Any person commiting a crime must not be tolerated and the law should apply completely on them
So if $evil_company makes a law that means it is illegal to breathe without paying them for the air, should everyone on the planet be punished? No!
Sometimes it is the law that is wrong, not the offender. That's why laws are changed all the time. The RIAA has found a loophole in the law which allows them to get away with price-fixing, so it's the law that needs to be fixed. Soon.
Hotmail is synonymous with Web Mail for a lot of people. Some people won't use GMail because it's new and different, and they are scared to try it in case they find it difficult.
It's the same reasons why people don't get broadband: "2 Gig? I'll never use it. I only send one or two pictures once in a while. It's good enough for me."
There will be plenty of people that are tired XP and its constant security problems by now. They will upgrade the day Vista is out, thinking it will be the solution to all their problems. The advertising for Vista will be *very good*. You can bet on that.
Microsoft will make sure that people using XP will not be able to easily communicate with the new applications on Vista. Companies will be scared of having some computers running XP and newer ones running Vista. Companies loving standardising things.
People will upgrade before too long. If not voluntarily, they will be forced to.
The only thing Microsoft need to do to almost guarantee success is to get the thing released soon before Mac + Linux start getting too popular!
The thing is, though, that if you didn't buy it, odds are that most of the people in your social circle won't either; in pure economic terms, the advertising is worthless.
So your view of the world consists of two communities of people (illegal downloaders and purchasers) that never talk to each other at all? This is a huge and incorrect simplification. The real world doesn't resemble this simplified model at all. I have both friends that download illegally and friends that would never ever dream of doing that. I don't think that I am a special case.
Not only is downloading an FU to the cartel and its business model, but many do it for that explicit purpose.
These people are likely just very selfish people. By trying to damage the RIAA, they are actually helping them instead (although not as much as if they bought the songs as well as downloading them). Switching to listening to Free music would hurt the RIAA a lot more than downloading their songs illegally.
For a comparison, think of Microsoft and how piracy has helped them to get a monopoly even when their products are too expensive for many people to be able to afford.
When you download, you deprive the artist of revenue and give nothing in return.
If you tell your friends about the song, you are giving them free advertising. Advertising is valuable. Also you are helping them to sustain their cartel, which is vital for their business model. It might not be the same as a $20 cheque, but it's still a lot more than 'nothing'.
Actually you really are doing them a big favour by listening to their music for free rather than promoting a competing organisation's free music.
This law will encourage innovation, or perhaps more importantly, adoption of anonymous filesharing with strong encryption, both in Germany and worldwide.
The point is that the OS might THINK that a defrag is in order (OS assumes head movement latency is always an issue)
No... users think that fragmentation is the problem, but really it's their choice of file system that is the problem. Use a modern file system. Most modern operating systems have this already.
boot off the Windows installation CD into the recovery console (that's what it's for) and type "fixmbr"
If you are arguing about which boot disk requires the user to type the shortest obscure command at the console to fix the error made from a failed installation attempt, you have already lost the interest of the average person.
It should work correctly first time (or at least the user shouldn't need to worry about the error if it can be easily fixed automatically).
In order to run arbitrary code, two things are needed: - The Xbox needs to boot from DVD recordable discs. (this news means that's been done) - The encryption that checks whether or not the executable code is "signed" needs to be overcome. (yet to be done)
On the Xbox the security system was broken by taking advantage of buffer overflows and similar errors in the save/load game functions and font renderers, etc. This can be done using an unmodified DVD with a correct signature.
I bet something similar will be found in an Xbox 360 game before too long, unless Microsoft have found some way to make this sort of error much less likely.
The problem is that Google is charging advertisers for adverts which were not seen (by humans).
I can understand that the advertiser feels cheated if Google charges advertisers for 1 million clicks on their adverts, but 999,000 of them were faked by a script and only 1000 times a human end-user clicked the advert.
The problem gets worse when companies are deliberately faking clicks to create huge advertising bills for their competitors, even though their adverts are not being viewed. Similarly angry customers could do this to 'get their own back' on a company that they feel has cheated them.
Google has a problem here and they need to fix it or people won't want to risk using their service to place adverts.
Reminds me of when as a noob, I reported an error in a man page to a project mailing list, hoping somebody close to the project might pick it up and fix it. Nah, the response was: OK, write yourself a new man page.
What project was it? Is it anything we care about?
How about linking to your 'bug report' so that we can see this supposed reply?
That attitude still pervades most OSS projects.
What OSS projects are you referring to? Not all OSS projects are equal. You are generalising.
What evidence do you have of most OSS projects having a bad attitude?
Slashdot Mirror
They are probably embracing Windows faster than ever too.
The Flying Spaghetti Monster just put it there to confuse us.
Abuse of a monopoly is illegal.
What's the point of getting a monopoly if you don't abuse it? The shareholders would sue you if you didn't even try to abuse it.
Any person commiting a crime must not be tolerated and the law should apply completely on them
So if $evil_company makes a law that means it is illegal to breathe without paying them for the air, should everyone on the planet be punished? No!
Sometimes it is the law that is wrong, not the offender. That's why laws are changed all the time. The RIAA has found a loophole in the law which allows them to get away with price-fixing, so it's the law that needs to be fixed. Soon.
if I like the song I have downloaded I will usually buy the album [...] does this mean I am commiting a crime?
It's not a crime. It's perfectly legal to voluntarily give money to an illegal price-fixing cartel, although the morality is obviously questionable.
No new enhancements to GMail either? :(
Hotmail is synonymous with Web Mail for a lot of people. Some people won't use GMail because it's new and different, and they are scared to try it in case they find it difficult.
It's the same reasons why people don't get broadband: "2 Gig? I'll never use it. I only send one or two pictures once in a while. It's good enough for me."
There will be plenty of people that are tired XP and its constant security problems by now. They will upgrade the day Vista is out, thinking it will be the solution to all their problems. The advertising for Vista will be *very good*. You can bet on that.
Microsoft will make sure that people using XP will not be able to easily communicate with the new applications on Vista. Companies will be scared of having some computers running XP and newer ones running Vista. Companies loving standardising things.
People will upgrade before too long. If not voluntarily, they will be forced to.
The only thing Microsoft need to do to almost guarantee success is to get the thing released soon before Mac + Linux start getting too popular!
The thing is, though, that if you didn't buy it, odds are that most of the people in your social circle won't either; in pure economic terms, the advertising is worthless.
So your view of the world consists of two communities of people (illegal downloaders and purchasers) that never talk to each other at all? This is a huge and incorrect simplification. The real world doesn't resemble this simplified model at all. I have both friends that download illegally and friends that would never ever dream of doing that. I don't think that I am a special case.
Not only is downloading an FU to the cartel and its business model, but many do it for that explicit purpose.
These people are likely just very selfish people. By trying to damage the RIAA, they are actually helping them instead (although not as much as if they bought the songs as well as downloading them). Switching to listening to Free music would hurt the RIAA a lot more than downloading their songs illegally.
For a comparison, think of Microsoft and how piracy has helped them to get a monopoly even when their products are too expensive for many people to be able to afford.
there has to be a machine in the network the *AA can connect to and get the infringing content. The person running that server gets sued.
What if someone writes a worm that secretly installs an anonymous P2P client on each infected computer? Would you sue everyone?
Good luck!
There is no such thing as anonymous file sharing.
These guys don't agree.
When you download, you deprive the artist of revenue and give nothing in return.
If you tell your friends about the song, you are giving them free advertising. Advertising is valuable. Also you are helping them to sustain their cartel, which is vital for their business model. It might not be the same as a $20 cheque, but it's still a lot more than 'nothing'.
Actually you really are doing them a big favour by listening to their music for free rather than promoting a competing organisation's free music.
This law will encourage innovation, or perhaps more importantly, adoption of anonymous filesharing with strong encryption, both in Germany and worldwide.
Is that really what the RIAA want?
Mass "causes" gravity by resisting the expansion of space time.
Does that mean that if space time stopped expanding, gravity wouldn't exist any more?
The point is that the OS might THINK that a defrag is in order (OS assumes head movement latency is always an issue)
No... users think that fragmentation is the problem, but really it's their choice of file system that is the problem. Use a modern file system. Most modern operating systems have this already.
boot off the Windows installation CD into the recovery console (that's what it's for) and type "fixmbr"
If you are arguing about which boot disk requires the user to type the shortest obscure command at the console to fix the error made from a failed installation attempt, you have already lost the interest of the average person.
It should work correctly first time (or at least the user shouldn't need to worry about the error if it can be easily fixed automatically).
OK! Thanks for the correction. :)
Overwriting your MBR doesn't lock you out of your computer. Just reinstall from CD and it will be fixed.
...was a breach of Google's AdSense contract?
PS I have an ugly site. Can I have a front page link too? Thanks!
In order to run arbitrary code, two things are needed:
- The Xbox needs to boot from DVD recordable discs. (this news means that's been done)
- The encryption that checks whether or not the executable code is "signed" needs to be overcome. (yet to be done)
On the Xbox the security system was broken by taking advantage of buffer overflows and similar errors in the save/load game functions and font renderers, etc. This can be done using an unmodified DVD with a correct signature.
I bet something similar will be found in an Xbox 360 game before too long, unless Microsoft have found some way to make this sort of error much less likely.
what is to prevent the company from further abusing its other customers?
Because they need customers to make lots of money?
Don't use a bleeding edge home desktop OS if you want a secure multi-user server.
'But how is it fraud?'
The problem is that Google is charging advertisers for adverts which were not seen (by humans).
I can understand that the advertiser feels cheated if Google charges advertisers for 1 million clicks on their adverts, but 999,000 of them were faked by a script and only 1000 times a human end-user clicked the advert.
The problem gets worse when companies are deliberately faking clicks to create huge advertising bills for their competitors, even though their adverts are not being viewed. Similarly angry customers could do this to 'get their own back' on a company that they feel has cheated them.
Google has a problem here and they need to fix it or people won't want to risk using their service to place adverts.
Reminds me of when as a noob, I reported an error in a man page to a project mailing list, hoping somebody close to the project might pick it up and fix it. Nah, the response was: OK, write yourself a new man page.
What project was it? Is it anything we care about?
How about linking to your 'bug report' so that we can see this supposed reply?
That attitude still pervades most OSS projects.
What OSS projects are you referring to? Not all OSS projects are equal. You are generalising.
What evidence do you have of most OSS projects having a bad attitude?
What 'fraud' has been committed, and why can Google sue?
If you mean that websites are breaking copyright laws, that's not Google's problem, until the original copyright owner notifies them.