This post is nothing more than a flame.
These people are not spamming search engines, they are attempting to research the accuraccy of the two search engines.
Just because some of their research can be used for 'evil' doesn't mean that these people have done anything wrong.
"Stupid guy who invented the wheel, if the wheel has never been invented car bombs would never have been invented and the world would be a much better place.I wouldn't give him the time of day."
There is a huge difference between will and could.
Admin's could read my e-mail but most likely will not. Especially if they have some privacy policy against it.
The parent post is pointing out if Google uses targeted advert's they WILL read my e-mail. If I decide to subscribe to porn, and then suddenly whenever I got to google.com or google mail I have to deal with porn adverts. Well that isn't going to look too good at work or home.
Or what if I get an e-mail regarding AIDS, and then I see adverts for AIDS treatment when I visit google, other may see this, realise I have AIDS and then discriminate against me.
So no, I am not ashamed of what software 'thinks' about me, but I may be adversly affected by the ad's it displays.
Is it all the money they invested in creating the new software, paying up-front fees to labels, launch advertising, etc?
Its quite possible that they have only lost money due to once time investments, while they are making a profit on the actual selling of music.
In which case, given a year they'll start turning a decent profit.
At one point in time it was "blindingly obvious" that the world was flat. At one point it was "blindingly obvious" that white skinned people were better than all other skin colours.
Just because something is "blindingly obvious" doesn't mean there shouldn't be proof to back it up.
This report may be crap, but just because something is "obvious" doesn't mean it shouldn't be researched and proofed
Fine, you are here now. Instead of complaining that he was of (semi)mature age when computers were just starting look at something that in the future will be big and do that. Most people had no idea about computers when Bill Gates started to work on them. If you had been born at the exact same second as Bill Gates, I'm betting when Bill was attempting to create code, and making his own home computer. You would have been at school, being almost totally oblivious to what computers were all about.
So instead of complaining he was born at that time, look at what in the future will be big, and get to work on that. BioTech is going to be huge, maybe you should have been mucking around with basic BioTech stuff instead of with writing software which in now out of its infancy and into maturity.
Why would anybody ever download something bundled with the crap referred to here, much less install it? Such "third-party applications" make the main product worse than useless.
My younger brother is an example, he has his own computer, I have explained to him (and installed for him Kazaalite and BT) about adware and spyware. But he doesn't really understand (Admittedly his is 10, but he has someone who knows what he is talking about helping him out.) and countinues to download stuff that has adware and spyware.
He doesn't care about spyware, and he only cares about adware when it gets in his way.
There are plently of people out there who have no idea what adware and spyware is. And often have it installed, think its annoying, but have no idea what it is, or how to remove it.
So they continue downloading things that have warning, totally oblivous to the implications.
I tell you what, why don't you write such an app with such a filter and see how long it takes for RIAA and the courts to come down on you like a ton of bricks for deliberately designing a tool that a) stops them from posting their own material, whilst, b) helping people infringe on their copyrights as easily as possible
It could also stop people renaming virsus/trojan's and putting it as legit software. (I.E a game patch).
So what if Dan Rather, instead of traveling to the middle of a hurricane to report live, just used a blue screen and a wind machine, and had someone off screen throw a tree branch or two at him? Is that ok too?
This happened in Australia just recently to do with the Iraq war. A current affairs reporter claimed to be in Iraq, and was saying shit such as "Look us anywhere we want. We are in a truck which could be filled with weapons and no one has stopped us." I also heard (didn't see all of it) that he claimed they were being fired at by Iraqi's.
It was later exposed he had just been going thru the Australian outback, and the few shots that looked like they were from Iraq, were. But they weren't shot by him, they were added in later from other news broadcasts.
I'm guessing that's pretty much where they got the idea from, and how they get it to work.
I've had this happen rather often, since I go to sleep listen to the radio.
The most major time, being sept 11. I dreamed that I was fighting this giant flying dragon in and around the world trade centre. And I first blew giant holes in them, and then threw the giant dragon into the bottom of the two buildings and they came collapsing down.
Just after that I awoke, walked out and said something along the lines of "Guess what, I just killed and giant dragon. But I accidentally took out the WTC's as well."
My mates looked at me for a second like I had just made a really bad joke, and pointed to the TV screen.
A couple months ago, at my college. I had a look at the work of other students who received very high marks for an essay/assignment. My own work being one of them, gaining the 3rd highest mark in the class.
After looking at the top ten, I was amazed at how many of them a lifted work right out of books, and the net. Of the top ten, I could tell right away that 7 (including the two that gained higher marks than my own) of them had lifted line after line directly from internet sites, and books I had read while researching.
Now this is total bullshit, these students are at the top of our class, yet plagiarize from others. Meaning that other students, who are really much better students than those who plagiarize work, are receiving lower marks, and in the future will be considered worse than their plagiarizing counter-parts.
I really like anyway, or thing that can stop this from happening, and make those students who deserve better marks get them. As long as professors (and students) can go over anything that has been 'caught', and double check it themselves.
The only downside I can see, is if the professors stop looking for plagiarism and rely solely on computer programs to do it for them. Although, from my experience they don't seem to catch it very often anyway.
Many people have used it to download porn, most porn is legal.
Then you also have linux distro's, patches that take a heavy beating (CS, DesCom).
There is also a reasonbly large gaming website, which releases everything downloadable (demos, patches, freeware, shareware etc) on both its own servers, and p2p networks.
I don't think there should be a moral question.
For new technologies, I think we should always
"We can do it, so we should do it".
Almost everything has a negative use.
We could split the atom, so should we? Hell yes, it can be used as one of the worst weapons, or it can be used as a great source of energy.
We could make rockets, so should we? Hell yes, it can be used to launch weapons, it can also be used to get into space.
We could fly, so should we? Hell yes, it can be used to drop bombs or crash into buildings. But it can also be used as a great form of transport.
Etc.
I think you are also forgetting that most governments are still elected, so if we ignore Florida. If the majority of people don't want something MAJOR to happen it won't. If most people don't want mandatory implants, and their brains to be available to the government. Then they whoever is saying they will do that won't get elected. (And if they try do it, without saying they will, they won't be in power long).
1. Honest citizen's car is stolen, has device in it.
2. Citizen report to police.
3. Police stop the car.
Oh yes much easier. Sure they could avoid it by taking it out, and replacing it. But last time I checked, a car jacker doesn't have time to do that after stealing a car. (Tho a device that interferes with the transmitting could work).
There are already systems like this in place, so I agree it's not really necessary for the police to have this power. In the latest cars, the owner can stop it with a simple phone call and password.
1. Ads you think are good, other may find crap and/or offensive.
I also find that some "crap" ads are very good. They tell you where there is a sale and you buy stuff cheaper. There is no way I would have got my last car audio gear for $500 marked down from $900 without seeing the ad.
2. If I own a small business I can't spend hundreds of thousands to make a really good ad(Yes you could do one that is a low-budget joke, but they are hard to come up with, normally people pay for others to do that). Should I not be allowed to advertise because I don't have the money to?
3. As someone else pointed out, what they do now WORKS. If it ain't broke don't fix it. Just because some people have TiVo's doesn't mean that they need replace ads altogether. But they are already looking at alternatives, such as product placement.
4. Being a consumer is a two-way street. You buy stuff, they sell stuff. Once you come up with a better way to get out what your product does, and how much it costs (and coax people into buying it). I'm sure everyone would love to know.
P.S I don't agree with them suing TiVo. I just don't agree that they need to only broadcast "good" ads.
"There are two worlds we can live in. One where, in the end, we have no privacy, and one where, in the end, we do."
Personally, I'd prefer the world where there is NO privacy. But this means no privacy for anyone, the individual, the government, and businesses. And a world where everything is self-regulated and recorded, and enforced.
Imagine a world like that described my George Orwell in his book 1984 (I haven't actually read it myself, so if I'm a bit off, forgive me). But instead of the government watching everyone, everyone is watching everyone. A place with there is no escape from video camera, continually recording, randomly being monitored by humans, law enforcement, and even AI. Any crime that would ever been committed would be caught and dealt with, no crime, no lying, no theft, no privacy. At first some would find it bad & Scary, but eventually people would get used to people watching them in the shower, having sex, watching TV etc. People worried about perverts, sure they MAY watch you at the start (But think there is 6 billion to watch, so you have a very small chance of being watched), but after they got used to it, it wouldn't interest people anymore.
One of the biggest problems with such a society is who makes the laws, and the punishments? They would become absolute, you'd never been wrongly convicted, but you'd never get away with anything either. Do will continue making J-walking illegal, or make it legal? Pot, and other drugs, if you smoke it, your busted. Should we make it legal, or keep it illegal. But, if we could reach an equilibrium, a perfect balance. I would much prefer total transparency than total privacy.
Why do you need a bunch a copies of a movie? What because you want to watch it on your Family room DVD player, Living room DVD player, Rumpus room DVD player, Playstation 2, your 3 computers, and in your car, simultaneously?
Movies are very different to music, music you can listen to one many things, without it being any worse (i.e Your home theater, computer, stereo, car). A movie on the other hand, why would you want to watch it on your computer instead of your home theater? Only reason I can think of it laptop or in-car, and in both of these circumstances you don't need the disc in two locations.
Being able to copy it three times, or even twice sounds reasonable, then you get the original disc and 3 extra's incase of scratching.
I want to know about games, but I don't care when a mod for half-life goes from.96 to.97
I do care when doom3 finally gets released, or if the half-life 2 source code is stolen etc.
Unchecking games doesn't help me, I totally agree with the orignal post, I don't see why this is "front page" news.
Yeah right, how many other chains are there out there? Video rental stores hold pretty little leeway. Sure if say, BlockBuster didn't realease a certin movie on Video or DVD it might do some damage because people prob wouldnt realise.
But if they suddenly stopped having DVD's, DVD sales and rentals would not be hurt at all. People would just go to a different video store, and BlockBuster would prob go out of business
You say the reason people download music is to listen to a song before they buy it.
And try and say that it is the same as a radio broadcast.
If its broadcast on the radio the you've HEARD it before, why do you need a copy for your use whenever you want, if you only download to hear before you buy?
Sure there is some music that isn't played on the radio but you have a few LEGAL options, 1. If they are indie that CAN allow people to download versions for free, if they dont want to then they dont have to. Just because they decide that they'd prefer not to give someone a digital copy of their music doesnt mean you should be allowed to commit copyright theft. 2. Alot of stores will allow you to listen to the CD before you buy it. 3. You could just not commit copyright theft and never hear it.
Lets see what other bullshit did you make up, oh the reason people buy CD's is because it better quality than SOME rips.
Yes that plays a part, but here is a huge difference between radio and CD's (and mp3's) on the radio you can not listen to the music you want anytime you want, anywhere you want. With a CD (or MP3) you can.
Oh and back to the issue of quality, many people rip there own CD's so they can listen to the music on their computer and/or MP3 player. They also release it on Kazaa and other file sharing networks.
Now why on earth would someone make BAD quality rips to listen to in MP3 format? Wouldnt they just rip it at a high enough quality that they cannot tell the difference? Wait maybe they DO!
Downloading illegal music drives sales, well lets see how many songs have I downloaded since napster was released, easy a couple thousand. Now how many CD's have brought because of what I've heard from the MP3... hmm 0. I already (illegally) own the music, I'm not going to go and get another copy. The same goes for pretty much everyone I know who downloads music illegally.
We know its illegal, but really, we don't care. I still support artist in other ways, but it doesnt justify commiting copyright theft. I can admit to it, I think you need to aswell.
What else, "The most downloaded album on Kazaa was the last Eminem CD, 'pre-released'" erm.. source?
"tracked by places like Big Champagne. To find out what bands are most popular in" Didn't you just say that people don't download what they want to own (buy), but instead to find out what different bands and songs are like?
If this is true, tracking how many people download xyz does not help at all.
Sure people do download to test the waters, I do it often my friend says XYZ is good, I download it, and like it. But guess what I, and thousands others do? We dont rush out to the store, we type the name of the band in KaZaA search and download the rest of their music.
"Big Champagne's customers use of P2P network tracking info to drive CD marketing campaigns are proof that the RIAA record labels believe downloads drive sales." WTF? Where did that come from? I think its more proof that people download music they want. So the record labels see what music people want, and market it better. Plan a simple, it no way does it proves that it drives music sales.
There are other things incorrect in your post, but I just be stuffed pointing them out.
**** Sorry about spelling etc, in a rush.
The same slashdot crowd who are agaisnt pantents, copyright, censorship.
Now they are saying you spend money developing it you can do whatever the fuck you want with it, and others shouldnt be able to use it?
"weren't the first shots fired at the Koresh compound fired by an ATF agent shooting himself in the thigh?"
This is bullshit, the ATF is considered the bad guy in this situtation, why?
Because people like a good story, so people decided to turn what happend at Waco into something it wasnt. As seen on Slashdot, total bullshit when written to sound convining often misleads people. Exactly what happend with Waco.
And I believe the first shots were fired by Koresh. When 4 ATF officers came round to the compound to question him, they were shot at and killed before all of them had even left their car.
The way the ATF handled the sitution may not have been the best way, but I am still yet to see proof that Koresh didnt light the fire himself. And he certinly wasnt a good guy.
Slashdot Mirror
This post is nothing more than a flame. These people are not spamming search engines, they are attempting to research the accuraccy of the two search engines. Just because some of their research can be used for 'evil' doesn't mean that these people have done anything wrong. "Stupid guy who invented the wheel, if the wheel has never been invented car bombs would never have been invented and the world would be a much better place.I wouldn't give him the time of day."
Try yahoo, slashdot is all the way down to 6th.
While google's 4th result Slash Online (Offical fanpage of slash) is now at the number 1 postion.
There is a huge difference between will and could.
Admin's could read my e-mail but most likely will not. Especially if they have some privacy policy against it.
The parent post is pointing out if Google uses targeted advert's they WILL read my e-mail.
If I decide to subscribe to porn, and then suddenly whenever I got to google.com or google mail I have to deal with porn adverts. Well that isn't going to look too good at work or home.
Or what if I get an e-mail regarding AIDS, and then I see adverts for AIDS treatment when I visit google, other may see this, realise I have AIDS and then discriminate against me.
So no, I am not ashamed of what software 'thinks' about me, but I may be adversly affected by the ad's it displays.
(like by analyzing the content of the email)
Personally I don't want Google reading/analysing my e-mail. Even if is just some algorithm.
It doesn't say why the are running at a loss.
Is it all the money they invested in creating the new software, paying up-front fees to labels, launch advertising, etc?
Its quite possible that they have only lost money due to once time investments, while they are making a profit on the actual selling of music. In which case, given a year they'll start turning a decent profit.
At one point in time it was "blindingly obvious" that the world was flat. At one point it was "blindingly obvious" that white skinned people were better than all other skin colours.
Just because something is "blindingly obvious" doesn't mean there shouldn't be proof to back it up.
This report may be crap, but just because something is "obvious" doesn't mean it shouldn't be researched and proofed
Fine, you are here now. Instead of complaining that he was of (semi)mature age when computers were just starting look at something that in the future will be big and do that.
Most people had no idea about computers when Bill Gates started to work on them.
If you had been born at the exact same second as Bill Gates, I'm betting when Bill was attempting to create code, and making his own home computer. You would have been at school, being almost totally oblivious to what computers were all about.
So instead of complaining he was born at that time, look at what in the future will be big, and get to work on that.
BioTech is going to be huge, maybe you should have been mucking around with basic BioTech stuff instead of with writing software which in now out of its infancy and into maturity.
windex warns you not to spray it in your eyes
How exactly am I meant to clean my eyes then? huh!
Next you'll be telling me not to clean virsus off Mircosoft Windows with windex.
Why would anybody ever download something bundled with the crap referred to here, much less install it? Such "third-party applications" make the main product worse than useless.
My younger brother is an example, he has his own computer, I have explained to him (and installed for him Kazaalite and BT) about adware and spyware. But he doesn't really understand (Admittedly his is 10, but he has someone who knows what he is talking about helping him out.) and countinues to download stuff that has adware and spyware.
He doesn't care about spyware, and he only cares about adware when it gets in his way.
There are plently of people out there who have no idea what adware and spyware is. And often have it installed, think its annoying, but have no idea what it is, or how to remove it.
So they continue downloading things that have warning, totally oblivous to the implications.
I tell you what, why don't you write such an app with such a filter and see how long it takes for RIAA and the courts to come down on you like a ton of bricks for deliberately designing a tool that a) stops them from posting their own material, whilst, b) helping people infringe on their copyrights as easily as possible
It could also stop people renaming virsus/trojan's and putting it as legit software. (I.E a game patch).
So what if Dan Rather, instead of traveling to the middle of a hurricane to report live, just used a blue screen and a wind machine, and had someone off screen throw a tree branch or two at him? Is that ok too?
This happened in Australia just recently to do with the Iraq war. A current affairs reporter claimed to be in Iraq, and was saying shit such as "Look us anywhere we want. We are in a truck which could be filled with weapons and no one has stopped us." I also heard (didn't see all of it) that he claimed they were being fired at by Iraqi's.
It was later exposed he had just been going thru the Australian outback, and the few shots that looked like they were from Iraq, were. But they weren't shot by him, they were added in later from other news broadcasts.
I'm guessing that's pretty much where they got the idea from, and how they get it to work. I've had this happen rather often, since I go to sleep listen to the radio. The most major time, being sept 11. I dreamed that I was fighting this giant flying dragon in and around the world trade centre. And I first blew giant holes in them, and then threw the giant dragon into the bottom of the two buildings and they came collapsing down. Just after that I awoke, walked out and said something along the lines of "Guess what, I just killed and giant dragon. But I accidentally took out the WTC's as well." My mates looked at me for a second like I had just made a really bad joke, and pointed to the TV screen.
A couple months ago, at my college. I had a look at the work of other students who received very high marks for an essay/assignment. My own work being one of them, gaining the 3rd highest mark in the class.
After looking at the top ten, I was amazed at how many of them a lifted work right out of books, and the net. Of the top ten, I could tell right away that 7 (including the two that gained higher marks than my own) of them had lifted line after line directly from internet sites, and books I had read while researching.
Now this is total bullshit, these students are at the top of our class, yet plagiarize from others. Meaning that other students, who are really much better students than those who plagiarize work, are receiving lower marks, and in the future will be considered worse than their plagiarizing counter-parts.
I really like anyway, or thing that can stop this from happening, and make those students who deserve better marks get them.
As long as professors (and students) can go over anything that has been 'caught', and double check it themselves.
The only downside I can see, is if the professors stop looking for plagiarism and rely solely on computer programs to do it for them. Although, from my experience they don't seem to catch it very often anyway.
Many people have used it to download porn, most porn is legal. Then you also have linux distro's, patches that take a heavy beating (CS, DesCom). There is also a reasonbly large gaming website, which releases everything downloadable (demos, patches, freeware, shareware etc) on both its own servers, and p2p networks.
I don't think there should be a moral question. For new technologies, I think we should always "We can do it, so we should do it". Almost everything has a negative use. We could split the atom, so should we? Hell yes, it can be used as one of the worst weapons, or it can be used as a great source of energy. We could make rockets, so should we? Hell yes, it can be used to launch weapons, it can also be used to get into space. We could fly, so should we? Hell yes, it can be used to drop bombs or crash into buildings. But it can also be used as a great form of transport. Etc. I think you are also forgetting that most governments are still elected, so if we ignore Florida. If the majority of people don't want something MAJOR to happen it won't. If most people don't want mandatory implants, and their brains to be available to the government. Then they whoever is saying they will do that won't get elected. (And if they try do it, without saying they will, they won't be in power long).
Lets think about this.
1. Honest citizen's car is stolen, has device in it.
2. Citizen report to police.
3. Police stop the car.
Oh yes much easier. Sure they could avoid it by taking it out, and replacing it. But last time I checked, a car jacker doesn't have time to do that after stealing a car.
(Tho a device that interferes with the transmitting could work).
There are already systems like this in place, so I agree it's not really necessary for the police to have this power. In the latest cars, the owner can stop it with a simple phone call and password.
1. Ads you think are good, other may find crap and/or offensive.
I also find that some "crap" ads are very good. They tell you where there is a sale and you buy stuff cheaper. There is no way I would have got my last car audio gear for $500 marked down from $900 without seeing the ad.
2. If I own a small business I can't spend hundreds of thousands to make a really good ad(Yes you could do one that is a low-budget joke, but they are hard to come up with, normally people pay for others to do that). Should I not be allowed to advertise because I don't have the money to?
3. As someone else pointed out, what they do now WORKS. If it ain't broke don't fix it. Just because some people have TiVo's doesn't mean that they need replace ads altogether. But they are already looking at alternatives, such as product placement.
4. Being a consumer is a two-way street. You buy stuff, they sell stuff. Once you come up with a better way to get out what your product does, and how much it costs (and coax people into buying it). I'm sure everyone would love to know.
P.S I don't agree with them suing TiVo. I just don't agree that they need to only broadcast "good" ads.
Privacy VS Transparency
"There are two worlds we can live in. One where, in the end, we have no privacy, and one where, in the end, we do."
Personally, I'd prefer the world where there is NO privacy. But this means no privacy for anyone, the individual, the government, and businesses. And a world where everything is self-regulated and recorded, and enforced.
Imagine a world like that described my George Orwell in his book 1984 (I haven't actually read it myself, so if I'm a bit off, forgive me). But instead of the government watching everyone, everyone is watching everyone. A place with there is no escape from video camera, continually recording, randomly being monitored by humans, law enforcement, and even AI.
Any crime that would ever been committed would be caught and dealt with, no crime, no lying, no theft, no privacy. At first some would find it bad & Scary, but eventually people would get used to people watching them in the shower, having sex, watching TV etc.
People worried about perverts, sure they MAY watch you at the start (But think there is 6 billion to watch, so you have a very small chance of being watched), but after they got used to it, it wouldn't interest people anymore.
One of the biggest problems with such a society is who makes the laws, and the punishments? They would become absolute, you'd never been wrongly convicted, but you'd never get away with anything either. Do will continue making J-walking illegal, or make it legal? Pot, and other drugs, if you smoke it, your busted. Should we make it legal, or keep it illegal.
But, if we could reach an equilibrium, a perfect balance.
I would much prefer total transparency than total privacy.
Why do you need a bunch a copies of a movie?
What because you want to watch it on your Family room DVD player, Living room DVD player, Rumpus room DVD player, Playstation 2, your 3 computers, and in your car, simultaneously?
Movies are very different to music, music you can listen to one many things, without it being any worse (i.e Your home theater, computer, stereo, car). A movie on the other hand, why would you want to watch it on your computer instead of your home theater?
Only reason I can think of it laptop or in-car, and in both of these circumstances you don't need the disc in two locations.
Being able to copy it three times, or even twice sounds reasonable, then you get the original disc and 3 extra's incase of scratching.
I want to know about games, but I don't care when a mod for half-life goes from .96 to .97
I do care when doom3 finally gets released, or if the half-life 2 source code is stolen etc.
Unchecking games doesn't help me, I totally agree with the orignal post, I don't see why this is "front page" news.
Yeah right, how many other chains are there out there?
Video rental stores hold pretty little leeway. Sure if say, BlockBuster didn't realease a certin movie on Video or DVD it might do some damage because people prob wouldnt realise.
But if they suddenly stopped having DVD's, DVD sales and rentals would not be hurt at all. People would just go to a different video store, and BlockBuster would prob go out of business
You say the reason people download music is to listen to a song before they buy it.
And try and say that it is the same as a radio broadcast.
If its broadcast on the radio the you've HEARD it before, why do you need a copy for your use whenever you want, if you only download to hear before you buy?
Sure there is some music that isn't played on the radio but you have a few LEGAL options, 1. If they are indie that CAN allow people to download versions for free, if they dont want to then they dont have to. Just because they decide that they'd prefer not to give someone a digital copy of their music doesnt mean you should be allowed to commit copyright theft. 2. Alot of stores will allow you to listen to the CD before you buy it. 3. You could just not commit copyright theft and never hear it.
Lets see what other bullshit did you make up, oh the reason people buy CD's is because it better quality than SOME rips.
Yes that plays a part, but here is a huge difference between radio and CD's (and mp3's) on the radio you can not listen to the music you want anytime you want, anywhere you want. With a CD (or MP3) you can.
Oh and back to the issue of quality, many people rip there own CD's so they can listen to the music on their computer and/or MP3 player. They also release it on Kazaa and other file sharing networks.
Now why on earth would someone make BAD quality rips to listen to in MP3 format? Wouldnt they just rip it at a high enough quality that they cannot tell the difference? Wait maybe they DO!
Downloading illegal music drives sales, well lets see how many songs have I downloaded since napster was released, easy a couple thousand.
Now how many CD's have brought because of what I've heard from the MP3... hmm 0. I already (illegally) own the music, I'm not going to go and get another copy. The same goes for pretty much everyone I know who downloads music illegally.
We know its illegal, but really, we don't care. I still support artist in other ways, but it doesnt justify commiting copyright theft. I can admit to it, I think you need to aswell.
What else, "The most downloaded album on Kazaa was the last Eminem CD, 'pre-released'" erm.. source?
"tracked by places like Big Champagne. To find out what bands are most popular in" Didn't you just say that people don't download what they want to own (buy), but instead to find out what different bands and songs are like?
If this is true, tracking how many people download xyz does not help at all.
Sure people do download to test the waters, I do it often my friend says XYZ is good, I download it, and like it. But guess what I, and thousands others do? We dont rush out to the store, we type the name of the band in KaZaA search and download the rest of their music.
"Big Champagne's customers use of P2P network tracking info to drive CD marketing campaigns are proof that the RIAA record labels believe downloads drive sales." WTF? Where did that come from? I think its more proof that people download music they want. So the record labels see what music people want, and market it better. Plan a simple, it no way does it proves that it drives music sales.
There are other things incorrect in your post, but I just be stuffed pointing them out. **** Sorry about spelling etc, in a rush.
Heads up disply? That a thing that says "Heads up" just before you smash into a wall, right?
The same slashdot crowd who are agaisnt pantents, copyright, censorship. Now they are saying you spend money developing it you can do whatever the fuck you want with it, and others shouldnt be able to use it?
"weren't the first shots fired at the Koresh compound fired by an ATF agent shooting himself in the thigh?"
This is bullshit, the ATF is considered the bad guy in this situtation, why? Because people like a good story, so people decided to turn what happend at Waco into something it wasnt. As seen on Slashdot, total bullshit when written to sound convining often misleads people. Exactly what happend with Waco.
And I believe the first shots were fired by Koresh. When 4 ATF officers came round to the compound to question him, they were shot at and killed before all of them had even left their car.
The way the ATF handled the sitution may not have been the best way, but I am still yet to see proof that Koresh didnt light the fire himself. And he certinly wasnt a good guy.