So it's dismissed, but she still owes somewhere between a couple thousand and a hundred thousand dollars? She's fucked regardless.
If she had just taken the blame for the infringemnet instead of going to court, she could have probably settled with the RIAA for a couple grand per track stolen, like most people being faced with RIAA actions are doing.
So being punished for something you didn't do costs less than proving you're innocent. Doesn't that make you proud of our court system?
With such an advanced soceity as we have, its amazing how frail and utterly devistatable our communications and electrical utilies are.
Not really.
We may be advanced as a society, but the infastructure these services run on isn't. Remember, the NYC blackout was caused by a failure of the power grid, a failure attributable to lack of maintenance on the grid. During the blackout, the news organizations filled some of their round-the-clock-coverage time talking about the city's power grid and how this was built on top of that and that and that some of the lines were literally a hundred years old.
Why wasn't this maintenance being kept up? Obviously because every dollar not spent on maintenance can be added to the company's profit line. Lots of remote areas of the country were brought telephone and electric services with help from federal subsidy or low interest loans by the government decades ago, so it might be questionable how much utilities could actually afford proper maintenance of the system without rate hikes. Every board of the utility does the same thing, putting off or ignoring expensive maintenance, assuming things will keep humming along (at least until they move on to greener pastures, then their sucessors can deal with it). Then one day it does crash, then the utility suddenly finds itself caught when people realize all the work that's needed. Last I heard, the New York power conglomerates were asking the federal government for a bailout to pay for all the maintenance they've been dodging. So they skimp to line their pockets, and we the taxpayers pay for their mistakes. I hope the government grants them a LOAN personally.
Prediction: The government WILL give them the bailout. Electricty is too important in our modern society to let the biggest city's lines go dead. Granting a loan would cause the power company's stock to fall down the shithole under the weight of all that debt and the company would collapse.
I assume that anybody can declare a file shareable. But the *user* is the one who has to make this declaration. This means LimeWire is not encouraging nor participating in violation of copyright. Thus Limewire hopes to survive the lawsuits to come.
I read TFA, and I still don't quite understand how this is going to work. Do you have to register with Limewire to make yourself an artist capable of assigning licenses to files? If so, are they going to go through those registrations by hand? What's to stop me from registering myself as "Joe Shmoe" of "123 Fuck You RIAA ST." and then adding "shareable" licenses to my entire music library?
Seems to me this is just going to change things from everybody sharing MP3's to everybody sharing MP3's with "shareable" licences attached. Will the files have a differnet file extension? Like copy protected compact discs, doesn't that make these files technically not MP3's? Can Fraunhofer IIS sue for trademark infringement since Limewire is creating files it says are MP3's but aren't?
I don't think this will protect Limewire from any lawsuits either. The RIAA wants more proactive measures taken by p2p client companies. Like the sort of stuff Napster did. Unfortunately, advanced filtering and such aren't going to work on a network with no centralized server, it's another case of media conglomerates not understanding technology.
SEC. 629. [47 U.S.C. 549] COMPETITIVE AVAILABILITY OF NAVIGATION DEVICES. (a) COMMERCIAL CONSUMER AVAILABILITY OF EQUIPMENT USED TO ACCESS SERVICES PROVIDED BY MULTICHANNEL VIDEO PROGRAMMING DISTRIBUTORS.--The Commission shall, in consultation with appropriate industry standard-setting organizations, adopt regulations to assure the commercial availability, to consumers of multichannel video programming and other services offered over multichannel video programming systems, of converter boxes, interactive communications equipment, and other equipment used by consumers to access multichannel video programming and other services offered over multichannel video programming systems, from manufacturers, retailers, and other vendors not affiliated with any multichannel video programming distributor. Such regulations shall not prohibit any multichannel video programming distributor from also offering converter boxes, interactive communications equipment, and other equipment used by consumers to access multichannel video programming and other services offered over multichannel video programming systems, to consumers, if the system operator's charges to consumers for such devices and equipment are separately stated and not subsidized by charges for any such service. (b) PROTECTION OF SYSTEM SECURITY.--The Commission shall not prescribe regulations under subsection (a) which would jeopardize security of multichannel video programming and other services offered over multichannel video programming systems, or impede the legal rights of a provider of such services to prevent theft of service. (c) WAIVER.--The Commission shall waive a regulation adopted under subsection (a) for a limited time upon an appropriate showing by a provider of multichannel video programming and other services offered over multichannel video programming systems, or an equipment provider, that such waiver is necessary to assist the development or introduction of a new or improved multichannel video programming or other service offered over multichannel video programming systems, technology, or products. Upon an appropriate showing, the Commission shall grant any such waiver request within 90 days of any application filed under this subsection, and such waiver shall be effective for all service providers and products in that category and for all providers of services and products. (d) AVOIDANCE OF REDUNDANT REGULATIONS.-- (1) COMMERCIAL AVAILABILITY DETERMINATIONS.--Determinations made or regulations prescribed by the Commission with respect to commercial availability to consumers of converter boxes, interactive communications equipment, and other equipment used by consumers to access multichannel video programming and other services offered over multichannel video programming systems, before the date of enactment of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 shall fulfill the requirements of this section. (2) REGULATIONS.--Nothing in this section affects section 64.702(e) of the Commission's regulations (47 C.F.R. 64.702(e)) or other Commission regulations governing interconnection and competitive provision of customer premises equipment used in connection with basic common carrier communications services. (e) SUNSET.--The regulations adopted under this section shall cease to apply when the Commission determines that-- (1) the market for the multichannel video programming distributors is fully competitive; (2) the market for converter boxes, and interactive communications equipment, used in conjunction with that service is fully competitive; and (3) elimination of the regulations would promote competition and the public interest. (f) COMMISSION'S AUTHORITY.--Nothing in this section shall be construed as expanding or limiting any authority that the Commission may have under law in effect before the date of enactment of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
Telecommunications Act of 1996 Sec. 629 expressly requires they be made available from sources other than the cable company. Subsequent documents I checked indicate that Congress and the FCC are concerned about 1) cost to consumers and 2) availability of new features. If the service vendor can make themselves the sole source, they can also jack up the prices.
Wow, well I don't doubt your reseach, but I just have trouble believing it to be true since I have yet to find cable boxes available for purchase anywhere, and I have been told repeatedly that the only place I can get them from is the cable provider. If this law is true then they should by law have to inform me what the other sources are it seems. Also cable providers don't seem to have service codes in their billing systems for listings only. Just the box themselves (at least at the company I work for). BUt then I suppose they could just as easily make that the service fee and say the box itself is free.
actually its really amazing and has changed the way I watch tv. What makes Tivo better (and more costly)?
Actually nothing. The interface may be better, I don't have a TiVo. What's going on here is U.S. Cable conglomerates being greedy. You're in Canada I take it being on Rogers. In the U.S. cable providers don't make their boxes available to buy at Best Buy, Circuit City, ect. If you did manage to procure a box (like by keeping one from your cable provider or buying one on eBay) the new provider would refuse to authorize it on their systems. In fact, if I remember right, buying digital cable boxes online is illegal (probably since the boxes are never meant to be sold and therefore are considered stolen property on the marketplace). And now they've probably added DMCA stuff to the mix.
If you want to record a digital cable station while watching another you can either rent a second converter box to use solely with your TiVo or other PVR (none of which can deencrypt the digital signal on their own), or rent a PVR with dual tuners from your cable company. U.S. cable companies will not allow you to purchase outright any digital cable box, only rent.
Cable companies sucker people in with the extra channels on digital cable, not mentioning how it will keep them from being able to record and watch the higher channels without paying a second box fee like they have been able to with analog cable and a VCR for decades. Plus, they do stuff like disable the S-video port of cable boxes so TiVo can't make the box tune stations on it's own. When you call and complain, they will be sympathetic, then they'll offer you a DVR rental for a low monthly fee to alleviate your sudden issues using TiVo.:-)
I'd like to see a DRM technology that allowed music buyers to resell the music on eBay... By allowing the owner to set the price, you allow reselling and variable pricing... the studio (original owner) could get a piece of every transaction...
No, they'd hate that. One thing eBay makes abundantly clear is what the true value of items are, which is almost always less than the supplier wants them sold for.
We are selling our songs through iPod, but we don't have a share of iPod's revenue... We want to share in those revenue streams.
That man simply does not know the word "iTunes" and was substituting "iPod" for "iTunes Music Store."
No, I don't that's what's going on.
We are selling our songs through [iTunes], but we don't have a share of [iTunes's] revenue... We want to share in those revenue streams.
That doesn't make sense, because they are getting a share of the iTunes revenue stream - the licensing fees for their artists' music!
I think his toungue slipped on "iTunes" because he was thinking faster than he was speaking (I do it sometimes, truncating the middle of sentences). What he meant is that they are selling their songs through iTunes but don't get a share of the iPod's revenue. Since their iTMS songs play on iPods he believes they have some automatic right to a share of the iPod's profits. This really is no surprise. I mean, their share of 99 compares very unfavorably to profits off the world's most popular digital music player. Plus, profits off the iPod would be from a higher number of customers because it would be off every iPod sold, whether the purchaser buys off the iTMS or not.
Jim Allchin approached Bill Gates in July, 2004, with the news that then-Longhorn, now-Vista, was 'so complex that its writers would never be able to make it run properly.'
Excerpt: Microsoft Dictionary
Complex (km-plks, kmplks) adj. - 1. Patched and rewritten multiple times. 2. Code functioning despite being grafted onto a framework not originally built to support it.
"Now, we need to understand that listening to music on your computer is an extra privilege. Normally people listen to music on their car or through their home stereos," said Kyyrä. "If you are a Linux or Mac user, you should consider purchasing a regular CD player."
I have a sneaking suspicion car CD players that can read mp3 discs do not operate as "normal" CD players but more like "computer" CD players, what would his response be if these discs don't play in your car after he just said people normally listen to music in their car?
Microsoft see's work like any major company. We need growth, greater profits, more control, higher market share, more more more! If you aren't, you are either shrinking or just about to, because you won't be able to get capital if you aren't growing. The stock market is all about growth. Companies need to be turning more and more profits. If you aren't no one buys your stock and you don't get any capital.
This line of thinking is one I see as becoming more prevalent over the last few decades, and it's one that usually bodes poor consequences for consumers. Fifty years ago, a business was considered sucessful if it turned a profit. Pretty easy right? I'm making more than I'm spending on this business, so it is serving it's purpose.
But now, it's not enough to be profitable, you have to be as profitable as possible, and always getting more profitable. Not #1 in the industry? You have to try to be. If you're not top dog, squeezing all you can out of your market your business is a failure" is the attitude I see today. How can companies maximize profit? Well once they've reached all their intended markets and "grabbed all the low-hanging fruit" it become a little more difficult to squeeze out more profits from your business. This is where corporations start making bad decisions, like moving production to countries with cheap labor, raising prices, trying to force licensing agreements or "pay-to-play" models of business on customers who previously bought once and enjoyed, or just plain making products more cheaply to get more margin out of them.
None of these activities benefit consumers, and I blame this mindset for the fact so many goods are now comodimized. Nobody gets anything fixed because products are built where they can't be repaired or it's simply cheaper to by a new one. You'd think as are nations landfills grow this would be more of an issue, but buying another an not having to mess with shipping and such for repairs is easy, so lazy consumers actually like it.
I'm used to electronics and software working as long as I have them for the most part, and find it troubling now that I can buy a cable modem and pretty much expect it to stop working in five years.
Digital Radio has already been rolled out in many areas. What are they going to do about the people who already have recievers? They paid a few hundred dollars for their equipment, and they might get a little peeved if they find they have to buy a new DRM-compliant reciever.
If Firefox is searching google from the address bar, then it is going to the "I Feel Lucky" option.
Opera, by comparison, just does a regular search, showing the results in the main window. Furthermore, Opera supports a number of search engines in this manner, having different codes for each one and is extensible, too.
So is Firefox. I have mine changed so "g [searchterm]" does a regular search. I also have "az [item]" for Amazon, or "ebay -". Actually I have over 30 quicksearches in all, ranging from Wikipedia and Dictionary.com to UPS, Pricegrabber, and the Cliche finder.
It makes the search bar redundant and a waste of toolbar space.
if Microsoft really is a software company, they should get their products working on everything, who cares about the OS the customer chooses , Microsoft should support it regardless,
Of course, a software company being a type of business, Microsoft should port products to platforms if it will actually get a return on the effort. Just because an OS exists does not mean Micorsoft has some implied responsibility to support it. They develop based on the idea they will earn more money in sales than they spend on the writing/marketting of it. And such a return is not gauranteed with every OS.
If $100 Million dollars won't make you want to switch to Vista, what will?"
How about:
*New Communications services
*Better File Search Abilities
*A Better Disk File System
*No New DRM
*Improved security for the system and internet applications, to protect me from Spyware and Virues.
*and System Requirements that don't require me to buy a new PC.
So, the lesson here is that if you're a famous bimbo and your pet's name is on the internet.. don't use it as a password to hide your naked pictures.
Given these were naked pictures, maybe the secret question was "what's your favorite sex toy?"
I kid, I kid.
On a more serious note. Even if the security question is What's your favourite pet's name? doesn't mean you actually have to give it the correct answer. On one website I chose that as the security question, and since I don't have a pet (currently) wrote "What pet?" for the answer.
Don't tell me that because there was some fine print in some d@mn license agreement that you've already agreed to this ahead of time. I sincerely doubt that the TiVo license agreement clearly states: We absoutely will reduce the functionality of your purchased and owned equipment in the near future without your consent to appease the broadcasting and content creation industries.
Uh, yes they do. From he TiVo Service and the Privacy Policy, par. 6:
"Changes to Your TiVo Service:
TiVo may at its discretion and from time to time change, add, or remove features and functionality of the TiVo service or the TiVo DVR without notice. If you are dissatisfied with any such changes to the TiVo service, you may immediately cancel your use of the TiVo service as provided in Section 14 ("Termination of Service"). TiVo reserves the right to discontinue one, some, or all of the features of the TiVo service you receive at any time at its discretion. TiVo may at its discretion discontinue the provision of software updates to certain TiVo DVRs. This means that while other TiVo DVRs may receive continued software updates and functionality; TiVo is not required to provide such updates to your TiVo DVR. Additionally, the level of service TiVo provides may not be the same on each TiVo DVR; a given TiVo DVR may support different features and functionality, and TiVo is under no obligation to provide all features and functionality to your TiVo DVR."
and how many real contracts do you know of which have a clause that allows the terms to be changed after the agreement and still coerces the signer to be bound by the new terms automatically?
Actually, quite a few ISP's have it. You're bound to the terms by your decision to continue to use the service after the change is made. It's a service agreemnet, so when you took the service you agreed to the terms and one of them was that the other party could change it whenever they wanted. There's nothing illegal about it when you sign on the dotted line to agree to it.
You can't be serious. So here's your solution:
1. Find a show you're interested in
2. Look up the time the show should air in your TV guide
Chances are I'm learning about the show I'm interested in because I already watch it (therefore I know when it comes on) or I saw a promo for it on TV (and networks tend to tell you when they are going to air shows).
3. Set your VCR to record that given timeslot
Easy.
4. Make sure there is a blank tape inserted in to VCR
Also not difficult.
5. Turn the VCR off, it will not record if it's on
What a non-issue! Who leaves their VCR on all the time? Actually, my current one will flash a message on screen two minutes before the recording is supposed ot start telling me to turn off the VCR for timer recording.
6. Rush home from work to swap the tape that just got show A taped to before show B starts taping
You're assuming I'm running out of tape. You don't know how many shows I'm taping, at what speed, ect.
7. Return to step 4
This step should appear at the end of your list for TiVo programming too. Unless your Tivo knows every show you want to record from just adding one. You're just inflating the VCR programing steps otherwise. So the list is really:
1. Find a show you're interested in 2. Set your VCR to record that given timeslot 3. Make sure there is a blank tape inserted in to VCR. 4. Turn the VCR off, it will not record if it's on. (which it wouldn't be under most circumstances)
Now take the fact I can buy a VCR for $40 or so and I'm not paying monthly fees.
Also, I don't wake up every day wondering if I can still record all the same shows as yesterday, if the programs I have on my TiVo are still there, if other stuff has been added I didn't ask for, or what's going to happen to my TiVo service if the company stops existing. As others have said on this article, having control over my TV is a great thing.
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So it's dismissed, but she still owes somewhere between a couple thousand and a hundred thousand dollars? She's fucked regardless.
If she had just taken the blame for the infringemnet instead of going to court, she could have probably settled with the RIAA for a couple grand per track stolen, like most people being faced with RIAA actions are doing.
So being punished for something you didn't do costs less than proving you're innocent.
Doesn't that make you proud of our court system?
With such an advanced soceity as we have, its amazing how frail and utterly devistatable our communications and electrical utilies are.
Not really.
We may be advanced as a society, but the infastructure these services run on isn't. Remember, the NYC blackout was caused by a failure of the power grid, a failure attributable to lack of maintenance on the grid. During the blackout, the news organizations filled some of their round-the-clock-coverage time talking about the city's power grid and how this was built on top of that and that and that some of the lines were literally a hundred years old.
Why wasn't this maintenance being kept up? Obviously because every dollar not spent on maintenance can be added to the company's profit line. Lots of remote areas of the country were brought telephone and electric services with help from federal subsidy or low interest loans by the government decades ago, so it might be questionable how much utilities could actually afford proper maintenance of the system without rate hikes. Every board of the utility does the same thing, putting off or ignoring expensive maintenance, assuming things will keep humming along (at least until they move on to greener pastures, then their sucessors can deal with it). Then one day it does crash, then the utility suddenly finds itself caught when people realize all the work that's needed. Last I heard, the New York power conglomerates were asking the federal government for a bailout to pay for all the maintenance they've been dodging. So they skimp to line their pockets, and we the taxpayers pay for their mistakes. I hope the government grants them a LOAN personally.
Prediction: The government WILL give them the bailout. Electricty is too important in our modern society to let the biggest city's lines go dead. Granting a loan would cause the power company's stock to fall down the shithole under the weight of all that debt and the company would collapse.
I assume that anybody can declare a file shareable. But the *user* is the one who has to make this declaration.
This means LimeWire is not encouraging nor participating in violation of copyright.
Thus Limewire hopes to survive the lawsuits to come.
I read TFA, and I still don't quite understand how this is going to work. Do you have to register with Limewire to make yourself an artist capable of assigning licenses to files? If so, are they going to go through those registrations by hand? What's to stop me from registering myself as "Joe Shmoe" of "123 Fuck You RIAA ST." and then adding "shareable" licenses to my entire music library?
Seems to me this is just going to change things from everybody sharing MP3's to everybody sharing MP3's with "shareable" licences attached. Will the files have a differnet file extension? Like copy protected compact discs, doesn't that make these files technically not MP3's? Can Fraunhofer IIS sue for trademark infringement since Limewire is creating files it says are MP3's but aren't?
I don't think this will protect Limewire from any lawsuits either. The RIAA wants more proactive measures taken by p2p client companies. Like the sort of stuff Napster did. Unfortunately, advanced filtering and such aren't going to work on a network with no centralized server, it's another case of media conglomerates not understanding technology.
Okay, I actually downloaded the full Telecommunications Act and read through sec. 629.
SEC. 629. [47 U.S.C. 549] COMPETITIVE AVAILABILITY OF NAVIGATION DEVICES.
(a) COMMERCIAL CONSUMER AVAILABILITY OF EQUIPMENT USED TO ACCESS SERVICES PROVIDED BY MULTICHANNEL VIDEO PROGRAMMING DISTRIBUTORS.--The Commission shall, in consultation with appropriate industry standard-setting organizations, adopt regulations to assure the commercial availability, to consumers of multichannel video programming and other services offered over multichannel video programming systems, of converter boxes, interactive communications equipment, and other equipment used by consumers to access multichannel video programming and other services offered over multichannel video programming systems, from manufacturers, retailers, and other vendors not affiliated with any multichannel video programming distributor. Such regulations shall not prohibit any multichannel video programming distributor from also offering converter boxes, interactive communications equipment, and other equipment used by consumers to access multichannel video programming and other services offered over multichannel video programming systems, to consumers, if the system operator's charges to consumers for such devices and equipment are separately stated and not subsidized by charges for any such service.
(b) PROTECTION OF SYSTEM SECURITY.--The Commission shall not prescribe regulations under subsection (a) which would jeopardize security of multichannel video programming and other services offered over multichannel video programming systems, or impede the legal rights of a provider of such services to prevent theft of service.
(c) WAIVER.--The Commission shall waive a regulation adopted under subsection (a) for a limited time upon an appropriate showing by a provider of multichannel video programming and other services offered over multichannel video programming systems, or an equipment provider, that such waiver is necessary to assist the development or introduction of a new or improved multichannel video programming or other service offered over multichannel video
programming systems, technology, or products. Upon an appropriate showing, the Commission shall grant any such waiver request within 90 days of any application filed under this subsection, and such waiver shall be effective for all service providers and products in that category and for all providers of services and products.
(d) AVOIDANCE OF REDUNDANT REGULATIONS.--
(1) COMMERCIAL AVAILABILITY DETERMINATIONS.--Determinations made or regulations prescribed by the Commission with respect to commercial availability to consumers of converter boxes, interactive communications equipment, and other equipment used by consumers to
access multichannel video programming and other services offered over multichannel video programming systems, before the date of enactment of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 shall fulfill the requirements of this section.
(2) REGULATIONS.--Nothing in this section affects section 64.702(e) of the Commission's regulations (47 C.F.R. 64.702(e)) or other Commission regulations governing interconnection and competitive provision of customer premises equipment used in connection with basic
common carrier communications services.
(e) SUNSET.--The regulations adopted under this section shall cease to apply when the Commission determines that--
(1) the market for the multichannel video programming distributors
is fully competitive;
(2) the market for converter boxes, and interactive communications equipment, used in conjunction with that service is fully competitive; and
(3) elimination of the regulations would promote competition and the public interest.
(f) COMMISSION'S AUTHORITY.--Nothing in this section shall be construed as expanding or limiting any authority that the Commission may have under law in effect before the date of enactment of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
But I don't
Telecommunications Act of 1996 Sec. 629 expressly requires they be made available from sources other than the cable company. Subsequent documents I checked indicate that Congress and the FCC are concerned about 1) cost to consumers and 2) availability of new features. If the service vendor can make themselves the sole source, they can also jack up the prices.
Wow, well I don't doubt your reseach, but I just have trouble believing it to be true since I have yet to find cable boxes available for purchase anywhere, and I have been told repeatedly that the only place I can get them from is the cable provider. If this law is true then they should by law have to inform me what the other sources are it seems. Also cable providers don't seem to have service codes in their billing systems for listings only. Just the box themselves (at least at the company I work for). BUt then I suppose they could just as easily make that the service fee and say the box itself is free.
actually its really amazing and has changed the way I watch tv. What makes Tivo better (and more costly)?
:-)
Actually nothing. The interface may be better, I don't have a TiVo. What's going on here is U.S. Cable conglomerates being greedy. You're in Canada I take it being on Rogers. In the U.S. cable providers don't make their boxes available to buy at Best Buy, Circuit City, ect. If you did manage to procure a box (like by keeping one from your cable provider or buying one on eBay) the new provider would refuse to authorize it on their systems. In fact, if I remember right, buying digital cable boxes online is illegal (probably since the boxes are never meant to be sold and therefore are considered stolen property on the marketplace). And now they've probably added DMCA stuff to the mix.
If you want to record a digital cable station while watching another you can either rent a second converter box to use solely with your TiVo or other PVR (none of which can deencrypt the digital signal on their own), or rent a PVR with dual tuners from your cable company. U.S. cable companies will not allow you to purchase outright any digital cable box, only rent.
Cable companies sucker people in with the extra channels on digital cable, not mentioning how it will keep them from being able to record and watch the higher channels without paying a second box fee like they have been able to with analog cable and a VCR for decades. Plus, they do stuff like disable the S-video port of cable boxes so TiVo can't make the box tune stations on it's own. When you call and complain, they will be sympathetic, then they'll offer you a DVR rental for a low monthly fee to alleviate your sudden issues using TiVo.
In Soviet Russia...
We fly the Americans to space.
I'd like to see a DRM technology that allowed music buyers to resell the music on eBay... By allowing the owner to set the price, you allow reselling and variable pricing... the studio (original owner) could get a piece of every transaction...
No, they'd hate that. One thing eBay makes abundantly clear is what the true value of items are, which is almost always less than the supplier wants them sold for.
We are selling our songs through iPod, but we don't have a share of iPod's revenue ... We want to share in those revenue streams.
... We want to share in those revenue streams.
That man simply does not know the word "iTunes" and was substituting "iPod" for "iTunes Music Store."
No, I don't that's what's going on.
We are selling our songs through [iTunes], but we don't have a share of [iTunes's] revenue
That doesn't make sense, because they are getting a share of the iTunes revenue stream - the licensing fees for their artists' music!
I think his toungue slipped on "iTunes" because he was thinking faster than he was speaking (I do it sometimes, truncating the middle of sentences). What he meant is that they are selling their songs through iTunes but don't get a share of the iPod's revenue. Since their iTMS songs play on iPods he believes they have some automatic right to a share of the iPod's profits. This really is no surprise. I mean, their share of 99 compares very unfavorably to profits off the world's most popular digital music player. Plus, profits off the iPod would be from a higher number of customers because it would be off every iPod sold, whether the purchaser buys off the iTMS or not.
Jim Allchin approached Bill Gates in July, 2004, with the news that then-Longhorn, now-Vista, was 'so complex that its writers would never be able to make it run properly.'
Excerpt: Microsoft Dictionary
Complex (km-plks, kmplks) adj. - 1. Patched and rewritten multiple times. 2. Code functioning despite being grafted onto a framework not originally built to support it.
syn: sloppy
ant: secure, logical
Here's the actual quote from Tommi Kyyrä himself:
"Now, we need to understand that listening to music on your computer is an extra privilege. Normally people listen to music on their car or through their home stereos," said Kyyrä. "If you are a Linux or Mac user, you should consider purchasing a regular CD player."
I have a sneaking suspicion car CD players that can read mp3 discs do not operate as "normal" CD players but more like "computer" CD players, what would his response be if these discs don't play in your car after he just said people normally listen to music in their car?
Microsoft see's work like any major company. We need growth, greater profits, more control, higher market share, more more more! If you aren't, you are either shrinking or just about to, because you won't be able to get capital if you aren't growing. The stock market is all about growth. Companies need to be turning more and more profits. If you aren't no one buys your stock and you don't get any capital.
This line of thinking is one I see as becoming more prevalent over the last few decades, and it's one that usually bodes poor consequences for consumers. Fifty years ago, a business was considered sucessful if it turned a profit. Pretty easy right? I'm making more than I'm spending on this business, so it is serving it's purpose.
But now, it's not enough to be profitable, you have to be as profitable as possible, and always getting more profitable. Not #1 in the industry? You have to try to be. If you're not top dog, squeezing all you can out of your market your business is a failure" is the attitude I see today. How can companies maximize profit? Well once they've reached all their intended markets and "grabbed all the low-hanging fruit" it become a little more difficult to squeeze out more profits from your business. This is where corporations start making bad decisions, like moving production to countries with cheap labor, raising prices, trying to force licensing agreements or "pay-to-play" models of business on customers who previously bought once and enjoyed, or just plain making products more cheaply to get more margin out of them.
None of these activities benefit consumers, and I blame this mindset for the fact so many goods are now comodimized. Nobody gets anything fixed because products are built where they can't be repaired or it's simply cheaper to by a new one. You'd think as are nations landfills grow this would be more of an issue, but buying another an not having to mess with shipping and such for repairs is easy, so lazy consumers actually like it.
I'm used to electronics and software working as long as I have them for the most part, and find it troubling now that I can buy a cable modem and pretty much expect it to stop working in five years.
...and it's a lot cheaper than hosting atSealand.
Digital Radio has already been rolled out in many areas. What are they going to do about the people who already have recievers? They paid a few hundred dollars for their equipment, and they might get a little peeved if they find they have to buy a new DRM-compliant reciever.
If Firefox is searching google from the address bar, then it is going to the "I Feel Lucky" option.
Opera, by comparison, just does a regular search, showing the results in the main window. Furthermore, Opera supports a number of search engines in this manner, having different codes for each one and is extensible, too.
So is Firefox. I have mine changed so "g [searchterm]" does a regular search. I also have "az [item]" for Amazon, or "ebay -". Actually I have over 30 quicksearches in all, ranging from Wikipedia and Dictionary.com to UPS, Pricegrabber, and the Cliche finder.
It makes the search bar redundant and a waste of toolbar space.
Actually, here in sweden it's not allowed to film or take photos in court. You are only allowed to record sound and make sketches.
Aw dammit!
The recording industry will be all over those with their lawyers.
if Microsoft really is a software company, they should get their products working on everything, who cares about the OS the customer chooses , Microsoft should support it regardless,
Of course, a software company being a type of business, Microsoft should port products to platforms if it will actually get a return on the effort. Just because an OS exists does not mean Micorsoft has some implied responsibility to support it. They develop based on the idea they will earn more money in sales than they spend on the writing/marketting of it. And such a return is not gauranteed with every OS.
Actually, if you read the article I linked, WinFS may not appear until 2009!
And yeah, I was just making a point. I have five Macs and a PC, the PC was the last machine I bought, and I don't plan to buy another.
If $100 Million dollars won't make you want to switch to Vista, what will?"
:-)
How about:
*New Communications services
*Better File Search Abilities
*A Better Disk File System
*No New DRM
*Improved security for the system and internet applications, to protect me from Spyware and Virues.
*and System Requirements that don't require me to buy a new PC.
That's not asking for much is it?
So, the lesson here is that if you're a famous bimbo and your pet's name is on the internet.. don't use it as a password to hide your naked pictures.
Given these were naked pictures, maybe the secret question was "what's your favorite sex toy?"
I kid, I kid.
On a more serious note. Even if the security question is What's your favourite pet's name? doesn't mean you actually have to give it the correct answer. On one website I chose that as the security question, and since I don't have a pet (currently) wrote "What pet?" for the answer.
So now you can pay $200 a year for Windows XP with a new, flashier skin.
Hey, look what I just stumbled across!
Read sections one and six carefully.
Don't tell me that because there was some fine print in some d@mn license agreement that you've already agreed to this ahead of time. I sincerely doubt that the TiVo license agreement clearly states: We absoutely will reduce the functionality of your purchased and owned equipment in the near future without your consent to appease the broadcasting and content creation industries.
Uh, yes they do. From he TiVo Service and the Privacy Policy, par. 6:
"Changes to Your TiVo Service:
TiVo may at its discretion and from time to time change, add, or remove features and functionality of the TiVo service or the TiVo DVR without notice. If you are dissatisfied with any such changes to the TiVo service, you may immediately cancel your use of the TiVo service as provided in Section 14 ("Termination of Service"). TiVo reserves the right to discontinue one, some, or all of the features of the TiVo service you receive at any time at its discretion. TiVo may at its discretion discontinue the provision of software updates to certain TiVo DVRs. This means that while other TiVo DVRs may receive continued software updates and functionality; TiVo is not required to provide such updates to your TiVo DVR. Additionally, the level of service TiVo provides may not be the same on each TiVo DVR; a given TiVo DVR may support different features and functionality, and TiVo is under no obligation to provide all features and functionality to your TiVo DVR."
and how many real contracts do you know of which have a clause that allows the terms to be changed after the agreement and still coerces the signer to be bound by the new terms automatically?
Actually, quite a few ISP's have it. You're bound to the terms by your decision to continue to use the service after the change is made. It's a service agreemnet, so when you took the service you agreed to the terms and one of them was that the other party could change it whenever they wanted. There's nothing illegal about it when you sign on the dotted line to agree to it.
You can't be serious. So here's your solution:
1. Find a show you're interested in
2. Look up the time the show should air in your TV guide
Chances are I'm learning about the show I'm interested in because I already watch it (therefore I know when it comes on) or I saw a promo for it on TV (and networks tend to tell you when they are going to air shows).
3. Set your VCR to record that given timeslot
Easy.
4. Make sure there is a blank tape inserted in to VCR
Also not difficult.
5. Turn the VCR off, it will not record if it's on
What a non-issue! Who leaves their VCR on all the time? Actually, my current one will flash a message on screen two minutes before the recording is supposed ot start telling me to turn off the VCR for timer recording.
6. Rush home from work to swap the tape that just got show A taped to before show B starts taping
You're assuming I'm running out of tape. You don't know how many shows I'm taping, at what speed, ect.
7. Return to step 4
This step should appear at the end of your list for TiVo programming too. Unless your Tivo knows every show you want to record from just adding one. You're just inflating the VCR programing steps otherwise. So the list is really:
1. Find a show you're interested in
2. Set your VCR to record that given timeslot
3. Make sure there is a blank tape inserted in to VCR.
4. Turn the VCR off, it will not record if it's on. (which it wouldn't be under most circumstances)
Now take the fact I can buy a VCR for $40 or so and I'm not paying monthly fees.
Also, I don't wake up every day wondering if I can still record all the same shows as yesterday, if the programs I have on my TiVo are still there, if other stuff has been added I didn't ask for, or what's going to happen to my TiVo service if the company stops existing. As others have said on this article, having control over my TV is a great thing.