and maintained by computerized inventory systems; tools are checked in and out of the tool sheds for use by the mechanics; the floor is spotless and movement of parts within the factory is strictly controlled. Drawings, schematics, and installation job instructions are maintained in the computer drawing system. There is no haphazard organization of anything, and as a result, we pump a new passenger 777 out the door every three days. If I need to diagnose a problem with the engineering, I can't pull that information off the top of my head like the mechanic down the street; there's simply too much information. I have to dig through the drawing tree from higher assemblies on down to individual nuts and bolts, and having all that very well organized makes it very easy. I'm sure the same is true in any large manufacturing/engineering business, be it airplanes or cars or motherboards.
I think the simple answer to this is that "messy" is in the eye of the beholder. For the (productive) person creating the mess, it's not a mess. Everything makes sense to them. Only an outside observer, who didn't understand the messy person's system, would consider it a mess.
Unfortunately, since no two people create "productive messes" in quite the same way, this type of system only works for a single person. As soon as a team is involved, the efficiency drops dramatically as each person has to decipher another person's messy system to find anything, and in those situations, it is always more efficient to have a neat, organized, global method of organization. For the single mechanic rebuilding an engine, messy works. For the mechanics assembling the car on the line, messy doesn't work.
While you limey's might be content to waste your hard earned money subsidizing bloated socialist government policies, we in the US are not (for the most part). What? Areyoukidding?
I think you're confusing the medium and the message. Not really, I was just being an ass.
This is no different than music... someone owns the copyright and you're not allowed to modify or redistribute without permission, even if the format is open and Free (ogg/flac/etc.). You're allowed to remix or cite under Fair Use, but not distribute.
Just because the book discusses open source doesn't mean the book IS open source.
Why would this not be free? PDF is a fully open, documented standard; Adobe licenses their patents on it royalty-free.
There's no reason to be stuck with Adobe Acrobat Reader(tm). Go get a real PDF editor and modify away! Dump the whole thing to text or LaTeX if you want.
Just kidding, of course. Comments like these are exactly why I read Slashdot.
Re:Fraunhofer: The people who made piracy possible
on
How MP3 Was Born
·
· Score: 1
What isn't mentioned in Herr Brandenburg's interview is that Fraunhofer have been playing both sides. Why is this considered playing both sides? I fail to see the connection.
Mp3 by itself is not "for" piracy. It is a media format, plain and simple. Legal mp3s are sold all over the internet, and I have an entire hard drive of completely legal mp3s I ripped from my own CD collection. Frauenhofer's involvement in piracy searches is testament to the fact that they want their products used for legal reasons, not for illegal ones. (It's also a good defense against making mp3 illegal because of the proliferation or encouragement of illegal use, a la Grokster.)
Analogy time! If a gun company worked with law enforcement to help raid the streets and seize illegally purchased weapons, would they be "playing both sides"? No... their product is sold for legal purposes, and they are simply helping enforce the current law by stopping illegal uses of their product.
Whether or not current law is just/fair/reasonable/appropriate is irrelevant to this particular discussion, and left as an exercise for the reader.
I don't know if their numbers are realistic, but Canadian piracy of American movies HAS to be detrimental to the Canadian economy to some extent. Only if you assume that every pirated movie represents a lost sale, which is not the case. If no one pirated, it's possible they wouldn't go to the theater or buy the DVD, either.
...the best buy usually has like 3 video cards, 1 sub-par motherboard, and approximately 23 hojillion music cd's, dvd's, and washing machines. Yeah, but that's a "salesman's hojillion". A real hojillion is actually 1,024 zillion, so Best Buy really only has about 22.5 hojillion CDs, DVDs, and washing machines.
Slashdot Mirror
You are clearly a segmentor.
I'm glad you're taking time out of your busy work day to post on Slashdot and espouse how being a segmentor is The Only Way (tm).
Where's the +1 Irony mod?
Won't someone think of his children?!
All the tobacco companies do is sell a product that people still want to buy even though it kills them. Their lobbying efforts are mainly to stem the tide of governmental oversight and restrictions on the sale and advertisement of their product. Imagine if the government passed a law saying it was illegal for McDonalds to advertise the Big Mac on television or radio because it contained trans fats. Do you think McDonalds would not immediately start lobbying heavily to get this restriction removed? The tobacco lobby is simply trying to protect their revenue stream, and stop the government from legislating them out of business.
On the other hand, the RIAA is actively changing laws to create new revenue streams, because it's not the government that's putting them out of business, it's the market. No one wants to buy their product because it sucks. The record companies see that their old way of doing things doesn't work anymore, so instead of adapting and changing like normal businesses should, they buy ridiculous laws that force people to buy their product even when they're *not* buying their product; they force blank media levies and tie up tax-supported courts with their lawsuit extortion schemes designed only to squeeze money out of the little guy and strike fear into the hearts of their market segments. They push for higher royalty payments based on a difference without distinction (analog vs. digital), all in the name of protecting their status as media gatekeepers so they can continue to sell us a product we don't want.
Tobacco companies do none of these things. They do not force people to smoke, nor do they try to illicit money from tangential sources to support a dying business model. The tobacco business model (selling a product people want to buy) works-- they are simply fighting government oversight.*
-----
* Before you start flaming about addictiveness of the product: smoking is a choice. I choose not to smoke. I do not presume the right to make that choice for others.
Now flame away.
Napoleon was just trying to protect his property, too.
Of course, he considered most of Europe to be his property.
A former governor now says an event in the sky may have been a UFO. CNN's Gary Tuchman reports. Hey, Arizona! UFO != Flying Saucer with Little Green Men!
UFO stands for Unidentified Flying Object. How can you be unsure whether an object is unidentified? Either you've identified it, or you haven't.
The proper spelling is either [(RI)|(MP)]AA or the Music And Film Industry Association of America (MAFIAA).
I guess realizing you made a mistake, changing your mind, and trying to make amends has gone out of vogue.
Be right first or don't bother being right at all.
AARP
NAACP
ACLU
Common Cause
Planetary Society
NRA
Free Software Foundation
If group lobbying isn't your style, try the direct approach.
Here is the fair use provision in its entirety, as written in Title 17, Section 107 of the US Code: Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include--
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors. Judges are instructed by this section to look at all four of the factors, and not just whether the surrounding commentary constitutes an "original work", although that's the most prolific use of fair use (quotations, citations, commentary, criticism, etc.).
I'm not sure whether abandonware can be considered fair use under criterion 4; I would imagine the alleged infringer would have to prove that there is not a viable market for the work anymore. If this has been tested in court anywere, please feel free to pipe up with case details; I'm interested to hear how it turned out.
In any case, posting videos on YouTube is clearly not fair use, since it doesn't fit any of the four criteria laid out in the law, and I can't see any judge ruling that it did.
Do the snakes on the plain stay mainly in Spain?
Our corporations will save billions.
Facts are for pussies. Feel the truthiness.
Then support for Win2K and WinXP is dropped, and suddenly, you're forced into it.
The fact of the matter is, you will be forced to upgrade at some point. Whether that upgrade is to Vista or to Debian is left as an exercise for the reader.
Luckily, you can get all the same functionality with only one install.
Mechanics like the ones you talk about are very smart, and likely have a lot of know-how about the vehicles they work on, having worked on cars for most of their lives. Diagnosing a problem has nothing to do with messiness; it's a purely mental task. Additionally, these guys are working on tasks that one person can easily do; it's doesn't require a team of people to repair a car.
Now scale up that mentality to something bigger... like manufacturing airplanes. I'm an engineer for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, and let me tell you, the romanticized notion of a single engineer or mechanic being able to diagnose problems off the top of their heads in the middle of a messy manufacturing shop is simply not feasible. The vehicle is simply too complicated, with too many parts and too many engineering drawings for that to be possible. Our factory as a result is spotlessly clean. Parts are tagged, sorted, stored, and maintained by computerized inventory systems; tools are checked in and out of the tool sheds for use by the mechanics; the floor is spotless and movement of parts within the factory is strictly controlled. Drawings, schematics, and installation job instructions are maintained in the computer drawing system. There is no haphazard organization of anything, and as a result, we pump a new passenger 777 out the door every three days. If I need to diagnose a problem with the engineering, I can't pull that information off the top of my head like the mechanic down the street; there's simply too much information. I have to dig through the drawing tree from higher assemblies on down to individual nuts and bolts, and having all that very well organized makes it very easy. I'm sure the same is true in any large manufacturing/engineering business, be it airplanes or cars or motherboards.
I think the simple answer to this is that "messy" is in the eye of the beholder. For the (productive) person creating the mess, it's not a mess. Everything makes sense to them. Only an outside observer, who didn't understand the messy person's system, would consider it a mess.
Unfortunately, since no two people create "productive messes" in quite the same way, this type of system only works for a single person. As soon as a team is involved, the efficiency drops dramatically as each person has to decipher another person's messy system to find anything, and in those situations, it is always more efficient to have a neat, organized, global method of organization. For the single mechanic rebuilding an engine, messy works. For the mechanics assembling the car on the line, messy doesn't work.
Right tool for the job, and all that.
You must be new here.
This is no different than music... someone owns the copyright and you're not allowed to modify or redistribute without permission, even if the format is open and Free (ogg/flac/etc.). You're allowed to remix or cite under Fair Use, but not distribute.
Just because the book discusses open source doesn't mean the book IS open source.
PDF warning!
Why would this not be free? PDF is a fully open, documented standard; Adobe licenses their patents on it royalty-free.
There's no reason to be stuck with Adobe Acrobat Reader(tm). Go get a real PDF editor and modify away! Dump the whole thing to text or LaTeX if you want.
I'll bet you're a hoot at parties.
Just kidding, of course. Comments like these are exactly why I read Slashdot.
Mp3 by itself is not "for" piracy. It is a media format, plain and simple. Legal mp3s are sold all over the internet, and I have an entire hard drive of completely legal mp3s I ripped from my own CD collection. Frauenhofer's involvement in piracy searches is testament to the fact that they want their products used for legal reasons, not for illegal ones. (It's also a good defense against making mp3 illegal because of the proliferation or encouragement of illegal use, a la Grokster.)
Analogy time! If a gun company worked with law enforcement to help raid the streets and seize illegally purchased weapons, would they be "playing both sides"? No... their product is sold for legal purposes, and they are simply helping enforce the current law by stopping illegal uses of their product.
Whether or not current law is just/fair/reasonable/appropriate is irrelevant to this particular discussion, and left as an exercise for the reader.
...the best buy usually has like 3 video cards, 1 sub-par motherboard, and approximately 23 hojillion music cd's, dvd's, and washing machines. Yeah, but that's a "salesman's hojillion". A real hojillion is actually 1,024 zillion, so Best Buy really only has about 22.5 hojillion CDs, DVDs, and washing machines.