EULA policy does not equal the law.
Sure thay have every right to ban someone for an activity that they don't like, but that doesn't make that activity illegal.
I'm not arguing the legality of selling stuff. I would guess that it's either really hard to hold up in court, or not worth the MMORPG publishers time to pursue. I am saying that, in light of the TOS that most MMORPGs require you to agree to in order to play, that it's not legitimate. The poster I was replying to said, in essence, "Hey, this is legitimate!" Essentially, eBay is protecting themselves from customer outrage when people have their accounts banned because of something they thought was legitimate. It violates the Terms of Service, and can cause their service to be terminated.
This is insane. There's clearly a market for this activity. And there's clearly a way to handle it legitimately (i.e. IGE). Instead of setting up a parallel site (like eBay motors), they just decide they're not going to handle it at all. Way to serve your investors, ebay.
That's the thing though... IGE isn't legitimate. If a MMORPG publisher finds out you bought gold or items from them, they can ban your account. eBay is protecting their customers.
It's either this, or field the "eBay should've have sold this if they knew it could cost me the account that I spent years playing because Blizzard or SOE found out I bought gold."
I still find it interesting that at 18 you're allowed join the military and die but you're not allowed to drink alcohol.
To be fair, though, bars around military bases tended to not pay a lot of attention to specific details like age when shown a military ID (at least back when I was in). That doesn't make it any more legal, but at least we could still show up to morning PT drunk. Believe it or not, it's an even worse idea than it sounds.
Thanks for clearing that up. I had assumed, wrongly apparently, that the SAR portion applied more to economics. I didn't realize it carried over into the judicial system as well.
It's possible, although I won't go so far as to say probable, that he's being made an object lesson in an effort to show China is continuing to be tough on piracy in order to court more business. I certainly (probably thankfully) have no experience with the Chinese legal system, and I'm not saying the same thing couldn't happen here. Meh, perhaps I'm too cynical.
The sadness of this situation will no doubt be marred by countless slashdot posts by the rabid anti-environmental right who tend to post on these sorts of stories.
Didn't Hollywood, typically thought of as a left-wing stronghold, get dinged for poor environmental policy?
I mean, I knew they had some nutty censorship going on there...but they've actually got people that make sure you can't crossdress in online computer games? Is that really a big enough problem that they need assign government officials to it?
It's not so much that it's a big enough problem to assign officials to it. It's more that it's harmless enough that they can assign officials the "easy" job, and then depending on mood congratulate them on their great work or demonize them for failing. It's hard to monitor and hard to prove. The perfect sort of thing for maintain buerocracy.
Don't get me wrong, I will never by a PSP or another sony product again (the cameras were ok), for the many attrocties they have done on the buying product (and I don't count the price of the PS3 amoung them), but lets stop knocking them for every little thing they do.
What's next? Stop saying that everything Microsoft does is wrong?!?! This is Slashdot, hyperbole rules!
From TFA: "Next year, Gonzales and the FBI are expected to resume their push for mandatory data retention, which will force Internet service providers to keep records on what their customers are doing online. An aide to Rep. Diana DeGette, a Colorado Democrat, said Friday that she's planning to introduce such legislation when the new Congress convenes."
So who do we vote for now? Democrats had their fun with censorship in the 80s and 90s, now it's Republicans turn.
And both have their place. It's nice to have a manager with technical know-how when they can truly act as another person in your workgroup, in essence increasing the number of people trying to fix a problem.
It's also nice to have a manager that trusts their employees and will fight in the management trenches leaving their employees free to actually do the work.
When this employee goes back to his job and is looking at his "amusements" and a co-worker walks by and is offended... What happens then? Presumably he gets fired (again). Is there legal recourse for the offended employee to sue the IRC under the laws of Australia for allowing this conduct to continue?
Slashdot, how do you handle user conflicts in a way that feels fair to everyone involved?
The person that "loses" is always going to feel like they were slighted, regardless of the conflict resolution mechanism in place. Nobody on the losing side of a lawsuit says "Welp, I lost. Sucks to be me!" There's always the "they failed to consider all the facts in the case, the jury was stacked, my lawyer was drunk..."
My advice is to pick a system that's out there, and run with it. It saves you the hassle of trying to come up with something "fair" that nobody will consider "fair" anyway.
Are these in public places? If so, there is no change in privacy (anyone can always look at you) unless the things start seeing through your clothes or something new like that.
I think this is an important point to emphasize. It's no different than the promise of security cameras on every street corner. I'm not saying it's good or bad, but this layer of technology isn't real important. It's the cameras going everywhere that should be at the center of the debate.
The report also notes that attorneys representing the Philadelphia law firm Blank-Rome have filed a 'Petition for Order to Show Cause,' which requires Thompson to illustrate to a judge why he should not be held in contempt."
But can someone more legally inclined tell me why his response shouldn't be "because I'm innocent until proven guilty"?
It sounds like they've issued a petition to force Thompson to show he did no wrong.
I'm far from being an expert on the state of affairs in the UK, so I'm asking this question in all honesty. What are the chances that media coverage of incidents are fueling a lot of the undisciplined behavior? It seems like, based on my non-psychologist background, that it seems to be a media fueled cycle sometimes. Someone does something stupid, it gets lots of media attention. Someone else wants attention, they do the same thing. It spirals for a while, you hit a lull and then it starts up again.
Again, I'm hardly an expert on such things. But I can't help but think sensationalizing incidents is going to lead to more "copy-cat" behavior.
I'm willing to bet that getting it posted on Slashdot got far more PR for both WorldNetDaily AND the movie than anything done on their site alone would've.
I care less about how long the game takes than I do about whether I enjoy the game. Doom 3 was fun...for a while. I eventually finished it, but it got to be a chore. Essentially doing the same thing on virtually the same map over and over again. F.E.A.R. was short, but I enjoyed my time playing it much more than Doom 3.
Yeah, I'd like more 40 hour games. As long as they offer good, semi-non repititive gameplay.
You first have to click the link from the registered email address.
SO you'd have to have that randomly-generated link to make use of said security question.
Perhaps someone can educate me... Are the security questions in Second Life the same as most other things... You get a drop-down box with options for your question, then type in your answer?
Why do I sense a lot of phishing that's going to be going on? The user gets a phishy email, clicks on the link, does their security stuff and enter their new password, which obviously doesn't work. Then they get a real Second Life email thing, do the same thing and their password is changed. The average user would probably just use the same password on both links, and not think anything of it.
Whose real news report would you like? After their 24x7 extravaganza of the fake JonBenet Killer story, every major media outlet in the country is suspect.
As if they weren't suspect before that, for countless other reasons...
I don't think it's too much to ask that we get some sort of report out of someone that doesn't have a vested political interest in what goes on one way or the other. Granted, finding ANY news without a political slant is nearly impossible these days. But generally if I read from both sides of the spectrum, I can almost figure out what might really be going on.
Slashdot Mirror
EULA policy does not equal the law. Sure thay have every right to ban someone for an activity that they don't like, but that doesn't make that activity illegal.
I'm not arguing the legality of selling stuff. I would guess that it's either really hard to hold up in court, or not worth the MMORPG publishers time to pursue. I am saying that, in light of the TOS that most MMORPGs require you to agree to in order to play, that it's not legitimate. The poster I was replying to said, in essence, "Hey, this is legitimate!" Essentially, eBay is protecting themselves from customer outrage when people have their accounts banned because of something they thought was legitimate. It violates the Terms of Service, and can cause their service to be terminated.
This is insane. There's clearly a market for this activity. And there's clearly a way to handle it legitimately (i.e. IGE). Instead of setting up a parallel site (like eBay motors), they just decide they're not going to handle it at all. Way to serve your investors, ebay.
That's the thing though... IGE isn't legitimate. If a MMORPG publisher finds out you bought gold or items from them, they can ban your account. eBay is protecting their customers.
It's either this, or field the "eBay should've have sold this if they knew it could cost me the account that I spent years playing because Blizzard or SOE found out I bought gold."
I still find it interesting that at 18 you're allowed join the military and die but you're not allowed to drink alcohol.
To be fair, though, bars around military bases tended to not pay a lot of attention to specific details like age when shown a military ID (at least back when I was in). That doesn't make it any more legal, but at least we could still show up to morning PT drunk. Believe it or not, it's an even worse idea than it sounds.
Thanks for clearing that up. I had assumed, wrongly apparently, that the SAR portion applied more to economics. I didn't realize it carried over into the judicial system as well.
It's possible, although I won't go so far as to say probable, that he's being made an object lesson in an effort to show China is continuing to be tough on piracy in order to court more business. I certainly (probably thankfully) have no experience with the Chinese legal system, and I'm not saying the same thing couldn't happen here. Meh, perhaps I'm too cynical.
The sadness of this situation will no doubt be marred by countless slashdot posts by the rabid anti-environmental right who tend to post on these sorts of stories.
Didn't Hollywood, typically thought of as a left-wing stronghold, get dinged for poor environmental policy?
I mean, I knew they had some nutty censorship going on there...but they've actually got people that make sure you can't crossdress in online computer games? Is that really a big enough problem that they need assign government officials to it?
It's not so much that it's a big enough problem to assign officials to it. It's more that it's harmless enough that they can assign officials the "easy" job, and then depending on mood congratulate them on their great work or demonize them for failing. It's hard to monitor and hard to prove. The perfect sort of thing for maintain buerocracy.
Or did they commision multiple surveys with different wording and cherry-pick the one they liked most? It is marketing, after all.
Don't get me wrong, I will never by a PSP or another sony product again (the cameras were ok), for the many attrocties they have done on the buying product (and I don't count the price of the PS3 amoung them), but lets stop knocking them for every little thing they do.
What's next? Stop saying that everything Microsoft does is wrong?!?! This is Slashdot, hyperbole rules!
From TFA: "Next year, Gonzales and the FBI are expected to resume their push for mandatory data retention, which will force Internet service providers to keep records on what their customers are doing online. An aide to Rep. Diana DeGette, a Colorado Democrat, said Friday that she's planning to introduce such legislation when the new Congress convenes."
So who do we vote for now? Democrats had their fun with censorship in the 80s and 90s, now it's Republicans turn.
And both have their place. It's nice to have a manager with technical know-how when they can truly act as another person in your workgroup, in essence increasing the number of people trying to fix a problem.
It's also nice to have a manager that trusts their employees and will fight in the management trenches leaving their employees free to actually do the work.
When this employee goes back to his job and is looking at his "amusements" and a co-worker walks by and is offended... What happens then? Presumably he gets fired (again). Is there legal recourse for the offended employee to sue the IRC under the laws of Australia for allowing this conduct to continue?
common sense ? reason ?
Next you'll be advocating personal responsibility and consequences for your actions. Let the insanity stop now!
Slashdot, how do you handle user conflicts in a way that feels fair to everyone involved?
The person that "loses" is always going to feel like they were slighted, regardless of the conflict resolution mechanism in place. Nobody on the losing side of a lawsuit says "Welp, I lost. Sucks to be me!" There's always the "they failed to consider all the facts in the case, the jury was stacked, my lawyer was drunk..."
My advice is to pick a system that's out there, and run with it. It saves you the hassle of trying to come up with something "fair" that nobody will consider "fair" anyway.
Are these in public places? If so, there is no change in privacy (anyone can always look at you) unless the things start seeing through your clothes or something new like that.
I think this is an important point to emphasize. It's no different than the promise of security cameras on every street corner. I'm not saying it's good or bad, but this layer of technology isn't real important. It's the cameras going everywhere that should be at the center of the debate.
IT people checking out new web access monitoring software might also discover the boss is surfing personal ad websites in his office next to his wife.
Most companies warn new employees that their email and other electronic activities can and will be monitored. Why should execs be any different?
The report also notes that attorneys representing the Philadelphia law firm Blank-Rome have filed a 'Petition for Order to Show Cause,' which requires Thompson to illustrate to a judge why he should not be held in contempt."
But can someone more legally inclined tell me why his response shouldn't be "because I'm innocent until proven guilty"?
It sounds like they've issued a petition to force Thompson to show he did no wrong.
I'm far from being an expert on the state of affairs in the UK, so I'm asking this question in all honesty. What are the chances that media coverage of incidents are fueling a lot of the undisciplined behavior? It seems like, based on my non-psychologist background, that it seems to be a media fueled cycle sometimes. Someone does something stupid, it gets lots of media attention. Someone else wants attention, they do the same thing. It spirals for a while, you hit a lull and then it starts up again.
Again, I'm hardly an expert on such things. But I can't help but think sensationalizing incidents is going to lead to more "copy-cat" behavior.
I'm willing to bet that getting it posted on Slashdot got far more PR for both WorldNetDaily AND the movie than anything done on their site alone would've.
I care less about how long the game takes than I do about whether I enjoy the game. Doom 3 was fun...for a while. I eventually finished it, but it got to be a chore. Essentially doing the same thing on virtually the same map over and over again. F.E.A.R. was short, but I enjoyed my time playing it much more than Doom 3.
Yeah, I'd like more 40 hour games. As long as they offer good, semi-non repititive gameplay.
Are you sure? I always let it slip that "I'm going home" when I'm headed to work.
But what if you're all about strict interpretation of the Constituition. It doesn't say anything about phone calls!
I kid, I kid. I hope.
...but does it use a Sony battery?
It doesn't need to, it's got a genuine original article Xbox360 power supply!
You first have to click the link from the registered email address. SO you'd have to have that randomly-generated link to make use of said security question.
Perhaps someone can educate me... Are the security questions in Second Life the same as most other things... You get a drop-down box with options for your question, then type in your answer?
Why do I sense a lot of phishing that's going to be going on? The user gets a phishy email, clicks on the link, does their security stuff and enter their new password, which obviously doesn't work. Then they get a real Second Life email thing, do the same thing and their password is changed. The average user would probably just use the same password on both links, and not think anything of it.
Whose real news report would you like? After their 24x7 extravaganza of the fake JonBenet Killer story, every major media outlet in the country is suspect.
As if they weren't suspect before that, for countless other reasons...
I don't think it's too much to ask that we get some sort of report out of someone that doesn't have a vested political interest in what goes on one way or the other. Granted, finding ANY news without a political slant is nearly impossible these days. But generally if I read from both sides of the spectrum, I can almost figure out what might really be going on.