Well then I guess that would be the declaration that the Federal government holds some sort of implicit title in . ..well, just about everything; and that thus all legal issues involving any sort of property are Federal issues.
Isn't pretty damned close to the definition of a fuedal monarchy?
KFG"
Hmm...perhaps this interpretation might be halted by the state(s) turning around and saying: "OK, since everything is under your jurisdiction, we will forthwith refer ALL criminal infractions that can be linked, however flimsily, by the same logic to federal jurisdiction to the federal court system and the D.O.J...have fun with processing about 80% or more of our former caseload...and btw, we won't be needing any more federal money of any sort, as we've just saved ourselves a buttload of money."
Won't actually happen, I know, but it *would* be fun watching the feds squirm on that one!:D
There's a game series in which the story came first, with an entire universe created in board games and a sci-fi novel series. The story and timeline in the Mechwarrior games are a vital part of the game IMO.
In the Mechwarrior4: Mercenaries game, the player actually interacts with the story, in that choosing different mercenary "contracts" affects future contract/mission availability, as well as factional relationships with "employers".
Overall, I suppose the importance of the story in a game depends on the game, and what a particular player wants from a game. Someone that wants 20 minutes of FPS or arcade-type non-stop action isn't too worried about a backstory. Others that want a more involved experience will place more importance on the backstory.
"It's true. Proper musicians (read: who actually know how to read sheet music, not just tablature) will gladly pay for the original (read: not some crappy re-arrangement) copy of the sheet music, if only because it's that much more fun to be able to play the music, and know the hard work that goes into it. I would readily fork out some cash for the trumpet line from some of CAKE's music, or the whole score from other music. Tis a shame this will never happen, as I could (gasp!) record my own version to listen to. It's crap like this that makes me glad I don't like music past the year 2000, with a few notable exceptions. Sorry TMBG, Franz Ferdinand, and all you actually decent bands, I guess I won't bother to spend my hard earned cash on your good music, because that'd be funding idiocy that I can't stand."
Sorry, no offense, but I must take exception to the "Proper musicians.." statement. Reading sheet music does not a musician make. Tell me that Robert Johnson, BB King, etc. are not "proper" musicians. If you are a good enough musician, you don't *need* sheet music.
I've been playing guitar for 34 years, most of that in working bands. I've done plenty of cover tunes along the way and never once used (or needed) either sheet music or tablature to be able to play those covers. I learned to play sitting in front of a bare tuner/amp/phonograph chassis out of a junked out console stereo with old car radio 6 x 9's in shoeboxes stuffed with old socks for speakers, trying to play what I was hearing.
I play completely "by ear", and I can play anything after hearing it once or twice. I also write and arrange my own music, and learned tablature only 10-15 years ago, only so I could teach the other musicians in the band I happen to be in what I'm playing, or what the original artist is playing if it's a cover tune. I have a CD of original material out (and not doing bad) and all this with barely being able to tell a treble cleff from a bass cleff.
I've recently played a gig with Magic Slim & the Teardrops, opened for Anthony Gomes, as well as placing high in the International Blues Challenge.
I also know quite a few people that have degrees in music that nobody seriously considers a musician, some including themselves.
Sorry if I've ranted, but the "if you can't read music you're not a real musician" snobbery irritates me, and I usually find the worst offenders being college-educated failed musicians who are bitter about their lack of talent.
I'm not trying to imply that you fit that profile, I just want people to understand that some of the most gifted and talented musicians the world has known couldn't read a note of music, and that the "proper musicians read music" meme is far from correct.
What's to stop U.S. citizens from simply transferring funds to an offshore bank or other financial entity that doesn't care about U.S. laws/regulations or gambling?
Are citizens going to be prevented from transferring any money or holding any bank accounts outside the U.S.? How would they stop someone from simply mailing the funds as a money order or using a "shirea"(sp?)-type money transfer scheme?
Short of requiring the government to exclusively handle all citizens' money, and outlaw *any* transfer of citizens' money outside U.S. financial control, I see no way they can possibly prevent them gambling online, or even collect enough data to prosecute them for doing so.
Of course, one could put on his tinfoil hat and argue that this is a step in the direction of the government seizing (more) direct control of citizens' money.
Myself, I just think it's another short-sighted lawmaking exercise that will end up curtailing freedoms and hurting the U.S. economy with more regulatory and enforcement costs while not actually accomplishing the goals that are espoused for it's passage, something that the U.S. government is legendary for.
Who *doesn't* know that Yahoo/Geocities is a major phishing/script-kiddie resource and host?? This isn't news to anyone who has experience chatting in Yahoo chatrooms.
There are script-kiddies and S/N stealers that constantly use geocities pages to host everything from phishing pages to outright trojan.exe files, disguised as videos or whatever, that they spam links to in yahoo chatrooms with, in an almost constant barrage.
There is a subgroup of huge-egoed "1337" yahoo chatters that deal in stolen screen names and "illegal" or "illy" names in trade for other names, or straight cash.
Yahoo seems to pay no attention whatsoever to their abuse reporting system. I've reported a geocities page hosting a trojan multiple times, and the site remained up for over a year, with the same trojan.exe file.
One of the biggest things driving this subgroup of crackers and script-kiddies are the chat-bot spammers, who buy lists of stolen screen-names/accounts on which to log-on their spam/porn bots. There is an entire underground economy of stolen accounts/screen-names much larger and much older than any of the MMORPG gold trader/seller economies that have gotten so much press of late.
I think Yahoo, despite all of their denials, are in bed with the spam/porn-bot operators, and turn a blind eye, even protecting them. I know people who chat on Yahoo that run "booter" programs that will kick/flood a chatter out of a room, even completely disconnect someone from Yahoo. They regularly boot normal chatters with impunity, but fear to boot "porn/spam-bots", as Yahoo will quickly shut down the booters' "bot" account(s) (most 'booter' programs utilise 'bots' to send their disconnect packets/IM floods/etc) and even ban the booter-operators' account and block that IP address.
If I were this fellow, I'd consider myself lucky that the only thing he got from a geocities webpage was a phishing page, as opposed to a virus or trojan with much more serious and far-reaching consequences than having a Yahoo screen-name/account cracked or stolen.
Dude, if you want a "girl" to see that rig of yours, you need to get her into your house first!!! (Oh, and dont think about flashing the iBook either!).
Seriously, anyone who thinks a computer can pick up girls, are seriously mistaken. In my experience, the most important things have also been (in descreasing order) 1. Smile 2. Humour 3. Personality 4. Looks 5. Money (Though can be a negative too) 6. Car (though can be a double edged sword.. I have a jag, some love it, some hate it) 7. Job 8. Family 9. Home. . . . . 103. Flash computer.
I would change that list slightly:
1. Play lead guitar in a decent band 2. Smile 3. Humour 4. Personality 5. Looks 6. Money (Though can be a negative too) 7. Car (though can be a double edged sword.. I have a jag, some love it, some hate it) 8. Job 9. Family 10. Home. . . . . 104. Flash computer.
As John Mellencamp wrote; "Forget all about that macho shit, and learn how to play guitar!"
I would say that goes double for "computer shit".
I confess, I'm a *bsd/linux user, but that's about the last thing I would bring up when talking to a honey between sets! (Even if I *was* a Mac-user):D
"We believe that we now need to make a clear and public distinction between copying for your own use and copying for dissemination to third parties," said Mr Jamieson, whose organisation represents the UK's record labels.
He told the Commons select committee for culture, media and sport that he wanted to "make it unequivocally clear to the consumer that if they copy their CDs for their own private use in order to move the music from format to format, we will not pursue them".
Will the RIAA now pressure the US to have the UK kicked out of the WTO? Will we be invadng the UK next for "IP terrorism"? If visiting UK citizens bring their copied music with them on a visit, will they be arrested/fined by US Customs, their copied music confiscated?
Between the French and the UK, the US copyright-cartels and the DRM-pushers have been receiving some major blows. I don't seriously believe the US would invade either the UK or France. (Mostly because they have way too many things that go "BOOM".)
I do have to wonder what consequences the cartels will pressure the US into trying to apply to the UK and France over these actions in trying to free their citizens from the Damocles' Sword of copyright-criminalization by simply copying for their own use what they already bought and paid for and insisting on fairness and interoperability in DRM schemes.
This ought to be interesting to watch. I hope that by raising objections to the UKs' and Frances' actions, they wake a few people up in the US as to the freedoms they are losing, and the raping of the Public Domain and *our* culture for profit.
If you do not buy any merchandise AND download their albums, you just leave the bands in debt. Your "civil disobedience" doesn't help these bands at all because you're not building an alternative marketplace. You're just copying music, and leaving the bands with no money to live on or pay off their debt. Basically, from their point of view, you're not a fan, you're just an asshole who's miserly with his money.
People like you cannot accept the fact that intellectual property doesn't come out of thin air. If you do not pump in real money into A system, not necessarily THE EXISTING system, you won't allow IP creators to actually live of their works and keep making new works. If bands cannot stand to make good money when they get good and command respect among audiences, how can they justify touring and recording new works? If you're not willing to go see them live and/or buy merchandise, how can they compensate for money they didn't make on recordings?
Artists will still make art, but you won't get it nearly as easily as you do today if you go into your socialistic model that blatantly hates the idea of having to compensate them financially for their work. You may think that by "sticking it to the man," you're sticking it to the eeeeeevil corporations, but you're not. They just nimbly duck out of the way and let your sharp stick stab the artist behind them. Your way of "freeing the artists" makes as much since as saying that stealing from and firebombing the property of plantation owners is a more effective way of freeing slaves than getting them their freedom and creating an economy that can supply them with productive jobs.
Let me reply by way of reposting one of my replies to someone else who thought that artists should rely on selling recordings as a buisiness model.
""Ummm, no. That's your take on the issue. As an artist myself I think you are full of it. I don't create works solely for profit, but when I do enter a contract to create commercial works I expect that my contract would be honored and I get paid for it. Also, if I produce work to sell on my own to pay my bills I don't think anyone has a right to that work wihtout my permission.
As another artist speaking, that's just your take on the issue also. I think *you* are the one "full of it". You are not forced to enter into a contract to create "commercial works". That is your buisiness decision. Noone gauruntees that every buisiness must make a profit. If you base a buisiness on an unreasonable buisiness model, it will fail. If I canned air and tried to sell it with the expectation that the government would make free air illegal, I would expect to fail.
My band has a CD that we sell. It did not take the resources of a major label or studio to accomplish this. We know it is silly to expect people to not share an experience they enjoy with others. Therefore, we take advantage of this basic human trait, and encourage people to share it, copy it, put it on P2P, whatever. The increased exposure and word-of-mouth advertising is something that we couldn't pay any label or marketer for at any price. We consider recordings to be a promotional tool, not the goal or the main way of gaining income.
We are smart enough to realize that the majority of people who enjoy quality music are happy to reasonably compensate an artist they favor, along with knowing that treating them as criminals is counterproductive.
Likewise, we are also astute enough to not depend on such ephemeral and risky by nature buisiness models to pay our bills. We cover that with a quite conventional income model: we work for a living. We play clubs, theatres, fests, etc. and our income is paid in the form of tickets, cover-charges, and signed CDs and mechandise by the people that come to the show to be entertained.
The era where production and promotional costs, and the necessity to produce a physical medium and transport, warehouse, and sell it in a physical store, along with the expense and difficulty for individuals of making
Well, I decided to leave out the BOFH approach, although it did cross my mind. Mostly because all it would take is one "company man" with a clue, or one astute managerial-type to throw a monkey-wrench into the evil plan. In every corp. dept. I've worked in over 3-4 people in size, there was at least one that would blow the whistle on such an approach either out of fear or loyalty.
Yes, in most places, you are 'ideally' only an easily-replaceable cog, but with something that is so essential to a financial institution as IT, the cost to the company of a significant fraction of the workers walking out without trained replacements would be much more than any severance pay savings.
The real cost to them will be in lost productivity across many departments, as well as major customer anger, even loss of customers. Possibly even a drop in stock prices if enough people follow you out the door, causing major havoc and revenue losses
I have to say though, that your approach is much more fun *if* it can be pulled off.:P
At least, if I were working for BoA, and in any way could manage to do it without going bankrupt, I'd just tell them: "Fine...good luck with that...I'm outta here. Oh, and be prepeared to spend money, lawyers, and time when I sue you..whether I think I'll win or not, even if I have to represent myself!" hand them my employee badge, and walk straight out.
Maybe the workers could band together for a class-action, or at least organize to share legal costs.
I understand that many with families and in debt up to their eyeballs might not take that option, but a large subset of IT workers *are* single, and could handle the financial disruption.
I have walked out on employers before when they became completely unreasonable, and taken the financial hit. To me, without a family/kids to support, and having saved and otherwise acted financially responsible, it was worth it. Maybe I'm too "old-skool" as the phrase goes, but there are some principles a person should not hesitate to stand up for, if at all possible.
I wonder how they would react if a third or more of their IT staff refuses to cut their own throat and walks over this, and what would they tell angry customers?
There's no point of replying to his congressman; his congressman did NOT write this letter to him, it's from the Telco companies. His congressman is a goner by now, he'd been bought.
Well, it seems to me it beats just rolling over and giving up. Besides, I *have* gotten a response other than a form letter from a congresscritter when I've politely, credibly, but forcefully informed him I *was* going to organize votes and campaign contributions for his opposition in the next election if he failed to follow the will of his constituents. That *does* tend to get their attention..much more so than doing nothing, or simply ranting.
Remember.."all politics is local"..organize voters to vote for, and contribute $$$ to, that *particular* congresscritters' oponent in *his* home district. This has a much more perceptible effect than coontributing $$$ to the national opposition party, or just voting in the Presidential elections.
The "computer" aspects of PS3 will be just as useless as the PS2 Linux kit. Don't be suckered into thinking that Linux on PS3 is going to be any use. It only has 256MB of system RAM. What the hell are you going to do with 256MB on a "computer"??
Oh, I don't know...run full KDE 3.5.2 desktops and such on Mandriva 2006 linux, FreeBSD 6.0, OpenSolaris 5.11 maybe? That's what my computer I'm posting on does with a P4 2.0 gHz, 256mb RAM, D845EBG2 motherboard, and an old Nvidia GeForce2 MX/MX 400 64mb GPU.
Plus, it is *not* sluggish, or take ages to open apps, or limit me (that I've noticed) in the number of apps I have open. I also have menu, taskbar, and window titlebar translucencies enabled without any apparent degradation in speed. I suppose if I *tried* to overload it I could, but I use it normally without problems.
I'm not defending Sony. I will not buy any more Sony products after the used PS2 I picked up a couple years ago for $20. I don't buy new games for it either..Gamefly meets my needs admirably and cheaply, along with used game stores.
However, implying you cannot do useful things like being a full-featured home desktop with a computer with "only" 256mb RAM is incorrect.
The problem is that over the next couple of years, large Internet sites are planning to offer high-definition video services, which will use large amounts of bandwidth and clog the pipelines of the Internet. Telephone and cable companies want to be able to charge for such large amounts of bandwidth; otherwise, they will have to pass the costs on to the consumer.
and reply to this congresscritters' letter to point out that these "large internet sites" are *already charged for the bandwidth they use!!* and if they're bandwidth usage goes up, *so do the charges they pay*. They *DO NOT PAY A FLAT RATE* under the current system. ISPs already charge commercial sites *according to the bandwidth they use!*.
This is simply a way to double-charge commercial customers and end-users, eliminate competition from small independent internet service providers, and control what customers may see and/or read.
You might also mention that voting to allow this kind of unfair discrimination by ISPs will result in you organizing voters and capaign contributors in his district to donate to and vote for his opposition in the next election.
This is the language they understand. Votes and cash going to their opposition.
You completely miss my point. I am saying that I don't think there is anything wrong with trying to control what happens to what you produce. Especially, if you make your living from it. If you make a "CD" and choose to give it away online that's up to you. However, contrary to waht the parent poster says I don't believe that just because I don't always have a physical product that I shouldn't have the same control as the guy that produces widgets.
You completely missed *my* point. You *have* *no* *control*, despite what anyone in the government or the RIAA tells you. The government can make all the laws they want, but basic human nature will *always* win in the end.
There are laws against sodomy in many states, which includes oral sex in your own bedroom between you and your spouse. The likelyhood of successfully enforcing that are about equal to the likelyhood of forcing people not to share music they love with others. If you base your living on that, be prepared to be in the poorhouse..unless, of course, you turn everyone into a criminal and institute a police state.
I think you're absolutely right. The studio time is paid for out of the artist's success. But then again, I don't think they're on the hook if the music doesn't make a profit. I could be wrong about that tho
You are, unfortunately, quite wrong. The artist(s) remain on the hook for all recording, production, and promotional costs that are calculated solely by the label.
Here is a link to an article I have posted links to in the past when these questions have come up, by a long-time music industry insider, Steve Albini.
Ummm, no. That's your take on the issue. As an artist myself I think you are full of it. I don't create works solely for profit, but when I do enter a contract to create commercial works I expect that my contract would be honored and I get paid for it. Also, if I produce work to sell on my own to pay my bills I don't think anyone has a right to that work wihtout my permission.
As another artist speaking, that's just your take on the issue also. I think *you* are the one "full of it". You are not forced to enter into a contract to create "commercial works". That is your buisiness decision. Noone gauruntees that every buisiness must make a profit. If you base a buisiness on an unreasonable buisiness model, it will fail. If I canned air and tried to sell it with the expectation that the government would make free air illegal, I would expect to fail.
My band has a CD that we sell. It did not take the resources of a major label or studio to accomplish this. We know it is silly to expect people to not share an experience they enjoy with others. Therefore, we take advantage of this basic human trait, and encourage people to share it, copy it, put it on P2P, whatever. The increased exposure and word-of-mouth advertising is something that we couldn't pay any label or marketer for at any price. We consider recordings to be a promotional tool, not the goal or the main way of gaining income.
We are smart enough to realize that the majority of people who enjoy quality music are happy to reasonably compensate an artist they favor, along with knowing that treating them as criminals is counterproductive.
Likewise, we are also astute enough to not depend on such ephemeral and risky by nature buisiness models to pay our bills. We cover that with a quite conventional income model: we work for a living. We play clubs, theatres, fests, etc. and our income is paid in the form of tickets, cover-charges, and signed CDs and mechandise by the people that come to the show to be entertained.
The era where production and promotional costs, and the necessity to produce a physical medium and transport, warehouse, and sell it in a physical store, along with the expense and difficulty for individuals of making an equivalent copy that made selling recordings profitable, has PASSED! Gone the way of buggy-whips and gas lights.
If you choose to make a foolish buisiness decision to base your income on an obsolete buisiness model, that is your problem, noone elses'. I hope you see the light and base your income on a more realistic and profitable model. I do not wish to have everyones' rights and freedoms we currently enjoy, along with the Public Domain damaged so people like you may continue to sell the 21st-century equivalent of buggy whips.
Interesting. I wonder why the licensing should be different?
Because dramatic music accompanying the action in a movie, used basically only to dramatize the action occuring onscreen (think "Jaws" da-DUM da-DUM or the dramatic organ chords used to emphasize dramatic revelations in a daytime "soap" opera) is handled and licensed completely differently, as it is not intended to be distributed apart from the movie or other work.
This kind of music is more akin to special effects in nature to my understanding, and is generally contracted from artists in a completely different manner than a normal recording contract for music that is intended to stand on its' own and be sold and distributed accordingly. Again, IANAL, YMMV, etc.
Now what are "nondramatic musical works"? And why the restriction? I smell a rat. Wanna bet that this only applies to people who can't afford the lawyer to label their music "dramatic"? I doubt that something as vague as that is in a copyright bill by accident.
I believe the term "nondramatic musical work" is related to what I understand a "dramatic musical work" is: music that is part of the performance of movies, plays, TV shows, etc.
At least that is my understanding of the definition as a lifelong musician. Of course, IANAL, YMMV, and the legal definition might be completely different, or be completely reversed or redefined from the conventional definition by a court or congress.
Now, the reason for the distinction, to my understanding, is that the intents and uses, along with the licensing, between regular music as we understand it (Artist CDs, etc) and "dramatic musical works" (movie and TV soundtracks, etc) are quite different. Therefore they would need to be treated as seperate entities for the purposes of this Act. Again, I could be way off-base, IANAL, YMMV, but that is the understanding I have.
First, let me say that I am very anti-stupid-copyright/patent etc and against the whole trend we've been seeing from RI/MPAA and congress to remove our longstanding fair-use rights and damage the public domain.
I could be wrong, but from what I've read, the Act actually tries to do the opposite of what is claimed in the article submission, as to the seperate licensing of cached/buffered/etc copies of content.
Here is an excerpt from the linked page above:
"First, by simply filing one license application--or in the case of multiple designated agents or a change in digital uses, a limited number of applications--a legitimate music service can obtain a license to utilize all musical works(4) in the digital environment, rather than having to locate the various copyright owners of those works and clear the rights with each of them. Requiring the license to be available to all comers and deeming it to be automatically granted upon the filing of a proper application makes this licensing processing as instantaneous as possible. A key component is that the new compulsory license governs all nondramatic musical works and does not permit copyright owners to opt-out, which would otherwise jeopardize the efficiency of the entire blanket licensing structure. Additionally, we note that the SIRA appropriately does not preclude a copyright owner from entering into a direct licensing agreement with a particular digital music service, thus preserving multiple licensing options for copyright owners and licensees.
Second, the proposed blanket license covers all intermediate copies (e.g., server, cache and buffer copies) necessary to facilitate the digital delivery of music and applies to streaming and limited downloads.(5) Presently, there exists much confusion and controversy as to whether these copies and uses must be separately licensed, which the Office understands can result in protracted negotiations and delays. By resolving these issues, the SIRA clears the way for the legitimate music services to focus on rapidly delivering music to the consuming public and developing new technologies to make delivery even faster, regardless of whether such technologies involve additional intermediate copies or not.
Based on the foregoing and our involvement in discussions on these issues over the past several years, we anticipate that the blanket licensing approach would be welcomed by, or at least be acceptable to, the various interested parties. Furthermore, we note that blanket licensing has proven successful with respect to the section 114 compulsory license for sound recordings, and would expect it to function similarly in the section 115 context.
However, the Copyright Office strongly urges that the SIRA not characterize streaming as a distribution or as a form of "digital phonorecord delivery," or DPD. A stream, whether interactive or noninteractive, is predominantly a public performance, although the various reproductions such a transmission requires makes it appropriate to address in section 115. A stream does not, however, constitute a "distribution," the object of which is to deliver a usable copy of the work to the recipient; the buffer and other intermediate copies or portions of copies that may temporarily exist on a recipient's computer to facilitate the stream and are for all practical purposes useless (apart from their role in facilitating the single performance) and most likely unknown to the recipient simply do not qualify. Similarly, a stream should not be considered a DPD as that term is presently defined by 17 U.S.C. 115(d), because it most likely does not result in "a specifically identifiable reproduction by or for any transmission recipient of a phonorecord." The Office recognizes that the SIRA proposes to amend the definition of DPD to specif
Good point. I reecently went to the auto parts store to buy a steering wheel lock for my car, but the salesperson said the same thing and offered to sell me some municipal bonds for inner-city development instead.
I think the point he was making was that if legally-obtained music was cheap enough, convenient enough, and of high enough quality, then Joe Average would just as soon pay a non-consequential sum for a legitimate purchase rather than hunting the darker parts of the web for hours or finding, installing, and learnng to use P2P applications and risking criminal and civil action.
The fact that so many feel the risks and inconvenience are worthwhile, even with increasingly severe penalties and technical measures to overcome, speaks to the level of perceived unfairness of the deal the suppliers are trying to force the buyers to accept.
It's an OpenBSD 3.8-based LiveCD (read: no installing, nothing left on a hard-drive to search, usable from any net-connected PC with a CDROM drive that can be booted from).
It includes pre-configured TOR onion-routing, STRONG encryption that OpenBSD is (in)famous for, and is very simple to use..even for those with little computer/*nix knowledge. Everything is pre-configured for maximum security and anonymity.
Plus, it appears to be developed and hosted outside the U.S., so restricting it's availability or use would be very hard to accomplish for the U.S. government.
Also, being OpenBSD-based, it will run on minimal hardware resources. It includes the Fluxbox desktop, with Thunderbird e-mail client, Firefox webbrowser, and Gaim multiprotocol IM/chat client.
Even having nothing to hide, this is a handy liveCD to have in the toolbox. I highly recommend downloading an.ISO and giving it a spin. It's amusing to open Firefox to "whatsmyip.com" and see your IP address change to another region of the world every few minutes. Also, the dire-sounding warning from Yahoo Chat "Notification: We are currently recording IP addresses of all Yahoo! Chat us ers" becomes quite humorous.:D
I prefer DesktopBSD to PC-BSD as DesktopBSD uses ports, whereas PC-BSD seems rather fond of these PBI things, which seem to emulate the worst Windows has to offer (a solution such as this would have been a bit more bearable if they wanted to get away from the orthodox package management system.) That being said, I do with DesktopBSD would move on to FreeBSD 6 instead of 5.5.
As another poster pointed out farther down this thread, PC-BSD can also use the FreeBSD ports system, as well as the PC-BSD ".PBI" click-to-install software packages. I tried DesktopBSD, and found it to be quite solid.
That being said, I chose PC-BSD because of it being based on FreeBSD 6.0 for PC-BSD 1.0 and FreeBSD 6.1 for PC-BSD 1.1. I *DO* wish PC-BSD would get KDEs' Kpackage to work with the FreeBSD ports system (besides simply listing installed ports), something that DesktopBSD has done a good job of having work "out of the box".
Don't get me wrong, I prefer gaming on a PC compared to a game console, but not anywhere near enough to sink that much cash into a GPU, nor add all the DRM that seems increasingly to be required to play current generation games on a PC.
Guess I'll stick to my old games and GPU that still work very well, thankyou. For the money saved alone, I could buy a nice guitar (or 2!).:D
Then you're not a PC gamer. If you're in to guitars, then saving for a guitar is money better spent for you. On the other hand, for those of us that really enjoy PC gaming more than buying guitars, then the videocard upgrade is reasonable.
That's the thing..I *used* to be an avid PC gamer, before the upgrade cycle madness, driver mess, and DRM kookiness just got to be too much. Everyone has a line beyond which it just becomes unreasonable/impractical to continue. I guess I've reached mine, and it will only hurt the gaming and hardware industry.
Not that my few dollars will be of any significance, but if they continue, they may cross enough peoples 'lines' that it will be noticed.
As to other posters' comments about spending money on guitar(s), I make money from playing in a band, but make nothing playing PC games. PC games are (were) one of my forms of entertainment, guitars are part of my job. So buying a guitar is not like buying a game for me, it's more akin to an independent auto mechanic buying tools.
"Why should I go spending ridiculous amounts of money (more than my PC cost) just for some silly games"
Well, clearly you're not part of the target market if your entire PC (just one?) cost less than $600, so the answer is doubtless "you shouldn't".
Actually, that's my high-end box. My others are network servers and such, old P2s and P3s and the like. I agree, I shouldn't.:)
"Don't get me wrong, I prefer gaming on a PC compared to a game console, but not anywhere near enough to sink that much cash into a GPU"
Sure, which is why there are plenty of cheaper cards. Isn't the market clever, covering a wide range of income and interest brackets?
Except that the lower-end cards restrict what games I'm able to play, if said games require features and abilities only found on the mid to higher-end cards.
"nor add all the DRM that seems increasingly to be required to play current generation games on a PC"
Sorry? Do you mean the usual CD/DVD based protections that are generally easily bypassed and often patched out completely by official updates, or are Microsoft trying to solder a trusted computing chip onto your motherboard again?
No, I meant things like "Steam" and "DX10" (which aren't actually tied to the GPU, but which I find objectionable) and also restrictions on what video/data I may choose to send to the cards' outputs.
However, I do also object to "the usual CD/DVD based protections" as they can also be harmful in extreme cases (think "Sony rootkit") plus, I don't like being treated as a criminal when I'm a paying customer. I'll ignore the cheap shot, as it adds nothing and only demeans you, not me.
Slashdot Mirror
"Next issue please.
.well, just about everything; and that thus all legal issues involving any sort of property are Federal issues.
:D
Well then I guess that would be the declaration that the Federal government holds some sort of implicit title in . .
Isn't pretty damned close to the definition of a fuedal monarchy?
KFG"
Hmm...perhaps this interpretation might be halted by the state(s) turning around and saying: "OK, since everything is under your jurisdiction, we will forthwith refer ALL criminal infractions that can be linked, however flimsily, by the same logic to federal jurisdiction to the federal court system and the D.O.J...have fun with processing about 80% or more of our former caseload...and btw, we won't be needing any more federal money of any sort, as we've just saved ourselves a buttload of money."
Won't actually happen, I know, but it *would* be fun watching the feds squirm on that one!
Cheers!
Strat
There's a game series in which the story came first, with an entire universe created in board games and a sci-fi novel series. The story and timeline in the Mechwarrior games are a vital part of the game IMO.
In the Mechwarrior4: Mercenaries game, the player actually interacts with the story, in that choosing different mercenary "contracts" affects future contract/mission availability, as well as factional relationships with "employers".
Overall, I suppose the importance of the story in a game depends on the game, and what a particular player wants from a game. Someone that wants 20 minutes of FPS or arcade-type non-stop action isn't too worried about a backstory. Others that want a more involved experience will place more importance on the backstory.
Cheers!
Strat
"It's true. Proper musicians (read: who actually know how to read sheet music, not just tablature) will gladly pay for the original (read: not some crappy re-arrangement) copy of the sheet music, if only because it's that much more fun to be able to play the music, and know the hard work that goes into it. I would readily fork out some cash for the trumpet line from some of CAKE's music, or the whole score from other music. Tis a shame this will never happen, as I could (gasp!) record my own version to listen to. It's crap like this that makes me glad I don't like music past the year 2000, with a few notable exceptions. Sorry TMBG, Franz Ferdinand, and all you actually decent bands, I guess I won't bother to spend my hard earned cash on your good music, because that'd be funding idiocy that I can't stand."
Sorry, no offense, but I must take exception to the "Proper musicians.." statement. Reading sheet music does not a musician make. Tell me that Robert Johnson, BB King, etc. are not "proper" musicians. If you are a good enough musician, you don't *need* sheet music.
I've been playing guitar for 34 years, most of that in working bands. I've done plenty of cover tunes along the way and never once used (or needed) either sheet music or tablature to be able to play those covers. I learned to play sitting in front of a bare tuner/amp/phonograph chassis out of a junked out console stereo with old car radio 6 x 9's in shoeboxes stuffed with old socks for speakers, trying to play what I was hearing.
I play completely "by ear", and I can play anything after hearing it once or twice. I also write and arrange my own music, and learned tablature only 10-15 years ago, only so I could teach the other musicians in the band I happen to be in what I'm playing, or what the original artist is playing if it's a cover tune. I have a CD of original material out (and not doing bad) and all this with barely being able to tell a treble cleff from a bass cleff.
I've recently played a gig with Magic Slim & the Teardrops, opened for Anthony Gomes, as well as placing high in the International Blues Challenge.
I also know quite a few people that have degrees in music that nobody seriously considers a musician, some including themselves.
Sorry if I've ranted, but the "if you can't read music you're not a real musician" snobbery irritates me, and I usually find the worst offenders being college-educated failed musicians who are bitter about their lack of talent.
I'm not trying to imply that you fit that profile, I just want people to understand that some of the most gifted and talented musicians the world has known couldn't read a note of music, and that the "proper musicians read music" meme is far from correct.
Cheers!
Strat
What's to stop U.S. citizens from simply transferring funds to an offshore bank or other financial entity that doesn't care about U.S. laws/regulations or gambling?
Are citizens going to be prevented from transferring any money or holding any bank accounts outside the U.S.? How would they stop someone from simply mailing the funds as a money order or using a "shirea"(sp?)-type money transfer scheme?
Short of requiring the government to exclusively handle all citizens' money, and outlaw *any* transfer of citizens' money outside U.S. financial control, I see no way they can possibly prevent them gambling online, or even collect enough data to prosecute them for doing so.
Of course, one could put on his tinfoil hat and argue that this is a step in the direction of the government seizing (more) direct control of citizens' money.
Myself, I just think it's another short-sighted lawmaking exercise that will end up curtailing freedoms and hurting the U.S. economy with more regulatory and enforcement costs while not actually accomplishing the goals that are espoused for it's passage, something that the U.S. government is legendary for.
Cheers!
Strat
Who *doesn't* know that Yahoo/Geocities is a major phishing/script-kiddie resource and host?? This isn't news to anyone who has experience chatting in Yahoo chatrooms.
.exe files, disguised as videos or whatever, that they spam links to in yahoo chatrooms with, in an almost constant barrage.
.exe file.
There are script-kiddies and S/N stealers that constantly use geocities pages to host everything from phishing pages to outright trojan
There is a subgroup of huge-egoed "1337" yahoo chatters that deal in stolen screen names and "illegal" or "illy" names in trade for other names, or straight cash.
Yahoo seems to pay no attention whatsoever to their abuse reporting system. I've reported a geocities page hosting a trojan multiple times, and the site remained up for over a year, with the same trojan
One of the biggest things driving this subgroup of crackers and script-kiddies are the chat-bot spammers, who buy lists of stolen screen-names/accounts on which to log-on their spam/porn bots. There is an entire underground economy of stolen accounts/screen-names much larger and much older than any of the MMORPG gold trader/seller economies that have gotten so much press of late.
I think Yahoo, despite all of their denials, are in bed with the spam/porn-bot operators, and turn a blind eye, even protecting them. I know people who chat on Yahoo that run "booter" programs that will kick/flood a chatter out of a room, even completely disconnect someone from Yahoo. They regularly boot normal chatters with impunity, but fear to boot "porn/spam-bots", as Yahoo will quickly shut down the booters' "bot" account(s) (most 'booter' programs utilise 'bots' to send their disconnect packets/IM floods/etc) and even ban the booter-operators' account and block that IP address.
If I were this fellow, I'd consider myself lucky that the only thing he got from a geocities webpage was a phishing page, as opposed to a virus or trojan with much more serious and far-reaching consequences than having a Yahoo screen-name/account cracked or stolen.
Cheers!
Strat
Dude, if you want a "girl" to see that rig of yours, you need to get her into your house first!!! (Oh, and dont think about flashing the iBook either!).
:D
Seriously, anyone who thinks a computer can pick up girls, are seriously mistaken. In my experience, the most important things have also been (in descreasing order)
1. Smile
2. Humour
3. Personality
4. Looks
5. Money (Though can be a negative too)
6. Car (though can be a double edged sword.. I have a jag, some love it, some hate it)
7. Job
8. Family
9. Home.
.
.
.
.
103. Flash computer.
I would change that list slightly:
1. Play lead guitar in a decent band
2. Smile
3. Humour
4. Personality
5. Looks
6. Money (Though can be a negative too)
7. Car (though can be a double edged sword.. I have a jag, some love it, some hate it)
8. Job
9. Family
10. Home.
.
.
.
.
104. Flash computer.
As John Mellencamp wrote; "Forget all about that macho shit, and learn how to play guitar!"
I would say that goes double for "computer shit".
I confess, I'm a *bsd/linux user, but that's about the last thing I would bring up when talking to a honey between sets! (Even if I *was* a Mac-user)
Cheers!
Strat
anything that is broadcast or webcast
:o)
:P
Er... What if I speak about it ? Will I be covered. ? I mean could I sue anyone repeating what I said ?
Hmmm..that brings up an interesting model:
1. Webcast a video of the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, with a reading of the text.
2. Register said webcast & the content under the new treaty.
3. Sue the U.S./National Archive/Library of Congress/History textbook publishers/etc. etc. for infringement.
4. Rinse & repeat for every signatory to the new treaty.
5. Profit!
No "?" step!!
Don't worry..I shall be a benevolent Planetary Emperor.
Cheers!
Strat
From TFA:
"We believe that we now need to make a clear and public distinction between copying for your own use and copying for dissemination to third parties," said Mr Jamieson, whose organisation represents the UK's record labels.
He told the Commons select committee for culture, media and sport that he wanted to "make it unequivocally clear to the consumer that if they copy their CDs for their own private use in order to move the music from format to format, we will not pursue them".
Will the RIAA now pressure the US to have the UK kicked out of the WTO? Will we be invadng the UK next for "IP terrorism"? If visiting UK citizens bring their copied music with them on a visit, will they be arrested/fined by US Customs, their copied music confiscated?
Between the French and the UK, the US copyright-cartels and the DRM-pushers have been receiving some major blows. I don't seriously believe the US would invade either the UK or France. (Mostly because they have way too many things that go "BOOM".)
I do have to wonder what consequences the cartels will pressure the US into trying to apply to the UK and France over these actions in trying to free their citizens from the Damocles' Sword of copyright-criminalization by simply copying for their own use what they already bought and paid for and insisting on fairness and interoperability in DRM schemes.
This ought to be interesting to watch. I hope that by raising objections to the UKs' and Frances' actions, they wake a few people up in the US as to the freedoms they are losing, and the raping of the Public Domain and *our* culture for profit.
Cheers!
Strat
If you do not buy any merchandise AND download their albums, you just leave the bands in debt. Your "civil disobedience" doesn't help these bands at all because you're not building an alternative marketplace. You're just copying music, and leaving the bands with no money to live on or pay off their debt. Basically, from their point of view, you're not a fan, you're just an asshole who's miserly with his money.
People like you cannot accept the fact that intellectual property doesn't come out of thin air. If you do not pump in real money into A system, not necessarily THE EXISTING system, you won't allow IP creators to actually live of their works and keep making new works. If bands cannot stand to make good money when they get good and command respect among audiences, how can they justify touring and recording new works? If you're not willing to go see them live and/or buy merchandise, how can they compensate for money they didn't make on recordings?
Artists will still make art, but you won't get it nearly as easily as you do today if you go into your socialistic model that blatantly hates the idea of having to compensate them financially for their work. You may think that by "sticking it to the man," you're sticking it to the eeeeeevil corporations, but you're not. They just nimbly duck out of the way and let your sharp stick stab the artist behind them. Your way of "freeing the artists" makes as much since as saying that stealing from and firebombing the property of plantation owners is a more effective way of freeing slaves than getting them their freedom and creating an economy that can supply them with productive jobs.
Let me reply by way of reposting one of my replies to someone else who thought that artists should rely on selling recordings as a buisiness model.
""Ummm, no. That's your take on the issue. As an artist myself I think you are full of it. I don't create works solely for profit, but when I do enter a contract to create commercial works I expect that my contract would be honored and I get paid for it. Also, if I produce work to sell on my own to pay my bills I don't think anyone has a right to that work wihtout my permission.
As another artist speaking, that's just your take on the issue also. I think *you* are the one "full of it". You are not forced to enter into a contract to create "commercial works". That is your buisiness decision. Noone gauruntees that every buisiness must make a profit. If you base a buisiness on an unreasonable buisiness model, it will fail. If I canned air and tried to sell it with the expectation that the government would make free air illegal, I would expect to fail.
My band has a CD that we sell. It did not take the resources of a major label or studio to accomplish this. We know it is silly to expect people to not share an experience they enjoy with others. Therefore, we take advantage of this basic human trait, and encourage people to share it, copy it, put it on P2P, whatever. The increased exposure and word-of-mouth advertising is something that we couldn't pay any label or marketer for at any price. We consider recordings to be a promotional tool, not the goal or the main way of gaining income.
We are smart enough to realize that the majority of people who enjoy quality music are happy to reasonably compensate an artist they favor, along with knowing that treating them as criminals is counterproductive.
Likewise, we are also astute enough to not depend on such ephemeral and risky by nature buisiness models to pay our bills. We cover that with a quite conventional income model: we work for a living. We play clubs, theatres, fests, etc. and our income is paid in the form of tickets, cover-charges, and signed CDs and mechandise by the people that come to the show to be entertained.
The era where production and promotional costs, and the necessity to produce a physical medium and transport, warehouse, and sell it in a physical store, along with the expense and difficulty for individuals of making
Well, I decided to leave out the BOFH approach, although it did cross my mind. Mostly because all it would take is one "company man" with a clue, or one astute managerial-type to throw a monkey-wrench into the evil plan. In every corp. dept. I've worked in over 3-4 people in size, there was at least one that would blow the whistle on such an approach either out of fear or loyalty.
:P
Yes, in most places, you are 'ideally' only an easily-replaceable cog, but with something that is so essential to a financial institution as IT, the cost to the company of a significant fraction of the workers walking out without trained replacements would be much more than any severance pay savings.
The real cost to them will be in lost productivity across many departments, as well as major customer anger, even loss of customers. Possibly even a drop in stock prices if enough people follow you out the door, causing major havoc and revenue losses
I have to say though, that your approach is much more fun *if* it can be pulled off.
Cheers!
Strat
At least, if I were working for BoA, and in any way could manage to do it without going bankrupt, I'd just tell them: "Fine...good luck with that...I'm outta here. Oh, and be prepeared to spend money, lawyers, and time when I sue you..whether I think I'll win or not, even if I have to represent myself!" hand them my employee badge, and walk straight out.
Maybe the workers could band together for a class-action, or at least organize to share legal costs.
I understand that many with families and in debt up to their eyeballs might not take that option, but a large subset of IT workers *are* single, and could handle the financial disruption.
I have walked out on employers before when they became completely unreasonable, and taken the financial hit. To me, without a family/kids to support, and having saved and otherwise acted financially responsible, it was worth it. Maybe I'm too "old-skool" as the phrase goes, but there are some principles a person should not hesitate to stand up for, if at all possible.
I wonder how they would react if a third or more of their IT staff refuses to cut their own throat and walks over this, and what would they tell angry customers?
Cheers!
Strat
There's no point of replying to his congressman; his congressman did NOT write this letter to him, it's from the Telco companies. His congressman is a goner by now, he'd been bought.
Well, it seems to me it beats just rolling over and giving up. Besides, I *have* gotten a response other than a form letter from a congresscritter when I've politely, credibly, but forcefully informed him I *was* going to organize votes and campaign contributions for his opposition in the next election if he failed to follow the will of his constituents. That *does* tend to get their attention..much more so than doing nothing, or simply ranting.
Remember.."all politics is local"..organize voters to vote for, and contribute $$$ to, that *particular* congresscritters' oponent in *his* home district. This has a much more perceptible effect than coontributing $$$ to the national opposition party, or just voting in the Presidential elections.
Cheers!
Strat
The "computer" aspects of PS3 will be just as useless as the PS2 Linux kit. Don't be suckered into thinking that Linux on PS3 is going to be any use. It only has 256MB of system RAM. What the hell are you going to do with 256MB on a "computer"??
Oh, I don't know...run full KDE 3.5.2 desktops and such on Mandriva 2006 linux, FreeBSD 6.0, OpenSolaris 5.11 maybe? That's what my computer I'm posting on does with a P4 2.0 gHz, 256mb RAM, D845EBG2 motherboard, and an old Nvidia GeForce2 MX/MX 400 64mb GPU.
Plus, it is *not* sluggish, or take ages to open apps, or limit me (that I've noticed) in the number of apps I have open. I also have menu, taskbar, and window titlebar translucencies enabled without any apparent degradation in speed. I suppose if I *tried* to overload it I could, but I use it normally without problems.
I'm not defending Sony. I will not buy any more Sony products after the used PS2 I picked up a couple years ago for $20. I don't buy new games for it either..Gamefly meets my needs admirably and cheaply, along with used game stores.
However, implying you cannot do useful things like being a full-featured home desktop with a computer with "only" 256mb RAM is incorrect.
Cheers!
Strat
If I were you, I'd quote this bit of the letter:
The problem is that over the next couple of years, large Internet sites
are planning to offer high-definition video services, which will use
large amounts of bandwidth and clog the pipelines of the Internet.
Telephone and cable companies want to be able to charge for such large
amounts of bandwidth; otherwise, they will have to pass the costs on to
the consumer.
and reply to this congresscritters' letter to point out that these "large internet sites" are *already charged for the bandwidth they use!!* and if they're bandwidth usage goes up, *so do the charges they pay*. They *DO NOT PAY A FLAT RATE* under the current system. ISPs already charge commercial sites *according to the bandwidth they use!*.
This is simply a way to double-charge commercial customers and end-users, eliminate competition from small independent internet service providers, and control what customers may see and/or read.
You might also mention that voting to allow this kind of unfair discrimination by ISPs will result in you organizing voters and capaign contributors in his district to donate to and vote for his opposition in the next election.
This is the language they understand. Votes and cash going to their opposition.
Cheers!
Strat
You completely miss my point. I am saying that I don't think there is anything wrong with trying to control what happens to what you produce. Especially, if you make your living from it. If you make a "CD" and choose to give it away online that's up to you. However, contrary to waht the parent poster says I don't believe that just because I don't always have a physical product that I shouldn't have the same control as the guy that produces widgets.
You completely missed *my* point. You *have* *no* *control*, despite what anyone in the government or the RIAA tells you. The government can make all the laws they want, but basic human nature will *always* win in the end.
There are laws against sodomy in many states, which includes oral sex in your own bedroom between you and your spouse. The likelyhood of successfully enforcing that are about equal to the likelyhood of forcing people not to share music they love with others. If you base your living on that, be prepared to be in the poorhouse..unless, of course, you turn everyone into a criminal and institute a police state.
I don't accept that bargain. Neither should you.
Cheers!
Strat
I think you're absolutely right. The studio time is paid for out of the artist's success. But then again, I don't think they're on the hook if the music doesn't make a profit. I could be wrong about that tho
You are, unfortunately, quite wrong. The artist(s) remain on the hook for all recording, production, and promotional costs that are calculated solely by the label.
Here is a link to an article I have posted links to in the past when these questions have come up, by a long-time music industry insider, Steve Albini.
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
This should be required reading for anyone thinking of becoming a professional musician or considering signing with a label.
Cheers!
Strat
Ummm, no. That's your take on the issue. As an artist myself I think you are full of it. I don't create works solely for profit, but when I do enter a contract to create commercial works I expect that my contract would be honored and I get paid for it. Also, if I produce work to sell on my own to pay my bills I don't think anyone has a right to that work wihtout my permission.
As another artist speaking, that's just your take on the issue also. I think *you* are the one "full of it". You are not forced to enter into a contract to create "commercial works". That is your buisiness decision. Noone gauruntees that every buisiness must make a profit. If you base a buisiness on an unreasonable buisiness model, it will fail. If I canned air and tried to sell it with the expectation that the government would make free air illegal, I would expect to fail.
My band has a CD that we sell. It did not take the resources of a major label or studio to accomplish this. We know it is silly to expect people to not share an experience they enjoy with others. Therefore, we take advantage of this basic human trait, and encourage people to share it, copy it, put it on P2P, whatever. The increased exposure and word-of-mouth advertising is something that we couldn't pay any label or marketer for at any price. We consider recordings to be a promotional tool, not the goal or the main way of gaining income.
We are smart enough to realize that the majority of people who enjoy quality music are happy to reasonably compensate an artist they favor, along with knowing that treating them as criminals is counterproductive.
Likewise, we are also astute enough to not depend on such ephemeral and risky by nature buisiness models to pay our bills. We cover that with a quite conventional income model: we work for a living. We play clubs, theatres, fests, etc. and our income is paid in the form of tickets, cover-charges, and signed CDs and mechandise by the people that come to the show to be entertained.
The era where production and promotional costs, and the necessity to produce a physical medium and transport, warehouse, and sell it in a physical store, along with the expense and difficulty for individuals of making an equivalent copy that made selling recordings profitable, has PASSED! Gone the way of buggy-whips and gas lights.
If you choose to make a foolish buisiness decision to base your income on an obsolete buisiness model, that is your problem, noone elses'. I hope you see the light and base your income on a more realistic and profitable model. I do not wish to have everyones' rights and freedoms we currently enjoy, along with the Public Domain damaged so people like you may continue to sell the 21st-century equivalent of buggy whips.
Cheers!
Strat
Interesting. I wonder why the licensing should be different?
Because dramatic music accompanying the action in a movie, used basically only to dramatize the action occuring onscreen (think "Jaws" da-DUM da-DUM or the dramatic organ chords used to emphasize dramatic revelations in a daytime "soap" opera) is handled and licensed completely differently, as it is not intended to be distributed apart from the movie or other work.
This kind of music is more akin to special effects in nature to my understanding, and is generally contracted from artists in a completely different manner than a normal recording contract for music that is intended to stand on its' own and be sold and distributed accordingly. Again, IANAL, YMMV, etc.
Cheers!
Strat
Now what are "nondramatic musical works"? And why the restriction? I smell a rat. Wanna bet that this only applies to people who can't afford the lawyer to label their music "dramatic"? I doubt that something as vague as that is in a copyright bill by accident.
I believe the term "nondramatic musical work" is related to what I understand a "dramatic musical work" is: music that is part of the performance of movies, plays, TV shows, etc.
At least that is my understanding of the definition as a lifelong musician. Of course, IANAL, YMMV, and the legal definition might be completely different, or be completely reversed or redefined from the conventional definition by a court or congress.
Now, the reason for the distinction, to my understanding, is that the intents and uses, along with the licensing, between regular music as we understand it (Artist CDs, etc) and "dramatic musical works" (movie and TV soundtracks, etc) are quite different. Therefore they would need to be treated as seperate entities for the purposes of this Act. Again, I could be way off-base, IANAL, YMMV, but that is the understanding I have.
HTH
Cheers!
Strat
First, let me say that I am very anti-stupid-copyright/patent etc and against the whole trend we've been seeing from RI/MPAA and congress to remove our longstanding fair-use rights and damage the public domain.
That said, I took a look, and this Act doesn't read to me the same way the submission is characterizing it. The link is here: http://www.copyright.gov/docs/regstat051606.html
I could be wrong, but from what I've read, the Act actually tries to do the opposite of what is claimed in the article submission, as to the seperate licensing of cached/buffered/etc copies of content.
Here is an excerpt from the linked page above:
"First, by simply filing one license application--or in the case of multiple designated agents or a change in digital uses, a limited number of applications--a legitimate music service can obtain a license to utilize all musical works(4) in the digital environment, rather than having to locate the various copyright owners of those works and clear the rights with each of them. Requiring the license to be available to all comers and deeming it to be automatically granted upon the filing of a proper application makes this licensing processing as instantaneous as possible. A key component is that the new compulsory license governs all nondramatic musical works and does not permit copyright owners to opt-out, which would otherwise jeopardize the efficiency of the entire blanket licensing structure. Additionally, we note that the SIRA appropriately does not preclude a copyright owner from entering into a direct licensing agreement with a particular digital music service, thus preserving multiple licensing options for copyright owners and licensees.
Second, the proposed blanket license covers all intermediate copies (e.g., server, cache and buffer copies) necessary to facilitate the digital delivery of music and applies to streaming and limited downloads.(5) Presently, there exists much confusion and controversy as to whether these copies and uses must be separately licensed, which the Office understands can result in protracted negotiations and delays. By resolving these issues, the SIRA clears the way for the legitimate music services to focus on rapidly delivering music to the consuming public and developing new technologies to make delivery even faster, regardless of whether such technologies involve additional intermediate copies or not.
Based on the foregoing and our involvement in discussions on these issues over the past several years, we anticipate that the blanket licensing approach would be welcomed by, or at least be acceptable to, the various interested parties. Furthermore, we note that blanket licensing has proven successful with respect to the section 114 compulsory license for sound recordings, and would expect it to function similarly in the section 115 context.
However, the Copyright Office strongly urges that the SIRA not characterize streaming as a distribution or as a form of "digital phonorecord delivery," or DPD. A stream, whether interactive or noninteractive, is predominantly a public performance, although the various reproductions such a transmission requires makes it appropriate to address in section 115. A stream does not, however, constitute a "distribution," the object of which is to deliver a usable copy of the work to the recipient; the buffer and other intermediate copies or portions of copies that may temporarily exist on a recipient's computer to facilitate the stream and are for all practical purposes useless (apart from their role in facilitating the single performance) and most likely unknown to the recipient simply do not qualify. Similarly, a stream should not be considered a DPD as that term is presently defined by 17 U.S.C. 115(d), because it most likely does not result in "a specifically identifiable reproduction by or for any transmission recipient of a phonorecord." The Office recognizes that the SIRA proposes to amend the definition of DPD to specif
Good point. I reecently went to the auto parts store to buy a steering wheel lock for my car, but the salesperson said the same thing and offered to sell me some municipal bonds for inner-city development instead.
I think the point he was making was that if legally-obtained music was cheap enough, convenient enough, and of high enough quality, then Joe Average would just as soon pay a non-consequential sum for a legitimate purchase rather than hunting the darker parts of the web for hours or finding, installing, and learnng to use P2P applications and risking criminal and civil action.
The fact that so many feel the risks and inconvenience are worthwhile, even with increasingly severe penalties and technical measures to overcome, speaks to the level of perceived unfairness of the deal the suppliers are trying to force the buyers to accept.
Cheers!
Strat
I think what you and many here may be looking for is Anonym.OS http://kaos.to/cms/content/view/14/32/
.ISO and giving it a spin. It's amusing to open Firefox to "whatsmyip.com" and see your IP address change to another region of the world every few minutes. Also, the dire-sounding warning from Yahoo Chat "Notification: We are currently recording IP addresses of all Yahoo! Chat us :D
It's an OpenBSD 3.8-based LiveCD (read: no installing, nothing left on a hard-drive to search, usable from any net-connected PC with a CDROM drive that can be booted from).
It includes pre-configured TOR onion-routing, STRONG encryption that OpenBSD is (in)famous for, and is very simple to use..even for those with little computer/*nix knowledge. Everything is pre-configured for maximum security and anonymity.
Plus, it appears to be developed and hosted outside the U.S., so restricting it's availability or use would be very hard to accomplish for the U.S. government.
Also, being OpenBSD-based, it will run on minimal hardware resources. It includes the Fluxbox desktop, with Thunderbird e-mail client, Firefox webbrowser, and Gaim multiprotocol IM/chat client.
Even having nothing to hide, this is a handy liveCD to have in the toolbox. I highly recommend downloading an
ers" becomes quite humorous.
Cheers!
Strat
I prefer DesktopBSD to PC-BSD as DesktopBSD uses ports, whereas PC-BSD seems rather fond of these PBI things, which seem to emulate the worst Windows has to offer (a solution such as this would have been a bit more bearable if they wanted to get away from the orthodox package management system.) That being said, I do with DesktopBSD would move on to FreeBSD 6 instead of 5.5.
As another poster pointed out farther down this thread, PC-BSD can also use the FreeBSD ports system, as well as the PC-BSD ".PBI" click-to-install software packages. I tried DesktopBSD, and found it to be quite solid.
That being said, I chose PC-BSD because of it being based on FreeBSD 6.0 for PC-BSD 1.0 and FreeBSD 6.1 for PC-BSD 1.1. I *DO* wish PC-BSD would get KDEs' Kpackage to work with the FreeBSD ports system (besides simply listing installed ports), something that DesktopBSD has done a good job of having work "out of the box".
Cheers!
Strat
Don't get me wrong, I prefer gaming on a PC compared to a game console, but not anywhere near enough to sink that much cash into a GPU, nor add all the DRM that seems increasingly to be required to play current generation games on a PC.
:D
Guess I'll stick to my old games and GPU that still work very well, thankyou. For the money saved alone, I could buy a nice guitar (or 2!).
Then you're not a PC gamer. If you're in to guitars, then saving for a guitar is money better spent for you. On the other hand, for those of us that really enjoy PC gaming more than buying guitars, then the videocard upgrade is reasonable.
That's the thing..I *used* to be an avid PC gamer, before the upgrade cycle madness, driver mess, and DRM kookiness just got to be too much. Everyone has a line beyond which it just becomes unreasonable/impractical to continue. I guess I've reached mine, and it will only hurt the gaming and hardware industry.
Not that my few dollars will be of any significance, but if they continue, they may cross enough peoples 'lines' that it will be noticed.
As to other posters' comments about spending money on guitar(s), I make money from playing in a band, but make nothing playing PC games. PC games are (were) one of my forms of entertainment, guitars are part of my job. So buying a guitar is not like buying a game for me, it's more akin to an independent auto mechanic buying tools.
Cheers!
Strat
"Why should I go spending ridiculous amounts of money (more than my PC cost) just for some silly games"
:)
Well, clearly you're not part of the target market if your entire PC (just one?) cost less than $600, so the answer is doubtless "you shouldn't".
Actually, that's my high-end box. My others are network servers and such, old P2s and P3s and the like. I agree, I shouldn't.
"Don't get me wrong, I prefer gaming on a PC compared to a game console, but not anywhere near enough to sink that much cash into a GPU"
Sure, which is why there are plenty of cheaper cards. Isn't the market clever, covering a wide range of income and interest brackets?
Except that the lower-end cards restrict what games I'm able to play, if said games require features and abilities only found on the mid to higher-end cards.
"nor add all the DRM that seems increasingly to be required to play current generation games on a PC"
Sorry? Do you mean the usual CD/DVD based protections that are generally easily bypassed and often patched out completely by official updates, or are Microsoft trying to solder a trusted computing chip onto your motherboard again?
No, I meant things like "Steam" and "DX10" (which aren't actually tied to the GPU, but which I find objectionable) and also restrictions on what video/data I may choose to send to the cards' outputs.
However, I do also object to "the usual CD/DVD based protections" as they can also be harmful in extreme cases (think "Sony rootkit") plus, I don't like being treated as a criminal when I'm a paying customer. I'll ignore the cheap shot, as it adds nothing and only demeans you, not me.
Cheers!
Strat