look guys...ms will cave and remove this if advertisers complain loudly enough. there is a reason why many sites are run out of the marketing department. sites are mostly for marketing and the metrics that marketers can get from users are the primary reasons why they run sites.
it's this simple...if Stalin, Hitler, or Pol Pot had a tool that would allow them to see every book their citizens read, every item their citizens bought, or everything that was done, they would have retained absolute power over their populaces.
this is what marketers are attempting to do. create a dominance over you that television, newspaper, or any other medium has never been able to do before.
i wouldn't have anyone over to my house who may steal from me in the first place. if you can't trust your friends not to steal from you, then maybe it's time for new friends.
secondly..i have a moderately sized home (3000 sq ft) and i wouldn't dream of having 60 people over unless it was an emergency.
I think that's a legimate argument. It similar to the one that I've made for years regarding what I considered the trumped up stats the RIAA and MPAA and software companies toss out to say "this is how much piracy is hurting us"
I think in many cases, if something were not available in some free format, as many as 60% of end-users of a media would never own it. But that's just me speculating.
Okay...let's look at this. Yesterday in my office, we had a conversation about a quaint method of distributin media that I had forgotten about....the public library.
The idea that a popular piece of media, in this case a book, has more than 300 readers or people on a waiting list to read a book indicates to me 300 lost sales for the book publisher. However, this notion of media distribution has long been supported by federal laws.
So we as a community need to ask, do the makes of music, movies, other media, work more than authors? Why are their works more protected than a lowly book that gets passed around like a drunken cheerleader with the publisher's blessing? There is only one answer that can satify this...greed.
Is this greed that has enveloped the movie and music industries likely to destroy this nation's information distribution system? Is the library a leak in the profit margins for book manufacturers? Do humans have an obligation to share information without profit for the continued growth of knowledge?
I think this was the original thinking behind the Open Source movement. People have tools, like computers, and need to be able to use additional tools, like software, to better ourselves. I believe that the same is true for media.
So guys...does DRM deny access to materials and put profit before the betterment of the species? (in the long term) And no, I am not saying things like an Ashley Simpson or Coldplay album can be used to help the human species evolve. Those items are best used for Olympic sports like target shooting.
uhmm...sorry but the timberland's that i'm wearing right now say taiwan on them. not all cheap shoes are made in china and don't forget...china would argue that taiwan is technically part of china. taiwan begs to differ.
i would love to see that in a celebrity death match...get the two heads of taiwan and china to go at it in a MMA match inside a steel cage with rowdy roddy piper officiating.
But I can't help but think that if the RIAA and MPAA and similar agencies quit pushing such draconian measures, quit hogging access to the music/movies/media we love, and lowered prices to reasonable levels with an appropriate portion being given to artists and writers would lead to more purchases.
Giving users what they want would help also. Quit promoting American Karaoke..err Idol type stuff and go back to discovering talent all over the country regardless of what they look like
That's the problem with current music offerings...Aretha Franklin, Mick Jagger, probably Elvis too, wouldn't make it on the radio today.
The entertainment industry is suffering because they are just not the only game in the house anymore. Video games, the Internet, and let's not forget the high cost of fuel and just living is causing people to stop buying luxury items. Music and movies are luxury items.
Rush screamed and bellowed the lies this administration used to create a war in Iraq. Rush has the blood of thousands of US servicemembers on his hands.
Let him suffer....and better yet..someone come up with a Rush worm that will only attack his Macs and render them as boat anchors.
I know...I know...but I hate him and can't wait to see him on judgement day being tossed into the eternal lake of fire. That's all that he deserves.
the book of revelations comes to mind and something about accepting the mark of the beast. could that be as simple as a db entry?
you know that religous right fanatics should have a field day with this if it were to be tried here...then again...if their ministers tell them there's no harm, then they'll all go quietly.
Once filed with a court, legal documents become part of the public domain and as such immune to copyright law. The thing to do then is to take the cease and desist letter, enter it into evidence in a court case, existant or otherwise, and then publish it as part of the discovery process.
1) push a constitutional amendment to define and protect individual privacy 2) define any good, service, or company not based in the U.S. as a foreign country and their goods/services will be taxed as imports 3) move to have student loans eligible for inclusion into a bankruptcy discharge 4) expand the list of capital crimes to include crimes against children, habitual violent offenders, certain drug offenses, and creators of bad movies 5) insure that those convicted of enron type crimes pay back every dime taken from workers even if it means losing their homes and cars 6) create a salary ceiling where the highest paid employee at a company cannot receive more than 100x's higher in salary and benefits than the lowest paid employee. 7) the military will get a hefty pay increase as will key government workers. the number of people with the title of director, asst. director, supervisor, or other quasi-managerial position will be reduced. 8) there will be one national educational curriculum 9) there will be no more than one school district, one superintendent of schools, or one assistant superintendent of schools in any one county/parish. 10) health care reform will include reducing pricing for health services to levels that insurers pay providers (if an insurer gets to pay $1,800 on a $20,000 hospital bill then the average citizen should be able to pay that amount as well) 11) no business nor organization will be able to compile data on any individual without that individual's expressed consent ( i know that it's #1 restated but privacy and the right to be left alone are very important to me) 12) telemarketing and marketing via email or any other medium where the recipient winds up paying for delivery will be outlawed.
how different, powerful, and possibly competitive linux would be if it would have started as just one distribution and once it gained significant market share, then split into the different camps?
i mean right now ms is somewhat vulnerable and it's a shame to me that linux, especially ubuntu, is not in position to knock it down a little.
one plausible reason for the decreased number of "pirated" copies of vista is that it's so bad that pirates don't think it's worth the time to hack.
from personal experience...vista is a royal pain and if i had a choice when buying a new computer, i'd take ubuntu or xp or even win2k over vista.
the problem stems from congress writing legislation that will satisfy everyone and instead it satisfies no one. we have elected officials who have the backbone of a jellyfish (none).
what we need is for congress to say, consumers have an expectation, if not a right, of privacy. what they do in a legal environment should be there business and their business alone.
but what we get is, things like the ftc's do not call list where yea...your number is blocked unless of course if you send in a text message to a contest, or your give your phone number to a merchant, or you do anything else that would give the allusion of an existing business relationship.
do not call means just that but business lobbyists have convinced our elected leaders that their right to seek a profit is more important than our right to be left alone.
actually...according to Sony's lead counsel in the Thomas trial, making one single copy of any recorded music/video is stealing and that includes copying a cd you own for your personal use.
they believe in the microsoft model of licensing. you must buy a seperate piece of media for every device you own.
so in your copying anylog, permission would not be given because Ms. Pariser believes that there are available copies of most titles available at competitive prices for you to purchase.
so in sony's perfect world, that leaves you with having to go out and purchase an electronic copy which would then be locked to your pc due to drm and then you would have to purchase another version that would be used on the presentation device ALONG with paying any ASCAP royalties.
essentially what we're dealing with is a group that is becoming more greedy and seething at the thought of users doing what they want with the media they purchase.
which leads me to this question...when did we get to the point in our world when we don't own the things that we buy?
I don't trust GM and I don't trust law enforcement with this tool. Today it's pro-law enforcement and later they could grant lien holders permission to disable a moving vehicle for violating any of the terms of the vehicle loan/lease agreement.
There are too many hands coming into our lives. GPS trackers, RFID, and countless other tools that are being used to slowly but surely keep us in check.
I believe that we have borne witness to ATT's censorship attempts before, if you can recall the issue of an ATT subcontractor bleeping out a verbal attack on the President. Here's the Ars article for a refresher:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070809-pearl-jam-censored-by-att-calls-for-a-neutral-net.html
ATT has also joined other big telcos in lobbying Congress and begging for protection from lawsuits for violating their own terms of service and privacy agreements. There is no limit to what ATT will try to get away with.
This is why there needs to be real competition in the telco world and not just one or two companies. We eight or ten companies in every market to create real competition. Unless consumers have a real choice there is a monopoly and with that monopoly comes the ability to control and stifle dissident speech or any speech which the provider is not comfortable with regardless of whatever you may think your first amendment rights are.
Oh..and for the record...the first amendment guarantees you the ability to say something but it does not protect you from the consequences of that speech. If you say something negative about your employer, your employer has every right to can you. Even if your comments were made after work hours.
With that in mind, we should expect some fallout if we say something that is unpopular and only be surprised when it does not occur and not vice-versa.
that may be but they (nerd herd/geek squad) told one of my clients that her new pcs would not run xp nor anything less than office 2007. it's a sales ploy. i loaded her valid copy of office 2003 and her legit versions of xp. there were no problems.
in fact, i was so mad i went to the store and confronted these clowns who tried to convince that running anything other than vista would void the warranty.
this goes back some time ago but in my hometown, a medium sized city with a population of 350K, local radio stations used to sponsor album copying events and members of the bands and once in a while a label representative would be there. it always corresponded to a tour stop or some other event where the band would be in town anyway.
if you brought a cassette tape, the station would make a copy of the lp for you...but like i said...that was a LONG time ago...mid 80's.
so while it may not have been legal...it was clearly sanctioned by the bands and the labels involved.
no one can predict how a jury will vote. it's a 50/50 shot.
some jurors may empathize with the defendant while at the same time, another handful of jurors sympathize with the plaintiff.
the truth is that you just don't know. i think that some of these cases should go before a jury and let's see what happens. the riaa's arguments may be solid but the question of what constitutes copyright infringement and what constitutes fair-use needs to be codified.
my question has always been, "why was it okay for my to make copies of my vinyl albums, put them on cassette, and give it to a friend but it's not okay for me to make a copy of a cd and give that cd copy to the same friend?"
the end result is the same. my friend gets the music that i paid for.
could it be that only now the record labels are panicking because people are not gathering in herds to buy the latest stuff put out by seemingly talent-less hacks like kelly osbourne or britney spears?
so many computers are used in producing pop music now that it would indeed make the world's largest beowulf cluster.
that's the right answer in a nutshell. my desktop at work is a p3-450 with 256mb ram and it runs xp just fine.
we aren't upgrading because it's not necessary and we aren't going to jump on to the Vista bandwagon until we absolutely have to.
and my home pc's are also three years old. i'm going to build a new media center but don't see any need to rush and i certainly won't buy a software overloaded dell...who actually leaves all that junky aol, msn, and mcafee software on these things anyway?
I had to pull the trigger and fire Blockbuster when they announced that they were raising their fees to 17.99 for their service.
During the several months I was using them, I noted that it took them sometimes weeks to process returned movies, many movies would "disappear" in transit, the movies I received would be in the wrong sleeve, Disc 2 inside a Disc 1 sleeve, and did I mention that they took weeks at times to process the movies I would return?
Their service is not worth 17.99, 14.99, or even 12.99. At best I could get four to five flicks a month plus the coupons they would give me for two free rentals a month which make a 6-7/month movie rental for, call it, $15. I can get them cheaper if I drive down to their store and rent them one at a time from the dollar/bargain bin.
I'm sorry but Blockbuster just is not worth the money.
Slashdot Mirror
if you are an undocumented alien...you get no ac? (attempt at humor--might fail miserably)
look guys...ms will cave and remove this if advertisers complain loudly enough. there is a reason why many sites are run out of the marketing department. sites are mostly for marketing and the metrics that marketers can get from users are the primary reasons why they run sites.
it's this simple...if Stalin, Hitler, or Pol Pot had a tool that would allow them to see every book their citizens read, every item their citizens bought, or everything that was done, they would have retained absolute power over their populaces.
this is what marketers are attempting to do. create a dominance over you that television, newspaper, or any other medium has never been able to do before.
i wouldn't have anyone over to my house who may steal from me in the first place. if you can't trust your friends not to steal from you, then maybe it's time for new friends.
secondly..i have a moderately sized home (3000 sq ft) and i wouldn't dream of having 60 people over unless it was an emergency.
I think that's a legimate argument. It similar to the one that I've made for years regarding what I considered the trumped up stats the RIAA and MPAA and software companies toss out to say "this is how much piracy is hurting us"
I think in many cases, if something were not available in some free format, as many as 60% of end-users of a media would never own it. But that's just me speculating.
Ain't it sad though...?
Okay...let's look at this. Yesterday in my office, we had a conversation about a quaint method of distributin media that I had forgotten about....the public library.
The idea that a popular piece of media, in this case a book, has more than 300 readers or people on a waiting list to read a book indicates to me 300 lost sales for the book publisher. However, this notion of media distribution has long been supported by federal laws.
So we as a community need to ask, do the makes of music, movies, other media, work more than authors? Why are their works more protected than a lowly book that gets passed around like a drunken cheerleader with the publisher's blessing? There is only one answer that can satify this...greed.
Is this greed that has enveloped the movie and music industries likely to destroy this nation's information distribution system? Is the library a leak in the profit margins for book manufacturers? Do humans have an obligation to share information without profit for the continued growth of knowledge?
I think this was the original thinking behind the Open Source movement. People have tools, like computers, and need to be able to use additional tools, like software, to better ourselves. I believe that the same is true for media.
So guys...does DRM deny access to materials and put profit before the betterment of the species? (in the long term) And no, I am not saying things like an Ashley Simpson or Coldplay album can be used to help the human species evolve. Those items are best used for Olympic sports like target shooting.
uhmm...sorry but the timberland's that i'm wearing right now say taiwan on them. not all cheap shoes are made in china and don't forget...china would argue that taiwan is technically part of china. taiwan begs to differ. i would love to see that in a celebrity death match...get the two heads of taiwan and china to go at it in a MMA match inside a steel cage with rowdy roddy piper officiating.
we send them really nifty stuff like nuclear nose cones and they ship us some crappy sneakers...
what gives? this is worse than the xmas gifts i get at work....
But I can't help but think that if the RIAA and MPAA and similar agencies quit pushing such draconian measures, quit hogging access to the music/movies/media we love, and lowered prices to reasonable levels with an appropriate portion being given to artists and writers would lead to more purchases.
Giving users what they want would help also. Quit promoting American Karaoke..err Idol type stuff and go back to discovering talent all over the country regardless of what they look like
That's the problem with current music offerings...Aretha Franklin, Mick Jagger, probably Elvis too, wouldn't make it on the radio today.
The entertainment industry is suffering because they are just not the only game in the house anymore. Video games, the Internet, and let's not forget the high cost of fuel and just living is causing people to stop buying luxury items. Music and movies are luxury items.
this reinforces why i don't believe we should be doing business with china. there is so much corruption in the government and workplace
Rush screamed and bellowed the lies this administration used to create a war in Iraq. Rush has the blood of thousands of US servicemembers on his hands.
Let him suffer....and better yet..someone come up with a Rush worm that will only attack his Macs and render them as boat anchors.
I know...I know...but I hate him and can't wait to see him on judgement day being tossed into the eternal lake of fire. That's all that he deserves.
the book of revelations comes to mind and something about accepting the mark of the beast. could that be as simple as a db entry? you know that religous right fanatics should have a field day with this if it were to be tried here...then again...if their ministers tell them there's no harm, then they'll all go quietly.
Once filed with a court, legal documents become part of the public domain and as such immune to copyright law. The thing to do then is to take the cease and desist letter, enter it into evidence in a court case, existant or otherwise, and then publish it as part of the discovery process.
1) push a constitutional amendment to define and protect individual privacy
2) define any good, service, or company not based in the U.S. as a foreign country and their goods/services will be taxed as imports
3) move to have student loans eligible for inclusion into a bankruptcy discharge
4) expand the list of capital crimes to include crimes against children, habitual violent offenders, certain drug offenses, and creators of bad movies
5) insure that those convicted of enron type crimes pay back every dime taken from workers even if it means losing their homes and cars
6) create a salary ceiling where the highest paid employee at a company cannot receive more than 100x's higher in salary and benefits than the lowest paid employee.
7) the military will get a hefty pay increase as will key government workers. the number of people with the title of director, asst. director, supervisor, or other quasi-managerial position will be reduced.
8) there will be one national educational curriculum
9) there will be no more than one school district, one superintendent of schools, or one assistant superintendent of schools in any one county/parish.
10) health care reform will include reducing pricing for health services to levels that insurers pay providers (if an insurer gets to pay $1,800 on a $20,000 hospital bill then the average citizen should be able to pay that amount as well)
11) no business nor organization will be able to compile data on any individual without that individual's expressed consent ( i know that it's #1 restated but privacy and the right to be left alone are very important to me)
12) telemarketing and marketing via email or any other medium where the recipient winds up paying for delivery will be outlawed.
i've got more but i don't want to bore you...
how different, powerful, and possibly competitive linux would be if it would have started as just one distribution and once it gained significant market share, then split into the different camps?
i mean right now ms is somewhat vulnerable and it's a shame to me that linux, especially ubuntu, is not in position to knock it down a little.
it was just an expression...sorry
one plausible reason for the decreased number of "pirated" copies of vista is that it's so bad that pirates don't think it's worth the time to hack. from personal experience...vista is a royal pain and if i had a choice when buying a new computer, i'd take ubuntu or xp or even win2k over vista.
the problem stems from congress writing legislation that will satisfy everyone and instead it satisfies no one. we have elected officials who have the backbone of a jellyfish (none).
what we need is for congress to say, consumers have an expectation, if not a right, of privacy. what they do in a legal environment should be there business and their business alone.
but what we get is, things like the ftc's do not call list where yea...your number is blocked unless of course if you send in a text message to a contest, or your give your phone number to a merchant, or you do anything else that would give the allusion of an existing business relationship.
do not call means just that but business lobbyists have convinced our elected leaders that their right to seek a profit is more important than our right to be left alone.
actually...according to Sony's lead counsel in the Thomas trial, making one single copy of any recorded music/video is stealing and that includes copying a cd you own for your personal use.
they believe in the microsoft model of licensing. you must buy a seperate piece of media for every device you own.
so in your copying anylog, permission would not be given because Ms. Pariser believes that there are available copies of most titles available at competitive prices for you to purchase.
so in sony's perfect world, that leaves you with having to go out and purchase an electronic copy which would then be locked to your pc due to drm and then you would have to purchase another version that would be used on the presentation device ALONG with paying any ASCAP royalties.
essentially what we're dealing with is a group that is becoming more greedy and seething at the thought of users doing what they want with the media they purchase.
which leads me to this question...when did we get to the point in our world when we don't own the things that we buy?
I don't trust GM and I don't trust law enforcement with this tool. Today it's pro-law enforcement and later they could grant lien holders permission to disable a moving vehicle for violating any of the terms of the vehicle loan/lease agreement.
There are too many hands coming into our lives. GPS trackers, RFID, and countless other tools that are being used to slowly but surely keep us in check.
I believe that we have borne witness to ATT's censorship attempts before, if you can recall the issue of an ATT subcontractor bleeping out a verbal attack on the President. Here's the Ars article for a refresher: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070809-pearl-jam-censored-by-att-calls-for-a-neutral-net.html
ATT has also joined other big telcos in lobbying Congress and begging for protection from lawsuits for violating their own terms of service and privacy agreements. There is no limit to what ATT will try to get away with.
This is why there needs to be real competition in the telco world and not just one or two companies. We eight or ten companies in every market to create real competition. Unless consumers have a real choice there is a monopoly and with that monopoly comes the ability to control and stifle dissident speech or any speech which the provider is not comfortable with regardless of whatever you may think your first amendment rights are. Oh..and for the record...the first amendment guarantees you the ability to say something but it does not protect you from the consequences of that speech. If you say something negative about your employer, your employer has every right to can you. Even if your comments were made after work hours. With that in mind, we should expect some fallout if we say something that is unpopular and only be surprised when it does not occur and not vice-versa.
that may be but they (nerd herd/geek squad) told one of my clients that her new pcs would not run xp nor anything less than office 2007. it's a sales ploy. i loaded her valid copy of office 2003 and her legit versions of xp. there were no problems.
in fact, i was so mad i went to the store and confronted these clowns who tried to convince that running anything other than vista would void the warranty.
this goes back some time ago but in my hometown, a medium sized city with a population of 350K, local radio stations used to sponsor album copying events and members of the bands and once in a while a label representative would be there. it always corresponded to a tour stop or some other event where the band would be in town anyway.
if you brought a cassette tape, the station would make a copy of the lp for you...but like i said...that was a LONG time ago...mid 80's.
so while it may not have been legal...it was clearly sanctioned by the bands and the labels involved.
no one can predict how a jury will vote. it's a 50/50 shot.
some jurors may empathize with the defendant while at the same time, another handful of jurors sympathize with the plaintiff.
the truth is that you just don't know. i think that some of these cases should go before a jury and let's see what happens.
the riaa's arguments may be solid but the question of what constitutes copyright infringement and what constitutes fair-use needs to be codified.
my question has always been, "why was it okay for my to make copies of my vinyl albums, put them on cassette, and give it to a friend but it's not okay for me to make a copy of a cd and give that cd copy to the same friend?"
the end result is the same. my friend gets the music that i paid for.
could it be that only now the record labels are panicking because people are not gathering in herds to buy the latest stuff put out by seemingly talent-less hacks like kelly osbourne or britney spears?
so many computers are used in producing pop music now that it would indeed make the world's largest beowulf cluster.
ding-ding-ding
tell him what he's won johnny...
that's the right answer in a nutshell. my desktop at work is a p3-450 with 256mb ram and it runs xp just fine.
we aren't upgrading because it's not necessary and we aren't going to jump on to the Vista bandwagon until we absolutely have to.
and my home pc's are also three years old. i'm going to build a new media center but don't see any need to rush and i certainly won't buy a software overloaded dell...who actually leaves all that junky aol, msn, and mcafee software on these things anyway?
I had to pull the trigger and fire Blockbuster when they announced that they were raising their fees to 17.99 for their service.
During the several months I was using them, I noted that it took them sometimes weeks to process returned movies, many movies would "disappear" in transit, the movies I received would be in the wrong sleeve, Disc 2 inside a Disc 1 sleeve, and did I mention that they took weeks at times to process the movies I would return?
Their service is not worth 17.99, 14.99, or even 12.99. At best I could get four to five flicks a month plus the coupons they would give me for two free rentals a month which make a 6-7/month movie rental for, call it, $15. I can get them cheaper if I drive down to their store and rent them one at a time from the dollar/bargain bin.
I'm sorry but Blockbuster just is not worth the money.