They still sell those old albums, you know. So giving up RIAA artists means giving up 40 years of great music.
Yes, they do still sell them...right down the street at the local music shops' used bin. No need to give up listening to great artists, nor give the RIAA more money.
I'll also postulate another semi-controversial solution, allofmp3.com.
Before I get flamed, I'm a musician myself with a CD for sale, and I have no worries about places like mp3.com even if we were fortunate enough to become widely popular.
A large enough percentage of people will always like and appreciate your work and talent enough to want to support you through ticket/merch and CD (with liner notes, photos, etc.) sales if you're that talented and popular, regardless if they can get the tracks themselves free, to make attempting to police the rest non-productive overall at best, and harmful at extremes.
Well, go th(e) other way and just grant every single patent. Let everyone have them. Let them clash!!!
Maybe they already are?
Not as a specific policy to this end maybe, but due to the conditions and pressures resulting from the whole patent environment possibly?
There are reactions to every action, and this might be part of a natural counter trend to the morphing of the patent landscape, given the current political/bureaucratic conditions in the patent office and the government.
Such a rule would effectively eliminate the collectable marketplace and probably result in the loss of many of the early products of companies which later became leaders in their fields.
Even more than that, it would seriously cripple trade in items you wouldn't think about.
Vintage audio/amateur radio equipment. Audiophiles all over Japan will be screaming, as well as the amateur radio crowd. Many currently-operating amateur stations are either partially or wholly made up of vintage to moderately (10-15-20 yrs?) old equipment, which not only does the job admirably still, but also sounds to most ears "warmer" with more "punch" to be heard under high interference/weak-signal conditions than current solid state gear. (Totally subjective opinion here, but backed by mine and others' decades of experience searching the static for the weak signal of that rare contact.)
Vintage musical equipment, like vintage Fender and Marshall amplifiers among many others,that are highly valued and heavily traded among working/pro musicians as well as recording studios and collectors.
Average price in U.S. for a Blackface 1968 Fender Super Reverb in good to great condition is around $1800-$2200, in Japan I'm sure they are even more rare/expensive, so that's a lot for musicians/studios to lose, both monetarily and musically.
I suppose I've dated myself enough for one/. posting.:-P
Microsoft may be shooting itself in the foot with homebrewers, sending them to GNU/Linux or *BSD or the like.
Yes, it's alreay happened with me. I'm encouraged by the number and quality of OSS music-related applications I'm seeing for *nix platforms.
Development seems to be moving at a rapid pace, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if some OSS/*nix apps start to overtake some of the "traditional" professional-level studio tools.
Having source code and API parameters available makes it more appealing for a hobbyist/small shop already IMHO, and adding further costs and impediments to the little guy will only increase that appeal.
I'm waiting to see some commercial music equipment like programmable amp/effects modelers and or recording/editing audio/MIDI workstations start being *nix/OSS based. (I'm aware of Apples' strong following among studio recording engineers.)
I'm not aware of any, but since a lot of innovation in this field occurs at smaller enterprises, I might have missed it.
furthermore, exclude electronics hobbyists from making their home-built hardware compatible with Windows.
I'm a musician and electronics tinkerer, and I'm wondering how this will impact playing with DSP/MIDI homebrew hardware/software, as well as the choice in vendors for commercial digital music processing/creation/control hardware and software.
There are many smallish "boutique" makers of musical electronics and software, which creates a rich palette from which musicians can choose.
I'm hoping driver signing requirements and fees don't kill the practical ability for small specialty musical hardware/software shops and hobbyists to exist and function as they do currently.
And what if an independent artist wanted to put their music on iTMS but didn't want any DRM. I wonder if Apple would go along with that or would Apple insist on DRM. Has anybody tried this? I'd be interested to know what Apple said. This would tell once and for all Apple's stance on the DRM issue.
I'm an artist, and have been doing a bit of looking around at possibly having some of my bands' material sold on iTunes through CDBaby http://cdbaby.net/ and to my knowledge, all iTunes content has DRM including independent artists' content.
Which is one of the biggest reasons why "looking at it" is as far as we've gotten.
That's assuming that the next-gen desktops will be PCs and not just thin clients connecting to an ISP's terminal server. Depends what you want to do with your machine really. I wouldn't fancy trying to play full-screen Doom or whatever but on Citrix or X you can (given the bandwidth) do stuff like editing Word documents and browsing the internet at a pretty decent speed.
I agree. I think that the direction that the content and large software vendors want to go is first to "Trusted Computing" and then to a nearly full server/thin-client model, where all operating system and application software resides and largely functions elsewhere.
Availability of powerful general-purpose computers to ordinary people, coupled with the ability of these same people to network and communicate with high-bandwidth capabilities has the ability to empower individuals to compete on a more level playing field against industries and politicians in both commercial areas as well as the arena of ideas.
This is very dangerous to those who wish to control markets, ideas, and people. In 20 years, all one might see about the days when individuals could create and distribute their own content/software might be "Unavailable-To Obtain A Trusted Computing Authorization To View Restricted Historical Data, Please Contact D.H.S."
The last part of the linked article facinates me...the part about the opposition website servers being attacked. That story sounds like it could be much more interesting than TFA, IMHO.
Nothing travels faster than the speed of light - I believe Police have radios these days (and more than 1 car).
Which brings up something I'm surprised I've heard no criminal(s) attempt: R.F. jamming. With a nice powerful broadband R.F. power amp and R.F. white-noise generator, any pursuing police would have to back off, maybe to a point over the horizon from the jammer/target vehicle before radio communication would be possible, leveling the playing field quite a bit for the criminals vs. the authorities.
If one were clever, jammers could even be strategically pre-placed along the anticipated get-away route, and/or near repeater towers for police/cellphone services in smaller towns.
Of course, this assumes pre-planning and technical skills of the sort that's rare among most criminals.
Haven't you ever heard of iptables and port knocking for friends with dynamic IPs? --reject-with tcp-reset is your friend
Clearly a solution for the unwashed masses. We can't seem to get people from double clicking every email attachment, I'm sure their ready to setup, configure and tweak their own IPTables.
Well, there are a couple tools out there that make building/installing a *nix firewall a bit easier/friendlier than editing tables of rules, like "fwbuilder" http://www.fwbuilder.org/.
Admittedly, few of the "unwashed masses" will be running a *nix box, but still, setting up a workstation firewall for *nix *is* getting easier.
If Ubi is sticking with Starforce for these releases, I'm giving up on Ubi games. I'd like to keep my CD/DVD burner intact, thankyou. (Referring to the recent/. article about Starforce disabling/damaging CD/DVD burners here:http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/3 1/1721241)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Peace activist Cindy Sheehan was arrested Tuesday in the House gallery after refusing to cover up a T-shirt bearing an anti-war slogan before President Bush's State of the Union address.
Q. Since when is expressing a political opinion a crime in the United States? A.Since King George took over the White House.
Ummm...no.
Cindy got herself in the hoosegow for attempting to disrupt the speech by throwing a banner and screaming, and refusing to stop when ordered to by the Congressional (note: not the police, not the Secret Service) security/police force internal to and responsible to Congress, not to the President.
Cindy opened her jacket and displayed the propaganda T-shirt well before the banner-tossing and screaming, with no action taken until she escalated to outright disruption. The T-shirt was in extremely bad taste at such an event, but did not cause her to be arrested.
But I suppose facts tend to take all the steam from a good hysterical partisan attack.
There are plenty enough reasons to legitimately critisize.
FUD with no factual basis only weakens you and your causes' or parties' credibility.
I have to add Crimson Skies to the list. It's a fantastic game that was sadly overlooked by many. Good graphics, fun arcade style flying, interesting back story and excellent voice acting.
Ah, flightsims! Personally, the one flightsim I keep reinstalling every windows upgrade/(re)install has been European Air War.
I know, Combat Flight Simulator and other very good and technically better, newer flightsims are out there, but EAW has a unique charm and many user add-ons, mods, tools, etc are still around.
Also in the sim category is the Mechwarrior series. I have the full MW3/MW4/Mercs+all expansion packs.
Great game, lots of user mods, etc. Used to love ruining Heavy/Assault-class jockeys' days in a custom Uller in online play:-P.
Haven't been too tempted to go out and buy any more games for a good while (4 yrs?) due to both disgust at some of the behaviours of game companies, as well as the newer games requiring I go out and drop a good chunk of cash on new hardware when what I have works just fine, thank you.
Nevermind increasingly restrictive DRM/online activation and EULA nonsense.
Adding to all that is needing to keep a windows partition and install on my machine (multibooting XP Pro/FreeBSD 6.0/OpenSolaris/linux) in the first place.
Emulators and VMs generally require more RAM than I have (256 mb) to achieve any real usefulness, especially with framerates, etc in accelerated games.
That's if the game will run at all in an emulator/VM.
Ah well. I'll play the games I have on the hardware I have until I'm forced to upgrade hardware by other more powerful reasons. Not playing "Nadda III" by itself just doesn't seem to sadden me enough to part with that much cash or control over my computer.
Actually, we're clean on Ghost too, AFAIK. They're using 8 and 9 IIRC, so the license you read doesn't necessarily apply. I haven't read the license, but like I mentioned, the Procurement guy does so far as I can tell. I'm sure they'd have bought a site license if that was necessary. I don't know the exact terms, but as careful as they are about everything else, I sincerely doubt that something on that order could have slipped through the cracks.
Assuming it will do what's needed, if your shop hasn't yet taken advantage of any OSS software, this might be a good candidate to get the camels' nose under the tent.
"And beyond that it's probably safer to use something like OpenBSD instead of XP."
I mean, seriously, just who is your post directed too? I can tell my clients: Use Firefox instead of IE, I sometimes tell them use OSX instead of XP. I even see situations where I might suggest Linux over XP or OSX.
But for the life of me, I don't ever ever see a situation where I go: " Yeah!, use BSD - it's a viable alternative to XP or OSX".
You should take a look at the current FreeBSD. I've found it to be quite practical as a home or office desktop with KDE or Gnome. The excellent remote-administration capabilties make it a good choice for multiple-workstation environments.
There are also some beginner-oriented FreeBSD-based distributions that make installing and setting up a FreeBSD desktop system an almost Mandriva-like experience, and quite a bit easier (IMHO) than installing and setting up any windows version I've tried. A couple that come to mind are PC-BSD http://www.pcbsd.org/ and DesktopBSD http://www.desktopbsd.net/
PC-BSD has, in addition to the excellent BSD "ports" system for software management, a custom software-package system that makes installing things like Java and Flash a click-click-click-done nearly windows-like experience.
"Can you use QtParted to multicast a system image to 5000 machines? To 1 machine? Nope. Then it's not a replacement at all, is it?"
Speaking of a replacement for Norton Ghost, I found this http://freshmeat.net/projects/g4l/ called "Ghost for Linux", which looks interesting.
Not sure why they call it "..For Linux", as it seems it simply uses a bootable linux CD image, rather than running inside a linux OS install.
Haven't tried it yet, has anyone had any experiences with it? It looks like it has the ability to do network imaging to multiple machines, so it might be worth checking out.
Or just go to http://www.shoutcast.com/ The only reason I'd own a portable MP3 player is to stream a few hours a day from shoutcast to a file, and then dump that on the mp3 player. While I like my own collection, I would just get bored with it on the bike after awhile anyway.
Speaking of streaming radio, I really love "Streamtuner" http://www.nongnu.org/streamtuner/
It's a very nifty internet radio stream browser for *nix platforms like linux and FreeBSD (there doesn't appear to be any windows ports that I'm aware of). Makes it very easy to find what you'd like to hear.
Has anyone ever tried to apply complexity measures to portions of the law?
Yes, every politician in government.
Only, they use it as a minimum requirement, as in "laws must be sufficiently broad vague and complex such that understanding the laws sufficiently to avoid violations and/or defend against being prosecuted or sued into ruin nears impossibility for individual citizens".
When the laws of the land are so convoluted, complex, and nonsensical that anyone may be considered a criminal, then everyone can be treated as if they have no more rights than the worst criminal.
I fear that much of Western civilisation is already well on its' way down this path.
Anybody remember 95/98? I remember that I could never keep it running more then a day or two. I remember that having to kill mIRC would often take Windows down with it (WTF???). I remember running out of "system resources" long before I ran out of RAM (what good is RAM if there are artificial limits on "resources"?).
I'm not a MS fanboy, I use mostly FreeBSD and linux (writing this from FBSD 6.0). However, I still have a MS Windows 98SE install on one partition on one of the HDDs on this box that has run without major problems, BSODs, or a reinstall for about 2 years.
I use it for those occasions where I need compatibility to open an Office.doc (that doesn't render correctly in OO) or similar situations and for some of my old games that I'm loathe to give up, like European Air War and the MechWarrior 3/4 series.
I'm not at all disputing that 2000/XP is much improved over 95/98/98ME/98SE, or your other points. However, I do feel that 98SE is/was much improved stability-wise over 95/98/98ME and has been painted unfairly at times with the 95/98/98ME instability paintbrush.
"Sorry for the delay in my response. I've been out of town and away from a computer."
No problem, I've been in the same position...ah, the life of a poor blues musician.:-P
To your points, please don't misunderstand. I am NOT about corporation-bashing. I've started one myself. I don't think by any means shutting down a corporation and putting people out of work is a good thing.
That being said, I do think that we need much better-written laws along the lines of Sarbane-Oxley. The shareholders (unless they are the corporate officers responsible for illegal/unethical behaviour) should not be held responsible as in your Coca-Cola example.
Corporate officers, CEOs, CFOs, etc, responsible for decision making should not be able to use the corporation to shield themselves from prosecution, however.
As far as the McCain-Feingold Act and the 527s, as you say, both political sides are in a bit of a mutually assured destruction scenario there, so I think this places grassroots type advocates without clear party leanings and/or with positions unpopular in both major parties at a disadvantage. so, yes, we are both talking apples, and mostly agree here as well.
Again, I'm sorry if I came off as an outraged anti-corporatist. I most assuredly am not. My outrage is at the suffering of individuals caused by *some* corporations' amoral behaviour, along with the politicos with their hands out who are more than willing to turn a blind eye to these problems.
It seems we are in agreement on most of the major points, and my apologies for not quoting your post as I should, but I've just returned off the road from a performance and I'm about to go hit the rack for a day or so.:)
Thanks for taking the time to reply, and I appreciate the intelligence and civility of your post. I look forward to future discussions with you here on slashdot, and will make sure I note your future posts on other topics.
Roman, I think he's referring to infringement notices filed against people who had downloaded or possessed files with names identical or similar to popular movie and music titles for which the RIAA/MPAA are on the lookout for. This has already happened, though I don't have a link handy to the slashdot article where this was discussed. - that much was clear to me and my answer doesn't change: I don't download anything from any networks that are used to illegally distributed copyrighted materials, so it doesn't matter to me.
Either english is your second language, or you are purposely misunderstanding to prevent being refuted..you wouldn't have to download anything, have any protected material in your possesion, or have any P2P/filesharing app installed or running.
If you wish to continue being able to watch DVDs on your computer, let's hope others that have an interest in preventing you watching DVDs on your computer aren't able to influence lawmakers who share your blind self-interest. - as far as I understand I am not prevented from watching DVDs that I buy.
Again, you've failed to read the phrase above: "continue being able to" and throw up a strawman argument by attempting to redefine what was said.
if you think the music industries' actions are reasonable, let me make you a reasonable proposal: I'm a musician, and I have a CD of my work. I'll give it to you for free. Unlike Sony, I will tell you I'll be installing a rootkit on your computer. - free cheese is found in a mousetrap. I am not interested in anything like that, the same way I am not interested in getting a free computer with ads running on the screen, so the rest of the argument is pointless.
OK...I'll charge the same price you can find the CD on sale for at your favorite source for CDs. Does paying for the privilege of having a rootkit installed change the facts of the discussion? A reasonable person would say it doesn't.
It's apparent and obvious you cannot logically argue my points. You resort to strawman arguments to the point of one reading your statements having to assume you either have no reading and comprehension skills, or are deliberately avoiding and/or altering the argument until you can knock it down.
I have a new phrase for you: "intellectual honesty". Adhering to its' principles will help your arguments to be taken seriously. It's apparent you are in desperate need of learning its' meaning.
Cheers, and good luck with the whole reading and honesty thing.
"Just remember how reasonable you think they are when they come knocking on your door for downloading a study of Mars called "The Red Planet" or a treatise on metamorphisis called "The Butterfly Effect"."
"I guess I didn't make myself clear: I don't download any movies or music from P2P or any other networks. When I want to watch something (on my computer, since I have no TV,) I'll buy it on DVD."
Roman, I think he's referring to infringement notices filed against people who had downloaded or possessed files with names identical or similar to popular movie and music titles for which the RIAA/MPAA are on the lookout for. This has already happened, though I don't have a link handy to the slashdot article where this was discussed.
If you wish to continue being able to watch DVDs on your computer, let's hope others that have an interest in preventing you watching DVDs on your computer aren't able to influence lawmakers who share your blind self-interest.
If you think the music industries' actions are reasonable, let me make you a reasonable proposal: I'm a musician, and I have a CD of my work. I'll give it to you for free. Unlike Sony, I will tell you I'll be installing a rootkit on your computer.
Do you trust I'll not take advantage of anything I might learn from all your data and communications, or not turn your computer to perform unethical or illegal tasks? Are you ok with having an open door for any script-kiddie or other more evil-intentioned person to do the same?
If not, why should we be ok with the same deal? Minus of course, the notice I gave, and oh yeah..Sony would have you pay for the priveledge of being "0wn3d".
Failure to grasp larger, longer-term implications of short-sighted self-interest is self-defeating to an individual or buisiness, and harmful to society as a whole.
"Finally, no, being illegal is not the only thing stopping me from doing something unethical, but we obviously have different definitions of "unethical".
Clearly.
It is your decision to be a performing artist.
It is their decision to be recording artists.
If they choose to participate in a system that distributes music in ways that you do not feel you can ethically support, then you're free to opt out and not buy their music.
But if you're not going to buy their music from them, or through the distribution channels that they have chosen to participate in, then the only ethical option I see is to do without that music.
If you buy their music from the Russian Mafia instead of the RIAA Mafia, all you're doing is supporting a different corrupt system. It seems to me more honest to simply pirate the tracks in defiance of the law.
Just because I don't feed the music cartels and reward the artists that are stupid or greedy enough to sign with them doesn't make me unethical, but perhaps you supporting the corrupt system might take your ethics-meter down a few pegs.
The vast majority of my music collection are tracks by unsigned artists and legal recordings of public performances, many purchased directly from the performers at performances. Where my options are to buy label music or do without, I occasionally choose the labels. But I don't pretend that there's a third option."
I look at allofmp3.com as simply the world market at work. Markets are much like the internet in that they tend to route around damage, and a cartel like the music industry I consider damage, and the result is sources outside the control of the cartel supplying the demand at costs more in line with perceived value.
The cartels could stop anyone wanting to go to allofmp3.com next week, if they would only leverage the internet and offer the same service and file type/bitrate options, even at a higher price point.
It's not the price that holds any attraction to me, and I'd bet the same is true for many others. It's the ability to specify the file type and bitrate, along with the lack of DRM that is the draw.
The music cartel and U.S. copyright does not apply worldwide, so building a buisiness model around those controls being universal is a mistake.
I feel no remorse at all about using allofmp3.com (note: I have never actually purchased from allofmp3.com..but I would).
If the cartels and artists are determined to shoot themselves in the foot by denying reality, they are free to do so. I'm free to seek out reasonable alternatives if I wish.
I haven't purchased a CD in at least 10 years. All of my music is my own, or freely given to me by fellow artists, or public domain. I've never used P2P or bittorrent, other than for linux/FreeBSD.iso's and OSS software. I have no content I'm not entitled to under law.
I simply feel that things like allofmp3.com are a direct result and totally the responsibility of the music cartels and artists.
"As far as I can tell, there are no laws against buying from allofmp3
If that's your only concern, if the only thing that stops you from doing something unethical is "it's illegal", then frankly I don't see much difference between you and the labels. Neither of you has a moral compass to speak of, your only concern is your own self-interest.
Artists might only get a fraction of the cover price of a CD through the major labels, but they don't get anything from allofmp3.com. There's no ethical difference between downloading commercial music from allofmp3 and downloading it illegally via a P2P network. If you don't want your money to go to the labels, then buy different music, or buy directly from the artist. If you don't know how, just type "audioblog" into Google's search box and follow the links."
First, I *am* an artist, and give away recordings. I make money from music the old way..I perform.
Second, I don't care if other artists are foolish enough to base their income on selling the same performance over and over using an antiquated and corrupt media distribution system. If they choose the "dark side" they also choose the problems that come with it.
Third, if more people refused to keep feeding the music cartels, and the artisits find they can't make a living through the cartels, maybe things will change.
Finally, no, being illegal is not the only thing stopping me from doing something unethical, but we obviously have different definitions of "unethical".
Just because I don't feed the music cartels and reward the artists that are stupid or greedy enough to sign with them doesn't make me unethical, but perhaps you supporting the corrupt system might take your ethics-meter down a few pegs.
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed I do win.
They still sell those old albums, you know. So giving up RIAA artists means giving up 40 years of great music.
Yes, they do still sell them...right down the street at the local music shops' used bin. No need to give up listening to great artists, nor give the RIAA more money.
I'll also postulate another semi-controversial solution, allofmp3.com.
Before I get flamed, I'm a musician myself with a CD for sale, and I have no worries about places like mp3.com even if we were fortunate enough to become widely popular.
A large enough percentage of people will always like and appreciate your work and talent enough to want to support you through ticket/merch and CD (with liner notes, photos, etc.) sales if you're that talented and popular, regardless if they can get the tracks themselves free, to make attempting to police the rest non-productive overall at best, and harmful at extremes.
Just $0.02 from someone in the trenches...
Strat
Well, go th(e) other way and just grant every single patent. Let everyone have them. Let them clash!!!
Maybe they already are?
Not as a specific policy to this end maybe, but due to the conditions and pressures resulting from the whole patent environment possibly?
There are reactions to every action, and this might be part of a natural counter trend to the morphing of the patent landscape, given the current political/bureaucratic conditions in the patent office and the government.
Just a random thought..
Strat
They revere it almost to the point of fetishism.
:D
Tubegirl?
Thanks, now that beautiful vintage brown grillcloth on my old tube guitar amp will make my stomach turn every time I look at it from now on.
Strat
Such a rule would effectively eliminate the collectable marketplace and probably result in the loss of many of the early products of companies which later became leaders in their fields.
/. posting. :-P
Even more than that, it would seriously cripple trade in items you wouldn't think about.
Vintage audio/amateur radio equipment. Audiophiles all over Japan will be screaming, as well as the amateur radio crowd. Many currently-operating amateur stations are either partially or wholly made up of vintage to moderately (10-15-20 yrs?) old equipment, which not only does the job admirably still, but also sounds to most ears "warmer" with more "punch" to be heard under high interference/weak-signal conditions than current solid state gear. (Totally subjective opinion here, but backed by mine and others' decades of experience searching the static for the weak signal of that rare contact.)
Vintage musical equipment, like vintage Fender and Marshall amplifiers among many others,that are highly valued and heavily traded among working/pro musicians as well as recording studios and collectors.
Average price in U.S. for a Blackface 1968 Fender Super Reverb in good to great condition is around $1800-$2200, in Japan I'm sure they are even more rare/expensive, so that's a lot for musicians/studios to lose, both monetarily and musically.
I suppose I've dated myself enough for one
Strat
Microsoft may be shooting itself in the foot with homebrewers, sending them to GNU/Linux or *BSD or the like.
Yes, it's alreay happened with me. I'm encouraged by the number and quality of OSS music-related applications I'm seeing for *nix platforms.
Development seems to be moving at a rapid pace, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if some OSS/*nix apps start to overtake some of the "traditional" professional-level studio tools.
Having source code and API parameters available makes it more appealing for a hobbyist/small shop already IMHO, and adding further costs and impediments to the little guy will only increase that appeal.
I'm waiting to see some commercial music equipment like programmable amp/effects modelers and or recording/editing audio/MIDI workstations start being *nix/OSS based. (I'm aware of Apples' strong following among studio recording engineers.)
I'm not aware of any, but since a lot of innovation in this field occurs at smaller enterprises, I might have missed it.
Strat
furthermore, exclude electronics hobbyists from making their home-built hardware compatible with Windows.
I'm a musician and electronics tinkerer, and I'm wondering how this will impact playing with DSP/MIDI homebrew hardware/software, as well as the choice in vendors for commercial digital music processing/creation/control hardware and software.
There are many smallish "boutique" makers of musical electronics and software, which creates a rich palette from which musicians can choose.
I'm hoping driver signing requirements and fees don't kill the practical ability for small specialty musical hardware/software shops and hobbyists to exist and function as they do currently.
Strat
And what if an independent artist wanted to put their music on iTMS but didn't want any DRM. I wonder if Apple would go along with that or would Apple insist on DRM. Has anybody tried this? I'd be interested to know what Apple said. This would tell once and for all Apple's stance on the DRM issue.
I'm an artist, and have been doing a bit of looking around at possibly having some of my bands' material sold on iTunes through CDBaby http://cdbaby.net/ and to my knowledge, all iTunes content has DRM including independent artists' content.
Which is one of the biggest reasons why "looking at it" is as far as we've gotten.
Strat
That's assuming that the next-gen desktops will be PCs and not just thin clients connecting to an ISP's terminal server. Depends what you want to do with your machine really. I wouldn't fancy trying to play full-screen Doom or whatever but on Citrix or X you can (given the bandwidth) do stuff like editing Word documents and browsing the internet at a pretty decent speed.
I agree. I think that the direction that the content and large software vendors want to go is first to "Trusted Computing" and then to a nearly full server/thin-client model, where all operating system and application software resides and largely functions elsewhere.
Availability of powerful general-purpose computers to ordinary people, coupled with the ability of these same people to network and communicate with high-bandwidth capabilities has the ability to empower individuals to compete on a more level playing field against industries and politicians in both commercial areas as well as the arena of ideas.
This is very dangerous to those who wish to control markets, ideas, and people. In 20 years, all one might see about the days when individuals could create and distribute their own content/software might be "Unavailable-To Obtain A Trusted Computing Authorization To View Restricted Historical Data, Please Contact D.H.S."
Strat
The last part of the linked article facinates me...the part about the opposition website servers being attacked. That story sounds like it could be much more interesting than TFA, IMHO.
Strat
Can you lay a spike strip from behind a car?
Nothing travels faster than the speed of light - I believe Police have radios these days (and more than 1 car).
Which brings up something I'm surprised I've heard no criminal(s) attempt: R.F. jamming. With a nice powerful broadband R.F. power amp and R.F. white-noise generator, any pursuing police would have to back off, maybe to a point over the horizon from the jammer/target vehicle before radio communication would be possible, leveling the playing field quite a bit for the criminals vs. the authorities.
If one were clever, jammers could even be strategically pre-placed along the anticipated get-away route, and/or near repeater towers for police/cellphone services in smaller towns.
Of course, this assumes pre-planning and technical skills of the sort that's rare among most criminals.
Strat
Haven't you ever heard of iptables and port knocking for friends with dynamic IPs? --reject-with tcp-reset is your friend
= All&showonly=Firewall&sort=&sm=1
Clearly a solution for the unwashed masses. We can't seem to get people from double clicking every email attachment, I'm sure their ready to setup, configure and tweak their own IPTables.
Well, there are a couple tools out there that make building/installing a *nix firewall a bit easier/friendlier than editing tables of rules, like "fwbuilder" http://www.fwbuilder.org/.
Admittedly, few of the "unwashed masses" will be running a *nix box, but still, setting up a workstation firewall for *nix *is* getting easier.
There are also a good number of liveCD-type firewall/router distros out there that require only very modest hardware, no hardrive, and a couple NICs to create a quite effective and easily set-up solution. Take a look here http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php?pick
Strat
If Ubi is sticking with Starforce for these releases, I'm giving up on Ubi games. I'd like to keep my CD/DVD burner intact, thankyou. /. article about Starforce disabling/damaging CD/DVD burners here:http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/3 1/1721241)
(Referring to the recent
Got this off CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Peace activist Cindy Sheehan was arrested Tuesday in the House gallery after refusing to cover up a T-shirt bearing an anti-war slogan before President Bush's State of the Union address.
Q. Since when is expressing a political opinion a crime in the United States?
A.Since King George took over the White House.
Ummm...no.
Cindy got herself in the hoosegow for attempting to disrupt the speech by throwing a banner and screaming, and refusing to stop when ordered to by the Congressional (note: not the police, not the Secret Service) security/police force internal to and responsible to Congress, not to the President.
Cindy opened her jacket and displayed the propaganda T-shirt well before the banner-tossing and screaming, with no action taken until she escalated to outright disruption. The T-shirt was in extremely bad taste at such an event, but did not cause her to be arrested.
But I suppose facts tend to take all the steam from a good hysterical partisan attack.
There are plenty enough reasons to legitimately critisize.
FUD with no factual basis only weakens you and your causes' or parties' credibility.
Strat
I have to add Crimson Skies to the list. It's a fantastic game that was sadly overlooked by many. Good graphics, fun arcade style flying, interesting back story and excellent voice acting.
:-P.
Ah, flightsims! Personally, the one flightsim I keep reinstalling every windows upgrade/(re)install has been European Air War.
I know, Combat Flight Simulator and other very good and technically better, newer flightsims are out there, but EAW has a unique charm and many user add-ons, mods, tools, etc are still around.
Also in the sim category is the Mechwarrior series. I have the full MW3/MW4/Mercs+all expansion packs.
Great game, lots of user mods, etc.
Used to love ruining Heavy/Assault-class jockeys' days in a custom Uller in online play
Haven't been too tempted to go out and buy any more games for a good while (4 yrs?) due to both disgust at some of the behaviours of game companies, as well as the newer games requiring I go out and drop a good chunk of cash on new hardware when what I have works just fine, thank you.
Nevermind increasingly restrictive DRM/online activation and EULA nonsense.
Adding to all that is needing to keep a windows partition and install on my machine (multibooting XP Pro/FreeBSD 6.0/OpenSolaris/linux) in the first place.
Emulators and VMs generally require more RAM than I have (256 mb) to achieve any real usefulness, especially with framerates, etc in accelerated games.
That's if the game will run at all in an emulator/VM.
Ah well. I'll play the games I have on the hardware I have until I'm forced to upgrade hardware by other more powerful reasons. Not playing "Nadda III" by itself just doesn't seem to sadden me enough to part with that much cash or control over my computer.
Strat
Actually, we're clean on Ghost too, AFAIK. They're using 8 and 9 IIRC, so the license you read doesn't necessarily apply. I haven't read the license, but like I mentioned, the Procurement guy does so far as I can tell. I'm sure they'd have bought a site license if that was necessary. I don't know the exact terms, but as careful as they are about everything else, I sincerely doubt that something on that order could have slipped through the cracks.
You might check out Ghost for Linux (G4L). http://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l
Assuming it will do what's needed, if your shop hasn't yet taken advantage of any OSS software, this might be a good candidate to get the camels' nose under the tent.
Strat
"And beyond that it's probably safer to use something like OpenBSD instead of XP."
I mean, seriously, just who is your post directed too? I can tell my clients: Use Firefox instead of IE, I sometimes tell them use OSX instead of XP. I even see situations where I might suggest Linux over XP or OSX.
But for the life of me, I don't ever ever see a situation where I go: " Yeah!, use BSD - it's a viable alternative to XP or OSX".
You should take a look at the current FreeBSD. I've found it to be quite practical as a home or office desktop with KDE or Gnome. The excellent remote-administration capabilties make it a good choice for multiple-workstation environments.
There are also some beginner-oriented FreeBSD-based distributions that make installing and setting up a FreeBSD desktop system an almost Mandriva-like experience, and quite a bit easier (IMHO) than installing and setting up any windows version I've tried. A couple that come to mind are PC-BSD http://www.pcbsd.org/ and DesktopBSD http://www.desktopbsd.net/
PC-BSD has, in addition to the excellent BSD "ports" system for software management, a custom software-package system that makes installing things like Java and Flash a click-click-click-done nearly windows-like experience.
Strat
"Can you use QtParted to multicast a system image to 5000 machines? To 1 machine? Nope. Then it's not a replacement at all, is it?"
Speaking of a replacement for Norton Ghost, I found this http://freshmeat.net/projects/g4l/ called "Ghost for Linux", which looks interesting.
Not sure why they call it "..For Linux", as it seems it simply uses a bootable linux CD image, rather than running inside a linux OS install.
Haven't tried it yet, has anyone had any experiences with it? It looks like it has the ability to do network imaging to multiple machines, so it might be worth checking out.
Hope that helps.
Strat
Speaking of streaming radio, I really love "Streamtuner" http://www.nongnu.org/streamtuner/ It's a very nifty internet radio stream browser for *nix platforms like linux and FreeBSD (there doesn't appear to be any windows ports that I'm aware of). Makes it very easy to find what you'd like to hear.
Strat
Has anyone ever tried to apply complexity measures to portions of the law?
Yes, every politician in government.
Only, they use it as a minimum requirement, as in "laws must be sufficiently broad vague and complex such that understanding the laws sufficiently to avoid violations and/or defend against being prosecuted or sued into ruin nears impossibility for individual citizens".
When the laws of the land are so convoluted, complex, and nonsensical that anyone may be considered a criminal, then everyone can be treated as if they have no more rights than the worst criminal.
I fear that much of Western civilisation is already well on its' way down this path.
Strat
Anybody remember 95/98? I remember that I could never keep it running more then a day or two. I remember that having to kill mIRC would often take Windows down with it (WTF???). I remember running out of "system resources" long before I ran out of RAM (what good is RAM if there are artificial limits on "resources"?).
.doc (that doesn't render correctly in OO) or similar situations and for some of my old games that I'm loathe to give up, like European Air War and the MechWarrior 3/4 series.
I'm not a MS fanboy, I use mostly FreeBSD and linux (writing this from FBSD 6.0). However, I still have a MS Windows 98SE install on one partition on one of the HDDs on this box that has run without major problems, BSODs, or a reinstall for about 2 years.
I use it for those occasions where I need compatibility to open an Office
I'm not at all disputing that 2000/XP is much improved over 95/98/98ME/98SE, or your other points. However, I do feel that 98SE is/was much improved stability-wise over 95/98/98ME and has been painted unfairly at times with the 95/98/98ME instability paintbrush.
Cheers!
Strat
"Sorry for the delay in my response. I've been out of town and away from a computer."
:-P
:)
No problem, I've been in the same position...ah, the life of a poor blues musician.
To your points, please don't misunderstand. I am NOT about corporation-bashing. I've started one myself. I don't think by any means shutting down a corporation and putting people out of work is a good thing.
That being said, I do think that we need much better-written laws along the lines of Sarbane-Oxley. The shareholders (unless they are the corporate officers responsible for illegal/unethical behaviour) should not be held responsible as in your Coca-Cola example.
Corporate officers, CEOs, CFOs, etc, responsible for decision making should not be able to use the corporation to shield themselves from prosecution, however.
As far as the McCain-Feingold Act and the 527s, as you say, both political sides are in a bit of a mutually assured destruction scenario there, so I think this places grassroots type advocates without clear party leanings and/or with positions unpopular in both major parties at a disadvantage. so, yes, we are both talking apples, and mostly agree here as well.
Again, I'm sorry if I came off as an outraged anti-corporatist. I most assuredly am not. My outrage is at the suffering of individuals caused by *some* corporations' amoral behaviour, along with the politicos with their hands out who are more than willing to turn a blind eye to these problems.
It seems we are in agreement on most of the major points, and my apologies for not quoting your post as I should, but I've just returned off the road from a performance and I'm about to go hit the rack for a day or so.
Thanks for taking the time to reply, and I appreciate the intelligence and civility of your post. I look forward to future discussions with you here on slashdot, and will make sure I note your future posts on other topics.
Cheers!
Strat
Roman, I think he's referring to infringement notices filed against people who had downloaded or possessed files with names identical or similar to popular movie and music titles for which the RIAA/MPAA are on the lookout for. This has already happened, though I don't have a link handy to the slashdot article where this was discussed. - that much was clear to me and my answer doesn't change: I don't download anything from any networks that are used to illegally distributed copyrighted materials, so it doesn't matter to me.
Either english is your second language, or you are purposely misunderstanding to prevent being refuted..you wouldn't have to download anything, have any protected material in your possesion, or have any P2P/filesharing app installed or running.
If you wish to continue being able to watch DVDs on your computer, let's hope others that have an interest in preventing you watching DVDs on your computer aren't able to influence lawmakers who share your blind self-interest. - as far as I understand I am not prevented from watching DVDs that I buy.
Again, you've failed to read the phrase above: "continue being able to" and throw up a strawman argument by attempting to redefine what was said.
if you think the music industries' actions are reasonable, let me make you a reasonable proposal: I'm a musician, and I have a CD of my work. I'll give it to you for free. Unlike Sony, I will tell you I'll be installing a rootkit on your computer. - free cheese is found in a mousetrap. I am not interested in anything like that, the same way I am not interested in getting a free computer with ads running on the screen, so the rest of the argument is pointless.
OK...I'll charge the same price you can find the CD on sale for at your favorite source for CDs. Does paying for the privilege of having a rootkit installed change the facts of the discussion? A reasonable person would say it doesn't.
It's apparent and obvious you cannot logically argue my points. You resort to strawman arguments to the point of one reading your statements having to assume you either have no reading and comprehension skills, or are deliberately avoiding and/or altering the argument until you can knock it down.
I have a new phrase for you: "intellectual honesty". Adhering to its' principles will help your arguments to be taken seriously. It's apparent you are in desperate need of learning its' meaning.
Cheers, and good luck with the whole reading and honesty thing.
Strat
"Just remember how reasonable you think they are when they come knocking on your door for downloading a study of Mars called "The Red Planet" or a treatise on metamorphisis called "The Butterfly Effect"."
"I guess I didn't make myself clear: I don't download any movies or music from P2P or any other networks. When I want to watch something (on my computer, since I have no TV,) I'll buy it on DVD."
Roman, I think he's referring to infringement notices filed against people who had downloaded or possessed files with names identical or similar to popular movie and music titles for which the RIAA/MPAA are on the lookout for. This has already happened, though I don't have a link handy to the slashdot article where this was discussed.
If you wish to continue being able to watch DVDs on your computer, let's hope others that have an interest in preventing you watching DVDs on your computer aren't able to influence lawmakers who share your blind self-interest.
If you think the music industries' actions are reasonable, let me make you a reasonable proposal: I'm a musician, and I have a CD of my work. I'll give it to you for free. Unlike Sony, I will tell you I'll be installing a rootkit on your computer.
Do you trust I'll not take advantage of anything I might learn from all your data and communications, or not turn your computer to perform unethical or illegal tasks? Are you ok with having an open door for any script-kiddie or other more evil-intentioned person to do the same?
If not, why should we be ok with the same deal? Minus of course, the notice I gave, and oh yeah..Sony would have you pay for the priveledge of being "0wn3d".
Failure to grasp larger, longer-term implications of short-sighted self-interest is self-defeating to an individual or buisiness, and harmful to society as a whole.
Strat
"Finally, no, being illegal is not the only thing stopping me from doing something unethical, but we obviously have different definitions of "unethical".
.iso's and OSS software. I have no content I'm not entitled to under law.
Clearly.
It is your decision to be a performing artist.
It is their decision to be recording artists.
If they choose to participate in a system that distributes music in ways that you do not feel you can ethically support, then you're free to opt out and not buy their music.
But if you're not going to buy their music from them, or through the distribution channels that they have chosen to participate in, then the only ethical option I see is to do without that music.
If you buy their music from the Russian Mafia instead of the RIAA Mafia, all you're doing is supporting a different corrupt system. It seems to me more honest to simply pirate the tracks in defiance of the law.
Just because I don't feed the music cartels and reward the artists that are stupid or greedy enough to sign with them doesn't make me unethical, but perhaps you supporting the corrupt system might take your ethics-meter down a few pegs.
The vast majority of my music collection are tracks by unsigned artists and legal recordings of public performances, many purchased directly from the performers at performances. Where my options are to buy label music or do without, I occasionally choose the labels. But I don't pretend that there's a third option."
I look at allofmp3.com as simply the world market at work. Markets are much like the internet in that they tend to route around damage, and a cartel like the music industry I consider damage, and the result is sources outside the control of the cartel supplying the demand at costs more in line with perceived value.
The cartels could stop anyone wanting to go to allofmp3.com next week, if they would only leverage the internet and offer the same service and file type/bitrate options, even at a higher price point.
It's not the price that holds any attraction to me, and I'd bet the same is true for many others. It's the ability to specify the file type and bitrate, along with the lack of DRM that is the draw.
The music cartel and U.S. copyright does not apply worldwide, so building a buisiness model around those controls being universal is a mistake.
I feel no remorse at all about using allofmp3.com (note: I have never actually purchased from allofmp3.com..but I would).
If the cartels and artists are determined to shoot themselves in the foot by denying reality, they are free to do so. I'm free to seek out reasonable alternatives if I wish.
I haven't purchased a CD in at least 10 years. All of my music is my own, or freely given to me by fellow artists, or public domain. I've never used P2P or bittorrent, other than for linux/FreeBSD
I simply feel that things like allofmp3.com are a direct result and totally the responsibility of the music cartels and artists.
Strat
"As far as I can tell, there are no laws against buying from allofmp3
If that's your only concern, if the only thing that stops you from doing something unethical is "it's illegal", then frankly I don't see much difference between you and the labels. Neither of you has a moral compass to speak of, your only concern is your own self-interest.
Artists might only get a fraction of the cover price of a CD through the major labels, but they don't get anything from allofmp3.com. There's no ethical difference between downloading commercial music from allofmp3 and downloading it illegally via a P2P network. If you don't want your money to go to the labels, then buy different music, or buy directly from the artist. If you don't know how, just type "audioblog" into Google's search box and follow the links."
First, I *am* an artist, and give away recordings. I make money from music the old way..I perform.
Second, I don't care if other artists are foolish enough to base their income on selling the same performance over and over using an antiquated and corrupt media distribution system. If they choose the "dark side" they also choose the problems that come with it.
Third, if more people refused to keep feeding the music cartels, and the artisits find they can't make a living through the cartels, maybe things will change.
Finally, no, being illegal is not the only thing stopping me from doing something unethical, but we obviously have different definitions of "unethical".
Just because I don't feed the music cartels and reward the artists that are stupid or greedy enough to sign with them doesn't make me unethical, but perhaps you supporting the corrupt system might take your ethics-meter down a few pegs.
Strat