A 130$ DS would get a 16% tax and 3.5% duty slapped on it, that ends up being 122 Euros according to Google. The remaining 28 Euros are Nintendo's "We don't like your country" tax.
Now tell me why exactly a PS2 or Gamecube game costs 33%-50% more than a PC game that uses the latest graphics tech? Maybe because the price isn't influenced by anything but marketers' expectations of how much people are willing to pay for it?
Not in Europe, if you find a one year old game in stores it's usually still 60 Euros just like the day it was released (unless it's gone Player's Choice but those are few). Meanwhile the PS2 version has dropped to 5-15 Euros (if you can still find it).
Actually it seems to increase their third party support because it makes the games cheaper to develop and thus reduces the risk of not making your money back. Making a high end game with support for a new kind of controller on an unproven platform is a huge risk. Making a medium spec game for that console is a lot less money put on the risk. SNK already announced that they are going to make the Wii their primary platform next gen.
The new controller can work as a selling point just as well as graphics do but it's a lot cheaper to use.
And that my friend is where you're utterly mistaken. Because if it were so, then there would be no value in copyright, no value in honour, no value in accomplishment, no value in education, no value in theoretical sciences, and no value in a billion other non-tangible things which the human race has realized have immense or even immeasureable value to it.
So, if a jerk constantly disrupts class and prevents me from learning, how much can I sue him for?
We're talking about monetary value. Because that's what he's suing for, money. Not good feelings, not fame and not a hug. He wants cash.
The virtual people have not signed any agreement whatsoever with the virtual country, and thus certainly haven't agreed to being executed on a whim and without possibility of defence. And nor have there been any international agreements signed to grant the country such rights.
By default everything is legal. Laws make stuff illegal. If there was no law against executing someone when the govt doesn't like their face that means the govt can execute people because it doesn't like their face. A country is by default not bound by any external laws (and even if it were, unless the country passed a law making international law enforceable by its own authorities it would take another country to invade it if it violated international laws).
If stuff could be illegal without being made so by the law that would be dangerous because anything could be arbitrarily declared illegal then. Like thinking badly of the govt.
Would it be any different if he used Telnet and typed his HTTP requests manually? Because Telnet can clearly be used to break into a computer system if you know of a working exploit. If there was a text entry field that could be exploited to insert arbitrary data into a database or the system RAM and he used a browser to exploit it that'd still be hacking.
Shooting someone is proper use of a gun but that's not legal either.
In this case the auction minimum price wasn't set yet and the land sold WAY below market value so it should be trivial to see that the price wasn't intended by the seller.
Of course, that is going to hinge on the question of, if they had set the item to auctionable in their database, is that an affirmative action?
The seller has only indicated that he is willing to sell it but hasn't set the price yet. To complete the transaction the seller and buyer would have to agree on a price and since the seller didn't say anything about the price yet there was clearly no agreement.
"Do you sell that car?" "Yes, I -" "Here's a dollar, you can keep the change"
Intent would make a difference if an action had an undesired outcome that was illegal. If a crane's arm was repaired bad enough to break during use and crush a person that is severe neglect (may even not be neglect under conditions where an expert would judge your response as correct considering the information available to you) but if it was intentionally manipulated to break and crush a person that is manslaughter or murder. While both will probably land you in jail you'll definitely get a larger punishment for manslaughter or murder (mostly because you consciously made the choice to kill a person).
No an analogy would be you find a page on Amazon not linked form the main page, but accessable none the less that sells you something for cheap.
If cheap would mean "no price entered yet and left at a default of 1$", yes. However, to the courts it doesn't matter whether the field you changed in the browser's request was normally user accessible or not, if you manipulate your request in a way that makes the server respond in a way not intended by the owner and thereby cause financial damage to the owner (or in this case probably some other user) that's computer trespassing.
To the courts there's no difference between exploiting an URL and exploiting a text input that doesn't escape special characters before sending the text to the SQL. And quite frankly I don't see why there needs to be a distinction, it was clear that this was a faulty server behaviour and he agreed that he'd report such behaviour instead of exploiting it. He didn't and therefore lost his account. Any store that finds you stealing will forbid you to ever set foot into their store again, SL doesn't allow you to set foot on their server again.
There's a difference between a EULA and Terms of Service, though. The Terms of Service define under which conditions the service provider will provide his service and no court will argue that a TOS is a shrinkwrap license and illegal (whereas some courts have found that for EULAs). He went against the Terms of Service, ergo Linden Lab ceases to provide said service to him.
Analogy: If I managed to convince Amazon's server that all goods in my shopping basket cost only a cent each and then go through the automated checkout you can be sure Amazon wouldn't ship me the stuff (unless manual surveillance takes too long to catch it). Furthermore, because I manipulated the server into doing something it wasn't intended to do I have committed computer trespassing. If the goods had already been sent out I'd be required to return them because I defrauded Amazon. I don't see how this is different.
I seem to recall a precedent where manipulating an URL was considered hacking by the courts. I think it had something to do with students getting report cards electronically and altering the URL to view the cards of other students.
You can make a computer do many things but if it's not your computer that can end with computer trespassing charges. In this case attempting to cause the computer to accept a transaction the computer's owner would not agree to is hacking. He found a flaw in the system and instead of merely reporting it he exploited it for personal gain. Usually people go to jail for that.
Yes but you don't run into ads in Pokemon, the game can be taken by itself without losing anything. Ingame ads would be if you got Coca-Cola (TM) in order to heal your Pokemon or have a Nokia brand cellphone. When they change the game to accomodate advertising. What they've done with Pokemon is selling a lot of merchandise and making a TV show and even movies. You could consider the series an ad for the game though it didn't seem very ad-centric from the few bits I saw. The Wizard, Super Mario Bros Super Show, they just try to sell you the game, the games themselves aren't changed.
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I can get a DS shipped for less than that from freaking Hong Kong using UPS. In fact I paid 33$ for that.
A 130$ DS would get a 16% tax and 3.5% duty slapped on it, that ends up being 122 Euros according to Google. The remaining 28 Euros are Nintendo's "We don't like your country" tax.
Now tell me why exactly a PS2 or Gamecube game costs 33%-50% more than a PC game that uses the latest graphics tech? Maybe because the price isn't influenced by anything but marketers' expectations of how much people are willing to pay for it?
Not in Europe, if you find a one year old game in stores it's usually still 60 Euros just like the day it was released (unless it's gone Player's Choice but those are few). Meanwhile the PS2 version has dropped to 5-15 Euros (if you can still find it).
Are you nuts? A GAME? On a MAC? People buy Macs to get away from gaming!
I'm willing to bet they are using Windows anyway.
I think that was his point.
They are actually innovating for the Wii version of Madden. That thing must be damn powerful if it can make EA do that.
They had to leave something for the expansion packs.
Actually it seems to increase their third party support because it makes the games cheaper to develop and thus reduces the risk of not making your money back. Making a high end game with support for a new kind of controller on an unproven platform is a huge risk. Making a medium spec game for that console is a lot less money put on the risk. SNK already announced that they are going to make the Wii their primary platform next gen.
The new controller can work as a selling point just as well as graphics do but it's a lot cheaper to use.
I suppose it also helps with variety. "Aw, man, I'm sick of animating WW2 soldiers, do you have any hentai babes that need animating?"
On a Dvorak layout R and L are directly next to each other.
And that my friend is where you're utterly mistaken. Because if it were so, then there would be no value in copyright, no value in honour, no value in accomplishment, no value in education, no value in theoretical sciences, and no value in a billion other non-tangible things which the human race has realized have immense or even immeasureable value to it.
So, if a jerk constantly disrupts class and prevents me from learning, how much can I sue him for?
We're talking about monetary value. Because that's what he's suing for, money. Not good feelings, not fame and not a hug. He wants cash.
The virtual people have not signed any agreement whatsoever with the virtual country, and thus certainly haven't agreed to being executed on a whim and without possibility of defence. And nor have there been any international agreements signed to grant the country such rights.
By default everything is legal. Laws make stuff illegal. If there was no law against executing someone when the govt doesn't like their face that means the govt can execute people because it doesn't like their face. A country is by default not bound by any external laws (and even if it were, unless the country passed a law making international law enforceable by its own authorities it would take another country to invade it if it violated international laws).
If stuff could be illegal without being made so by the law that would be dangerous because anything could be arbitrarily declared illegal then. Like thinking badly of the govt.
Would it be any different if he used Telnet and typed his HTTP requests manually? Because Telnet can clearly be used to break into a computer system if you know of a working exploit. If there was a text entry field that could be exploited to insert arbitrary data into a database or the system RAM and he used a browser to exploit it that'd still be hacking.
Shooting someone is proper use of a gun but that's not legal either.
Actually the validator should check whether the item the user wishes to bid on has gone up for sale and is publicly listed.
In this case the auction minimum price wasn't set yet and the land sold WAY below market value so it should be trivial to see that the price wasn't intended by the seller.
Of course, that is going to hinge on the question of, if they had set the item to auctionable in their database, is that an affirmative action?
The seller has only indicated that he is willing to sell it but hasn't set the price yet. To complete the transaction the seller and buyer would have to agree on a price and since the seller didn't say anything about the price yet there was clearly no agreement.
"Do you sell that car?"
"Yes, I -"
"Here's a dollar, you can keep the change"
Intent would make a difference if an action had an undesired outcome that was illegal. If a crane's arm was repaired bad enough to break during use and crush a person that is severe neglect (may even not be neglect under conditions where an expert would judge your response as correct considering the information available to you) but if it was intentionally manipulated to break and crush a person that is manslaughter or murder. While both will probably land you in jail you'll definitely get a larger punishment for manslaughter or murder (mostly because you consciously made the choice to kill a person).
No an analogy would be you find a page on Amazon not linked form the main page, but accessable none the less that sells you something for cheap.
If cheap would mean "no price entered yet and left at a default of 1$", yes. However, to the courts it doesn't matter whether the field you changed in the browser's request was normally user accessible or not, if you manipulate your request in a way that makes the server respond in a way not intended by the owner and thereby cause financial damage to the owner (or in this case probably some other user) that's computer trespassing.
To the courts there's no difference between exploiting an URL and exploiting a text input that doesn't escape special characters before sending the text to the SQL. And quite frankly I don't see why there needs to be a distinction, it was clear that this was a faulty server behaviour and he agreed that he'd report such behaviour instead of exploiting it. He didn't and therefore lost his account. Any store that finds you stealing will forbid you to ever set foot into their store again, SL doesn't allow you to set foot on their server again.
There's a difference between a EULA and Terms of Service, though. The Terms of Service define under which conditions the service provider will provide his service and no court will argue that a TOS is a shrinkwrap license and illegal (whereas some courts have found that for EULAs). He went against the Terms of Service, ergo Linden Lab ceases to provide said service to him.
Analogy: If I managed to convince Amazon's server that all goods in my shopping basket cost only a cent each and then go through the automated checkout you can be sure Amazon wouldn't ship me the stuff (unless manual surveillance takes too long to catch it). Furthermore, because I manipulated the server into doing something it wasn't intended to do I have committed computer trespassing. If the goods had already been sent out I'd be required to return them because I defrauded Amazon. I don't see how this is different.
I seem to recall a precedent where manipulating an URL was considered hacking by the courts. I think it had something to do with students getting report cards electronically and altering the URL to view the cards of other students.
You can make a computer do many things but if it's not your computer that can end with computer trespassing charges. In this case attempting to cause the computer to accept a transaction the computer's owner would not agree to is hacking. He found a flaw in the system and instead of merely reporting it he exploited it for personal gain. Usually people go to jail for that.
Yes but you don't run into ads in Pokemon, the game can be taken by itself without losing anything. Ingame ads would be if you got Coca-Cola (TM) in order to heal your Pokemon or have a Nokia brand cellphone. When they change the game to accomodate advertising. What they've done with Pokemon is selling a lot of merchandise and making a TV show and even movies. You could consider the series an ad for the game though it didn't seem very ad-centric from the few bits I saw. The Wizard, Super Mario Bros Super Show, they just try to sell you the game, the games themselves aren't changed.