This distribution method is for distributing unpublished films to reviewers and contest judges; it is not for the mass distribution of the films.
The studios have a strong desire incentive to get the reviewers and judges to watch the film and form a favorable opinion of it. I believe that the studios need to ask themselves the question "Will a reviewer or judge be prejudiced in their opinion of the film if they are required to install and use a special video player to watch the film?" I believe that the same question should be asked regarding the use of any intrusive or distracting attempt at preventing duplication of these copies of the films.
A film reviewer has an incentive to watch the film even if it uses intrusive copy protection means because his job is to produce a review based upon actually watching the film. There isn't really any way for the person reading the review to know if the film received three stars instead of three and a half stars because the reviewer was pissed off by the copy protection scheme. A contest judge on the other hand has no particular incentive to even watch a film that won't play in whatever DVD player he wishes to use.
Over a period of time, those half-star reductions in reviews and judges electing not to watch films with intrusive copy protection schemes could seriously impact a studio's bottom line.
...engineers, scientists, mathematicians, and other well-educated people with experience of the real world...
I agree that these folks are usually well educated. From experience my working with engineers, scientists, and mathematicians, I am not sure that many of them have much real world experience.
Few watches would need much more than a square inch of this material to make a watch crystal. Even $10/sq inch is reasonable for a highly scratch and break resistant watch crystal in a moderately priced (few hundred US dollars) watch.
Apache, proftpd, and mysql are SERVERS and sending packets that kills server processes is properly called a DOS. Firefox is a CLIENT, sending data in response to a client request that causes the client to lock up is not a DOS.
Wealthy individuals used to (still do?) have servants iron their newspapers to set the ink so that the newspaper wouldn't soil their clothing. If this new technology gets used in newspapers for advertising, people will have to start microwaving their newspapers in order to shut off the annoying flash ads.
Maybe at first the manufacturers would have to bite the bullet and package the new devices with a minimally functional (really cheap) charging coil. Once there are enough devices and charging coils in use it may be possible that consumers would buy better coils to replace the minimalist coils that their gizmos came with, hotels could provide the coils for their guests, and manufacturers could stop providing coils with new devices.
Actually, I do subscribe to a few websites. There are a number of websites that have compelling and useful content with no advertising (one site does advertise it's own catalog a bit) that are worth the few bucks that it costs to subscribe.
Maybe there could be some way for us Blackberry owners to file some kind of class action lawsuit against NTP?
IANAL
Why should you be able to win a class action lawsuit against NTP? NTP is not doing anything illegal, it is simply enforcing it's patents. One court has ruled that RIM is infringing upon NTP's patents and now it seems that an appeals court upheld at least part of the lower court's judgement.
I seriously hope that RIM is forced to stop selling Blackberry's and providing email service in the US. I do not know what the scope of NTP's patents are, perhaps after it's patents are upheld, NTP can get an injunction to stop the major cell phone companies from providing mobile email. MAYBE then our congress critters will realize how abused the US patent system has become.
That would be one of the many reason that MegaCell doesn't sell service to the residents of Tinytown. In practice, both MegaCell and Tinytown Cellco provide uniform pricing in the areas that they do business. MegaCell will probably contract with a Tinytown Cellco to provide roaming service to MegaCell's Megalopolis customers (and probably to provide Megalopolis roaming service to Tinytown Cellco subscribers). If TinyTown is near an Interstate highway or it is in an area that many of MegaCell's customers expect service, MegaCell might arrange to have the contracted service branded as being MegaCell and not charge roaming charges to MegaCell's customers. Just because MegaCell has service available in Tinytown does not mean that MegaCell will provide service to the residents of Tinytown.
But for services like cell phones and mail, people have a legitimate right to expect they can get the same service (for approximately the same cost) in Tinytown, Wyoming as in Megalopolis, New York.
Why? It may be that the economics balance out between providing mail or telephone service in Tinytown and Megaopolis and the charges would be similar. If the economics do not balance out there there should be NO guarantee that the charges to customer should be expected to be similar for the two localities. Just because the USPS charges uniform rates and the US government forces telco subsrcibers to subsidise rural telephone service (the the Universal Service scam), there is no reason to expect that wireless service also be subsidised.
Read the author's bio, it looks like he is being paid to be dead serious on this matter. And yes, he is supporting what he calls "TPM", just like his appearant employers want him to.
I think that Pakistan and India have a better chance of cooperating on a nuclear weapons project than the Department of Homeland Security cooperating with the Commerce Department.
The "drugs" mentioned in the article are mostly stomach acid reducers, many of which are available without a prescription.
For more information concerning the US CDC suggested regimen, see http://www.cdc.gov/ulcer/md.htm
Why do you wish that they were going after television? "They" should mind their own business and not "go after" ANY media. I believe that television programming in general is crap, but it is not up to "them" to "go after" television. The problem with commercial television has always been that the sole requirement for a television program to remain on the air is that it attract large numbers of viewers. With precious few exceptions large numbers of people have always liked to watch crappy television programming.
Oh, I don't disagree with you at all. Enforcement of the collection of sales taxes on on-line purchases is a very complex subject. The given situation was hypothetical, that the merchandise was clearly indicated as being a gift, and I assumed that it would be possible to do the Right (legal) Thing. The fact that it was given as a gift adds even more to the complexity because some states believe that (some or all) gifts from out of state are subject to tax and the recipient would be responsible for paying that tax. In practice, in the example given, it would probably be safest to pay sales tax to California because that would be the "billed to" address.
Does the law pertain only to laptops, or does it prohibit the sales of extended warranties in general? If the law prohibits extended warranties in general, it sounds like a good consumer protection law. Extended warranties and certain other related products provide many opportunities to rip-off consumers.
"what if you're a college student and you live in, say California, so your billing address is there. You use, say, Amazon.com to order a gift for someone's wish list who lives in MD, but you go to school in Texas, so that's where the transaction took place.
Texas, because that is where the transaction took place. Texas would also be where you are living, unless of course you are doing distance learning or have one hell of a commute.
"Perhaps we need two pricing models for phones. One that models the existing system, and one that allows you to pay the full price for a phone, but doesn't place any restrictions on it's use."
This two tiered pricing model already exists with almost all phones sold in the US, and I suspect in other countries as well. There are also two major flaws in this idea: One flaw is that in the US even the full price phones are locked and remain locked (frequently with some very desirable features crippled). The other flaw in your idea is that the phones remain locked even after the contract period is up and the phone subsidy is payed off. There is a third possible flaw and that involves the fact that there is an early contract termination fee.
Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot has banner ads? I don't see ant ads, where are they?
This distribution method is for distributing unpublished films to reviewers and contest judges; it is not for the mass distribution of the films.
The studios have a strong desire incentive to get the reviewers and judges to watch the film and form a favorable opinion of it. I believe that the studios need to ask themselves the question "Will a reviewer or judge be prejudiced in their opinion of the film if they are required to install and use a special video player to watch the film?" I believe that the same question should be asked regarding the use of any intrusive or distracting attempt at preventing duplication of these copies of the films.
A film reviewer has an incentive to watch the film even if it uses intrusive copy protection means because his job is to produce a review based upon actually watching the film. There isn't really any way for the person reading the review to know if the film received three stars instead of three and a half stars because the reviewer was pissed off by the copy protection scheme. A contest judge on the other hand has no particular incentive to even watch a film that won't play in whatever DVD player he wishes to use.
Over a period of time, those half-star reductions in reviews and judges electing not to watch films with intrusive copy protection schemes could seriously impact a studio's bottom line.
...engineers, scientists, mathematicians, and other well-educated people with experience of the real world...
I agree that these folks are usually well educated. From experience my working with engineers, scientists, and mathematicians, I am not sure that many of them have much real world experience.
Few watches would need much more than a square inch of this material to make a watch crystal. Even $10/sq inch is reasonable for a highly scratch and break resistant watch crystal in a moderately priced (few hundred US dollars) watch.
Apache, proftpd, and mysql are SERVERS and sending packets that kills server processes is properly called a DOS. Firefox is a CLIENT, sending data in response to a client request that causes the client to lock up is not a DOS.
Wealthy individuals used to (still do?) have servants iron their newspapers to set the ink so that the newspaper wouldn't soil their clothing. If this new technology gets used in newspapers for advertising, people will have to start microwaving their newspapers in order to shut off the annoying flash ads.
Maybe at first the manufacturers would have to bite the bullet and package the new devices with a minimally functional (really cheap) charging coil. Once there are enough devices and charging coils in use it may be possible that consumers would buy better coils to replace the minimalist coils that their gizmos came with, hotels could provide the coils for their guests, and manufacturers could stop providing coils with new devices.
Actually, I do subscribe to a few websites. There are a number of websites that have compelling and useful content with no advertising (one site does advertise it's own catalog a bit) that are worth the few bucks that it costs to subscribe.
Maybe there could be some way for us Blackberry owners to file some kind of class action lawsuit against NTP?
IANAL
Why should you be able to win a class action lawsuit against NTP? NTP is not doing anything illegal, it is simply enforcing it's patents. One court has ruled that RIM is infringing upon NTP's patents and now it seems that an appeals court upheld at least part of the lower court's judgement.
I seriously hope that RIM is forced to stop selling Blackberry's and providing email service in the US. I do not know what the scope of NTP's patents are, perhaps after it's patents are upheld, NTP can get an injunction to stop the major cell phone companies from providing mobile email. MAYBE then our congress critters will realize how abused the US patent system has become.
That would be one of the many reason that MegaCell doesn't sell service to the residents of Tinytown. In practice, both MegaCell and Tinytown Cellco provide uniform pricing in the areas that they do business. MegaCell will probably contract with a Tinytown Cellco to provide roaming service to MegaCell's Megalopolis customers (and probably to provide Megalopolis roaming service to Tinytown Cellco subscribers). If TinyTown is near an Interstate highway or it is in an area that many of MegaCell's customers expect service, MegaCell might arrange to have the contracted service branded as being MegaCell and not charge roaming charges to MegaCell's customers. Just because MegaCell has service available in Tinytown does not mean that MegaCell will provide service to the residents of Tinytown.
But for services like cell phones and mail, people have a legitimate right to expect they can get the same service (for approximately the same cost) in Tinytown, Wyoming as in Megalopolis, New York.
Why? It may be that the economics balance out between providing mail or telephone service in Tinytown and Megaopolis and the charges would be similar. If the economics do not balance out there there should be NO guarantee that the charges to customer should be expected to be similar for the two localities. Just because the USPS charges uniform rates and the US government forces telco subsrcibers to subsidise rural telephone service (the the Universal Service scam), there is no reason to expect that wireless service also be subsidised.
Whether the term nanotechnology will lose some of its stigma as "grey goo" will have ended by then is another question.
I don't think of "grey goo" when somebody says "nanotechnology", I think of the nanites in Star Trek TNG episode 49 Evolution.
Is there a way to determine what backbone your ISP or a particular site uses?
The Unix traceroute command can be used to do this:
$ traceroute slashdot.org
Read the author's bio, it looks like he is being paid to be dead serious on this matter. And yes, he is supporting what he calls "TPM", just like his appearant employers want him to.
I think that Pakistan and India have a better chance of cooperating on a nuclear weapons project than the Department of Homeland Security cooperating with the Commerce Department.
Believe it or not, US-CERT is funded as part of Department of Homeland Security.
Maybe because they like it when Sony's instructions on how to get around Sony's DRM includes the following:
"[Macintosh] If you have a Macintosh computer you can copy the songs using your iTunes Player as you would normally do."
The "drugs" mentioned in the article are mostly stomach acid reducers, many of which are available without a prescription. For more information concerning the US CDC suggested regimen, see http://www.cdc.gov/ulcer/md.htm
Why do you wish that they were going after television? "They" should mind their own business and not "go after" ANY media. I believe that television programming in general is crap, but it is not up to "them" to "go after" television. The problem with commercial television has always been that the sole requirement for a television program to remain on the air is that it attract large numbers of viewers. With precious few exceptions large numbers of people have always liked to watch crappy television programming.
I thought that chlorine and an abrasive powder (pumice?) powered Ajax.
Oh, I don't disagree with you at all. Enforcement of the collection of sales taxes on on-line purchases is a very complex subject. The given situation was hypothetical, that the merchandise was clearly indicated as being a gift, and I assumed that it would be possible to do the Right (legal) Thing. The fact that it was given as a gift adds even more to the complexity because some states believe that (some or all) gifts from out of state are subject to tax and the recipient would be responsible for paying that tax. In practice, in the example given, it would probably be safest to pay sales tax to California because that would be the "billed to" address.
Does the law pertain only to laptops, or does it prohibit the sales of extended warranties in general? If the law prohibits extended warranties in general, it sounds like a good consumer protection law. Extended warranties and certain other related products provide many opportunities to rip-off consumers.
If the Internet creates a presence in every state, why doesn't the ability to place an order via telephone also create a presence in every state?
"what if you're a college student and you live in, say California, so your billing address is there. You use, say, Amazon.com to order a gift for someone's wish list who lives in MD, but you go to school in Texas, so that's where the transaction took place.
Texas, because that is where the transaction took place. Texas would also be where you are living, unless of course you are doing distance learning or have one hell of a commute.
"Perhaps we need two pricing models for phones. One that models the existing system, and one that allows you to pay the full price for a phone, but doesn't place any restrictions on it's use."
This two tiered pricing model already exists with almost all phones sold in the US, and I suspect in other countries as well. There are also two major flaws in this idea: One flaw is that in the US even the full price phones are locked and remain locked (frequently with some very desirable features crippled). The other flaw in your idea is that the phones remain locked even after the contract period is up and the phone subsidy is payed off. There is a third possible flaw and that involves the fact that there is an early contract termination fee.