If some the transactions are truly 'all virtual', then all the US Government should get is a portion of the spoils in the very same virtual form and nothing more.
That should be really fun. Wonder what type of super-potent mega-weapon upgrades the DOD could obtain on WOW with that kind of credit! LOL!
Z.
Certainly there are some things which come to mind
on
The DRM Scorecard
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· Score: 3, Informative
Perhaps this has already been mentioned, but the dongle systems that protect many Mac music applications and plugins seem to have held up so far, as in either iLok or some of the Synchrosoft dongles. Logic Pro 7 is not really something that has been cracked yet either, to my (admitedly limited) knowledge.
From what I recall reading, when H2O did manage to [k] Nuendo, it took them so long that I think they said they were not going to bother doing it more, as the process was just too annoyingly time-consuming.
Theoretically, these systems could probably be made to protect anything which is a software-based application. Not sure if this qualifies as DRM, rather than just some 'copy-protection' technique but certainly it has helped ensure that many small developers of quality audio plug-ins survive because their creations cannot be cracked.
....and although I am usually in a particularly bad disposition against most anything the RIAA has been doing recently.
I think that at the very least there is something to be said for this. If anything, the radio stations are racking up
income hand over fist from all of those insipid commercials we are forced to listen to, and it would only seem fair
that besides the songwriters and publishers (who are justly being compensated), the owners of the sound recordings
also get a piece of that income, which wouldn't affect talk radio, news and sports stations, but mostly for those stations
who have a 'music format', said music being the main reason they are able to remain in business.
This exemption business was something that was passed more than a half-century ago, originally allowed to support the massive investment
buildout in infrastructure which radio had to go through, long since recouped, and the fact that it still stands today shows the colossal power
of the lobby behind the stations/conglomerates such as Clear Channel.
This makes the RIAA's position that Internet broadcasters have to pay a bit more sensible, although totally irrelevant to the reality of the Internet.
Being that records are not selling that much anymore, and that people still listen to terrestrial radio quite a bit, it would make sense that some
of the income stream commercial radio is deriving from music should be used to give people an incentive to create more of the same material
the stations are using to earn income with.
I really don't see what's far-fetched or ludicrous about this; there should however be exemptions for not-for-profit, college radios, and low-power transmitters.
...that Micro$oft doesn't have to do anything. The FUD is already spreading, so sit back and watch the corporate CTO's and CIO's squirm
under the pressure of having to (possibly) justify to their boards why they changed to a Linux environment and risk exposure or worse, rather
than pay the usual license fees, and be safe by staying with an all-Windows environment.
Another telltale sign of this is that all of these threads on here and elsewhere are getting zero answers or rebukes from anyone even remotely
associated with Redmond, as they probably all are under strict orders not to do so....
It is plain as day that M$ would probably not dare actual lawsuits, but yet these tactics indicate increasingly desperate attempts at solving
what many at the helm there have identified as a deeper and more pressing crisis:
As we read every day, Linux is gaining a hefty amount of traction worldwide, and this may yet be the safest course for slowling down
what they perceive as the ineluctable spread of a killer virus, and which in the OSS camp others view as nothing less than the long-awaited
liberation from the dark embrace of proprietary software's biggest monopolist.
Make no mistakes!... The M$ ship is finally flying its true colors.
It will be easy to dismiss these tactics, yet Redmond is full of very cunning and determined people who will 'fight to the death' to retain their
cushy jobs, $tock options and have grown accustomed to a way of life where they decide everything.
This was only the first salvo. Brace for more of the same tactics, only uglier.
When reading these types of thread about the record business special interest group finding ways to bend the law, I find something very depressing about the fact that those who are supposed to be in charge of the 'stewardship' of copyrights seem to be doing everything in their power to make sure that a lot of the music they own doesn't ever get exposed, and since nobody will ever know about it, that it'll never sell. But actually, there are a lot of music lovers out there donating their time to upload torrents of many obscure records which haven't been in print for a great many years, and most likely will never be made available commercially again... and in the same fashion there are also any who contribute to projects such as Pandora and Last.fm
So against all odds, and no matter the Kafka-esque hurdles these people are trying to put up at every possible moment, it is still comforting to know that despite their best efforts to muzzle non-top 40 music, a lot of it will survive because there are many others out there who care about it quite deeply, not for money, but out of LOVE, and because it is part of our cultural heritage.
And in some way it is comforting to think that after putting out so much negative energy, bad vibes, and consistently having so few innovative ideas or vision on what is really needed in today's marketplace to make artists sell some records, (besides suing the pants out of everyone they can) the very people responsible for lobbying for all of this arguably short-sighted legislation are going to get what's coming to them, i.e.: the opportunity to re-tool and learn a new trade very soon.
It's kind of futile to argue against a tidal wave; it's what this particular situation reminds me of.
In the meantime, and until this takes place, there is no question that if I had a Net radio show or anything of that sort, I'd make sure that the servers streaming it are hosted somewhere which cannot be impacted by any such legislative measures.
For whatever reason, and I am not trying to appear difficult, I have an extremely strong aversion to ads, especially at the obnoxious frequency they are displayed in American TV programming.
What appears significant to me here is not so much who owns, business models going the way of the dodo, and so on... but the fact that such things might
actually empower some people to think for themselves and start to shun this system of ad-supported content, somehow and over time. I'd much prefer
watching a show a few days late, but ad-free, even if it was for a small fee. (I'd get my time back)
Even though Google has ads, they are so unobtrusive that one hardly notices them, and certainly a giant step away from 'coitus interruptus' every 11 minutes.
Ultimately, there is already so much content out there that those who protect its re-runs too fiercely may just suffer slow death by being ignored and
gradually made less relevant, as their own interest is not that of sharing, but profit at the expense of everything else.
Undeniably, information now more and more wants to be free. It seems to have a mind of its own, and just as corporations sometimes display a 'gestalt survival instinct'
of sorts, it would now appear that content itself also wants to insure its survival as a meme in the unconscious mind of humanity, regardless of corporate control.
...Interesting. Let's hope that neither the coporate hive mind, nor content itself acquire too much sentience! LOL.
I was reading parent post and did a double-take, as what I got of it was:
"I can't wait until they realize that it's not worth it, and just stop concerning themselves with creating good movies, and instead focus full-time on copy-protecting their media." ...which in a way seemed to make total sense, there is a perverse part of myself that thinks that this is almost where we are headed.
There is much that has already been documented and guidelines exist to guarantee somehow the short to medium-term preservation of digital assets; this particular link is for audio-related digital assets, but data is all the same...!
A combination of multiple sets of magneto-optical and tape backups maintained in separate locations, all temperature and humidity-controlled environments should easily yield 25~30 years shelf life, which guarantees that by then we'll hopefully have found better long-term options to transfer these to.
I am transferring most of my 15 to 20-year old audio DAT tapes digitally with no problems. Good brand-name CD-R's (like Tayo-Yuden) kept out of the light and at a steady temperature seem fairly resilient so far, but there has been batches which over time have developed 'rot' or layer oxydation, which sometimes renders them partially or wholly unusable.
DLT tapes are so far the most trouble-free type of media I have encountered, but with only 10 years to go back on, not sure that is accurate.
Z.
Every time I think of taking the plunge and do it
on
MythTV Vs. TiVo, Round 2
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Rigt before going to spec out a nice bunch of PC components on NewEgg and build a good box, I always pass by the Myth TV Users Mailing List to make sure that I get the most relevant and updated hardware necessary, and instead end up reading a sampling of the horror stories they go through, taking a few minutes to savor the different tortures one can be subjected to (video out of sync with audio, artifacts on certain channels, MySQL database corruption, NuvExport screws up, X breaks dependencies, and all the rest) and decide to wait another few weeks, certainly the new upcoming release will be much more reliable and user-friendly? And by the way, what happened to all of the things that were done during last year's Google's 'Summer Of Code' for Myth TV ? All the great features and enhancements that were worked on?
So I keep waiting, hoping that the next time I check the mailing list, their version of Matt Groening's Life In Hell have died down a bit....
Even though I am definitely doing a fair amount of Sys Admin duties on various distros, this is different, the killer part is what will happen when something screws up while I'm not around, and my wife gets mad because something didn't work, (provided I can even teach her to deal with all of these menus, options and the whole 'watching Live TV through Myth' syndrome) or my kid decides that he knows better and starts trying to hack the box himself in frustration....?
Surely the TiVo is an attractive box for the wife and kids, but with technology changing as rapidly as it has been, it is questionable whether to invest in such a product today, unless we were hard-core TV addicts, and could justify the cost as it would immediately be recouped.
Funnily enough, the most expedient thing I've ended up doing has been to identify the things I want to watch, and as a previous poster pointed out, just BitTorrent the shows in HD without commercials the next day, no matter where in the world I may be. (...and yes, it is sweet to download things at 10 Megs speed while in certain countries like Japan or Norway!!...LOL!)
Net result: I hardly EVER watch any TV whatsoever, and the few shows I care about can be watched on my laptop.
Well, I wish I had more time to tinker.... and still, major kudos to Jarod Wilson for having created this amazing open-source wonder. But as others have pointed out, for either of these two options, it's really going to all be about being able to have Myth TV interact with the CableCard slot, at least in major urban centers where cable companies rule the roost, and antenna reception is unwatchable!! The killer is that companies like Time Warner Cable are offering their own PVR deals, so they will make sure to lock anyone else out of the convenience until forced to do so by the FCC... Or that someone learns to hack the Firewire outputs of some of those new set-top decoders. Then you potentially still have HDCP to contend with. Oh, brother!! Brave new world !!
The above post describes my exact and honest thoughts on the matter of current US military expenditures.
So, for this pointless war in Iraq, and which our leaders have taken on with our tax $, there could have been the equivalent of ~ 500 + shuttle flights launched?
I rest my case.
As it may be, the people in charge of budgetary approval for the programs which put all of these RFID solutions
into place will steadfastly deny that anything is wrong until they are forced to do so, as agreeing that those are
potentially high security risks would otherwise equate it with having to backtrack on what they previously approved,
even though they were amply forewarned by many in the security-related field.
It's really about not losing face at any cost, lest people start questioning other methods they employ.
Human nature, really. Look no further than the voting machines controversy for parallels here in the US.
It goes without saying that for anyone gullible enough to think that they can get away with doing something like this under their real identity... (fill in the blanks)
This is the one time where I would categorically have advised to consult with an attorney beforehand, so that he could have understood the type of trouble he might be in for pointing this out the way he did, and releasing the software in the wild.
It really doesn't seem very smart to go about it headfirst like this, and he is paying for it now.
Maybe we need 'whistle-blower lawyers', or at least courses in responsible and perfectly safe whistle-blowing?
There has to be a better way to force the TSA to fix their flaws.
The danger of this being of course that it usually leads to - for example -shady operators using these 'pseudo-moralistic values' to justify totally screwing content creators and to make $$ at their expense.
Morality's line does seem very thin indeed, in more ways than one, as anyone but the truly obtuse usually realize that wars and conflict are 9 times out of 10 borne out of economic disparities that have roots in similar situations as the kind of wholesale rape AllOfMP3 was basically committing.....
There's no way that what Doug Morris is suggesting would ever be fair. (well, what is in the record industry?...)
Many people put indie label stuff on their iPods, and much other unclassifiable music, why should Universal get some $$ and not other labels?
What will happen at this point is anyone's guess, but I would consider that Apple's dominance of the market makes it such that it could fight back. Otherwise there will be no end to this slippery slope. Warner Bros, Sony/BMG, EMI and all the others will claim the same. Then it'll be the turn of major indies to hit Apple for a piece of the pie.
Therefore I pray that Steve Jobs and Apple's board of directors will have the sanity and foresight to resist what could be a very sad precedent for the nascent digital music marketplace.
Just as in the SCO / Linux case, this may be a watermark moment, one that will help forever define our future with regards to recorded music.
Doug Morris is only projecting his own frustrations and those of his company's shareholders, and barely clinging to his job due to the lackluster corporate
earning results for the last 3 quarters at Universal certainly gives him far more motivation to do the saber-rattling act to show what a tough negotiator he is.
(well, that and what evil plotters Micro$oft are for pursuing what some call a 'scorched-earth' policy, so that if Zune fails, they'll make sure everyone else fails, or at least truly suffers along with them...)
In the current picture of the digital marketplace today, Universal stands to lose out far more than Apple by refusing to renew the license on the existing terms.
Actually, if you retrace Doug Morris' steps and read some recent quotes, (and unless I am mistaken) he was also the most vociferous one behind the concept
that one-size-fits-all pricing had to end, and that his top-tier new artists should get more per download than his deep catalog titles.
Therefore, an interpretation of this would be that this is posturing well in advance of Apple's contract renewal to establish that he will not settle for 'One Price - One Rate',
which Apple has so far been steadfast about. This particular point appears to be one which Apple will have to concede to keep their rights to the Universal catalog, and wil lead to an inevitable industry-wide
restructuring of how downloads are priced.
All joking aside, I really could care less if J-Lo and Britney Spears' downloads jump to $1.49, that in itself is a bit of a joke, but an acceptable one...
Some days I do feel extremely ahsamed and embarrassed for still being a part of what's left of the record business, and likely to be summarily judged as being in cahoots with the rest of the vultures....Today is just one of those days.
Z.:(
(As a disclaimer, I will write that I have an interest in a small independent non-RIAA-affiliated record label, in existence for over 10 years, and that we pay royalties to our artists for the sales of their recordings which are a part of our catalog. Most of our music is currently available for purchase DRM-free from a variety of online sites in all formats, ranging from full-resolution.wav to low-bit rate MP3, and even AAC via iTunes Music Store.
What would it feel like to you if one day you got notice that this overseas online store decided to start selling your whole entire catalog to customers worldwide without any permission or consent whatsoever, made from dubious (and inferior) pirated sound sources, or at best ripped from CDs if those were even commercially available, as many of AllOfMP3's customers have come to realize once they start downloading the product? This is basically what was happening, as far as I gather these people already had another earlier site which got shut down, all they did is try and exploit loopholes in Russian and international law, and leverage this to hopefully legitimize their business model by sheer brute force.
There are several disturbing points which are not really made clearly by anyone yet, the first being that the type of income which is usually payed to ROMS (as someone already pointed out) is customarily made for the same types of payments that radio or TV stations make to the song's publishers when there is airplay, in other words some form of compulsory license which translates to a very low income figure usually set by that country's laws addressing public broadcast; this amount usually strictly only covers the publishing rights to a song. While this does (in theory) compensates the songwriters and publishers, it pays nothing whatsoever to the actual owners of the sound recording, who are not necessarily the same entities.
In most every country, radio and TV play does not usually compensate the owners of the sound recording either, but any sale to the public stipulates that the amount payable to the owner should be negotiated in good faith between the recording's owner and the selling entity. As far as I know, there is no country in the world where someone can walk off the street and decide to start selling your music legally for whatever price they feel, just because they have unilaterally decided to grant themselves that right.
The other part of this bit of 'truthiness' is that even if - so far - AllOfMP3 was able to skirt commonly accepted international trade practices by exploiting the murky Russian legal loopholes in question, there is no question that a number of keys point should have been respected on their part in order for them to maintain the type of legitimacy their recent PR-stunt 'email press conference' hinted they were trying to gain:
Although they were so far able to evade these issues due to the fact that Russian copyright law was antiquated and did not cover online sales, the sales in questions should have strictly been limited to Russian customers, not to the entire planet.... Come on, now! Many of the cutting-edge music sites like Beatport are finding that in order to get the right to sell music, they must respect territoriality, such as not selling a particular song in a certain country, as someone else already has those exclusive rights.
If they were in fact a pseudo-legitimate organization that was just far ahead of the times in terms of forward-thinking copyright reform, then they should have made a point of keeping in escrow a sizeable portion of their earnings, to be held in good faith until such time that an agreement would be made with the sound recordings' owners, or at least an organization representing their collective rights in Russia for the music that was already sold to this date. Not publishing.... sound recording rights.
I well realize that similar things took places during the Gold Rush and at the time The West was
Yeah, I did an 'in-place' upgrade from 6.06 Dapper using the recommended method ( gksu "update-manager -c" ), and it was really, really smooth on a Core 2 Duo (but only running 32-bit mode) Sony VAIO laptop.
The only thing that was problematic was the fact that all Flash sites would crash Firefox...! This was something which appears to have had to do with a setting in the xorg.conf file, I followed some tips as shown here, but doing the opposite and changing the value from 16 up to 24. Smooth sailing ever since!
There probably are some more exotic combinations of motherboards, graphic cards and disk arrays that will not be working great, but so far, so good here!!
One thing that is really working in case of disaster is to keep/home directories on a separate partition, so if things really "Go South", a relatively quick clean and full re-install can be performed with the user data and preferences left intact!...
I sincerely wish that this was something which could be solved so easily.
Your argument is interesting, but after further examination, somewhat akin to early Communist and Socialist economic models. It looks good on paper, but might not really manage to create a situation where many content creators would be motivated to do so, or even in a position where they could make the commitment of both time and resources necessary for them to come up with the music at the level of sophistication that a Peter Gabriel album does when it is conceived, written, played, recorded, produced, mixed and mastered. This in turn could lead to the kind of long-term and endemic paucity of outstanding creative works in a similar fashion to that which ended happening in the former Soviet Union with their economic policies.
There are far many more complex and entertwined issues to this dilemna, and while I wholeheartedly agree that current copyright issues are increasingly antiquated and will likely slowly disappear in their present form, there are many reasons why this particular approach will probably not be adopted as law. Mind you, the 'de facto' result at the street level today is already so completely out of hand, that it may make less and less of a difference anyway, as it has proven utterly impossible to police and regulate. Major Hip-Hop artists make no bones about selling bootleg 'mixtapes' by the bucketload as part of their viral marketing strategies, everyone and their sister can create instant mashups which besides being difficult to even recognize, make it utterly impossible for anyone to try and collect royalties from, so in a sense the result is pretty much the same. But consequently and already noticeable, many contemporary artists have reduced the amount of time they can afford to spend in the studio crafting recording masterpieces which no one will buy in great numbers, choosing to instead put out slighty more 'average' albums and dedicate their time and energies to performing live, which for many has proven to be a reliable way to help to pay the bills...
As a whole, it is quite flattering to see that someone like Peter Gabriel (who besides being a legendary performer, also has consistently tried to further his participation to the global music community, with his World Music festival (WOMAD), Real World recording studio complex, as well as through his record label which is supporting many great, unknown but talented artists.) doing something that few have dared to try in order to stay relevant. Kudos all the way!!
Well, what happened after Bill Clinton got demonized by the RayPooBlicans is that they got a good foothold on a way to discredit him and his legacy... They were looking for ANY angle to bring him down, as he had all the makings of a truly loved president. There was definitely a big contingent of middle-Americans who took offense to the fact that he did not appear to be willing to be brave enough to own up to it.
Forget for one moment all of the Tom DeLays, Enron-connected politicos, Jack Abramoff's and so on, we all know everyone is guilty of this, and those in power right now far more than they want to admit it.
But for whatever reason, and seeing how close the 2000 election was, I think that these denials on Clinton's part actually helped in securing Bush winning those elections instead of Gore. (The "He wouldn't lie to us, because he's one of us" - syndrome. )
Seeing the results of 6 years of Bush policies, one can therefore argue that Bill Clinton's 'truthiness' did in fact have a very big impact, including the number of lives lost in foreign wars, none of which would have happened with Gore in power.
So I think that the HP boardroom scandal isn't all that much besides a case of flagrant violations of civil liberties, or yet another textbook example of the privileged getting caught red-handed and yet still getting away with it.
Way to go, Hurd, maybe someone will start a 'Hall Of Shame' website like fuckedcompany.com was, but for politicians and CEOs?
Z.
I can see plenty of prior art on this one....
on
The Culture of Evasion
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· Score: 1, Flamebait
One of the most notable being Bill Clinton's memorable "I Smoked Pot But I Didn't Inhale", closely followed by his Monica-and-cigar experiments.
What the scariest thing is with this type of settlement is that no one,absolutely no one seems to really know - or care - about what will happen to such a huge pile of money, and further that it probably will only go to enrich those who have major chart successes, their lawyers, or the IFPI itself (claiming it needs more $$ to fight piracy), rather than those copyright holders whose music was actually downloaded.
Of course, as with a major news organization such as the BBC, no need to wax philosophic on the actual real-world meaning and consequences of such actions, and the possible windfall (or lack thereof) to those who created the content in question. Rethorical question if you ask me.
Sort of like the "War On Terror(TM)"... By now everyone forgot why we are fighting it, as we are too involved in the day-to-day fighting to remember what it was supposed to be about.
-1) China takes great pains to make it obvious that they still consider Taiwan an integral part of their country.
-2) Taiwan is arguably responsible for such a huge amount of SPAM that they are considered the world's biggest offender
-3) China has finally decided to crack down on SPAM for real (or so they say).
The only logical route to really crack down on SPAM will be to invade Taiwan, and make sure to put those shady list operators under lock and key.
Q.E.D.
We've seen some more far-fetched scenarios to justify an invasion before, have we not....?
This was totally outrageous! Just as much of a newsworthy item as Janet's 'wardrobe malfunction'!(I couldn't sleep for 3 months after watching that one)!
It would be a crying shame that kids should be exposed to (Godless?) non-graphical but still titillating sex simulations.
It might detract from their training shooting hundreds of thousands of opponents, so that they can further be brainwashed into becoming our next batch of cannon fodder to send to Iraq or wherever else our glorious leaders will be "Bringing Freedom" to in the coming years.
The FTC is only performing its patriotic duty to keep kids in line for all the state-sanctioned killing they will have to do later on.
Although, as Dr Strangelove once pointed out, reproductive duties might also have to become state-sanctioned and even encouraged when population needs to be replenished due to a 'red button malfunction' in the Oval Orifice.
Currently, there are a fair amount of songs I either produced, or composed available on AllOfMP3, without any permission, or a single penny of license fee, royalty or anything else being paid to the owners of the sound recording, the musical composition's writers, etc... How are the singers, producers, writers of all this music supposed to feel about it? Should we all be thrilled that these swindlers have found a way to perform another variation on the "MP three-card monte" ?
These guys used to have another site (the name escapes me right now) which was shut down for doing the same thing about 3 years ago, and although I would state that my position is very much to not have any DRM on the downloads you sell, as well as setting prices that are far more realistic than iTunes' monolithic approach, or even that no restrictions should be placed on personal use once you've purchased a song, please don't ask me to agree with the part where someone making an honest and decent living with music should get royally f*cked by a bunch of mob-allied Russian swindlers - or anyone else for that matter - who happen to be able to thumb their fingers the law from far away. The basic point of it is that although there probably is a loophole of some kind which allows sites such as this one to sell to the Russian market, I am equally sure that this twisting of the law would probably not apply to selling the same downloads from Russia to overseas customers if they tried to do things in a legitimate way.
For that matter, please let the artists and writers decide if they want to give their music away for free, but taking that right from them... that would seem pretty close to rape than anything else.
To give a bit of historical perspective on the shady operators behind this site, (if I am not mistaken) they are the same people who previously proceeded to put many independent labels' entire catalogs up online for downloads, and then, only then proceeded to contact the labels to ask for some sort of permission to sell the audio files they de facto already gave themselves the right to sell.
I know that online and on discussion groups such as this, the pseudo-libertarian approach is always a very trendy hat to wear, but I would venture to say that many of the very ones who are proselitizing this type of philosophy more often than not turn out to be real scrooges and cheapskates in real life, and one wonders how long this hypocritical stance will last. (probably as long as their line of business doesn't get victimized by the ever-changing technology that made all of these things possible?... When it does, they'll be singing the same song many in the music industry are singing now, but will probably reap just as little sympathy as they dispensed it themselves.)
As much as I loathe to see DRM rear its ugly head, it is become nonetheless a fact of life that in order not to have to deal with these two-faced champions of everything who expect creative works for free as long as it is not from something they personally made, (save the altruistic few) some types of solutions have to be put into place that put some element of fairness back into the picture. If someone slaves themselves silly for a year or more to produce an incredible record, I am not sure where it is written that anyone is entitled to take said recording (still nothing to do with the RIAA, which I am not a member of...) and either profit from it by offering it for sale yourself without that owner's consent, or anything similar. I don't really care to hear how everything should be for free, as long as you personally don't have to contribute anything; you'll eventually get affected by it. We all are, in one way or another.
This college-dorm attitude towards wholesale stealing can go on forever for all I care when talking about the drivel and tasteless manufactured pop crap like Britney Spears and her cohorts (which incidentally the RIAA seems to really
Obviously, the setting for this somehow has to first mention the way in which Steam (Valve?...) is dealing with content protection and distribution, a fact that many will possibly find intrusive; not sure how much I care, after all it is gaming we are talking about, and in order to protect their IP and assets, the company obviously has to take measures that foil the ever-expanding consequences of today's creative 'online-sharing', torrents and the likes, which should really saved be another debate. Suffice to say that in my personal case, I do not have any issues with this and happily paid $19.95 for the pre-load a week before the game came out.
Everyone obviously has likes and dislikes in the gaming world as much as in everything else, and while I simply do not have much interest in most of the other games this company or most others have to offer, (save for a couple of Counterstrike matches on a LAN) I do not remember ever being drawn into one as much as I did when I belatedly got into Half-Life 2 a year and a half ago. An avid Sci-Fi buff and Cyberpunk enthusiast, the original premise of the game struck a deeply resonating chord in me, one that no other game so far has managed to, as I have found most of them to be far too awkwardly simplistic, or just hard to get into.
The keyword here is immersive and what really got me was just how easy the game's developers had made it to fit yourself into Gordon Freeman's character. Again, not being a gaming maven who spends at least 6 hours a day in front of a console, it was a bit of a shock how HL2 got me hooked, like no other game ever did before. The attention paid to atmosphere and details makes for a very eerie experience, the 'Physics Engine' they use is really darn good, and without trying to start a flame war, I would in some levels tend to feel the same way about this particular franchise as I felt about George Lucas and Star Wars in the late 70's, which is to say pretty darn excited.
The gaming experience on this Episode One is nothing short of breathtaking. As others have mentioned, there are plenty of cute puzzles and new tricks to keep one guessing, the introduction of some new and welcome characters like those lovely grenade-wiedling Zombines, and after spending a leisurely two sessions playing through this in 'Normal' setting, must report that I feel just as elated as before with HL2, as I reached the climactic ending. Obviously, I cannot give the game a newcomer's look as HL's key-commands are tatooed in my synapses, but the flow was very natural, and it definitely felt like we all picked up where it left off the last time around....
There were no bugs that came to halt the otherwise smooth experience. Wish I had the necessary resources to experience the HDR effects, but it would appear that my laptop's graphic card is not capable of rendering it. Oh, well...
On the down side, I did find some of Alyx's scripted answers and come-ons a bit irritating after a while, as they tended to detract from an otherwise solid storyline, bt that's something I am willing to live with. The commentary is a pretty fine way to acquaint yourself with the finer points of game design if you so desire, and very unobtrusive.
But as in good wine, what matters most to me in the end is the aftertaste, and I must report that I - for one - cannot wait for the upcoming release of Episode Two later this year. I find that the episodic format suits this game pretty well, and as long as we know what to expect, do not find it offensive or bothersome.
So there you have it. A solid 8.5 at least, with a big grin on my face and plenty of other-worldly and futuristic inspiration. Fantastic game, well worth my or anyone's time.
Z.
Disclaimer: No, I do not work for Valve or any associated companies... after a game like this, I almost wish I did!! (LOL!)
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If some the transactions are truly 'all virtual', then all the US Government should get is a portion of the spoils in the very same virtual form and nothing more.
That should be really fun. Wonder what type of super-potent mega-weapon upgrades the DOD could obtain on WOW with that kind of credit! LOL!
Z.
Perhaps this has already been mentioned, but the dongle systems that protect many Mac music applications and plugins seem to have held up so far, as in either iLok
or some of the Synchrosoft dongles. Logic Pro 7 is not really something that has been cracked yet either, to my (admitedly limited) knowledge.
From what I recall reading, when H2O did manage to [k] Nuendo, it took them so long that I think they said
they were not going to bother doing it more, as the process was just too annoyingly time-consuming.
Theoretically, these systems could probably be made to protect anything which is a software-based application. Not sure if this qualifies as DRM, rather than just some 'copy-protection'
technique but certainly it has helped ensure that many small developers of quality audio plug-ins survive because their creations cannot be cracked.
Z.
....and although I am usually in a particularly bad disposition against most anything the RIAA has been doing recently.
I think that at the very least there is something to be said for this. If anything, the radio stations are racking up
income hand over fist from all of those insipid commercials we are forced to listen to, and it would only seem fair
that besides the songwriters and publishers (who are justly being compensated), the owners of the sound recordings
also get a piece of that income, which wouldn't affect talk radio, news and sports stations, but mostly for those stations
who have a 'music format', said music being the main reason they are able to remain in business.
This exemption business was something that was passed more than a half-century ago, originally allowed to support the massive investment
buildout in infrastructure which radio had to go through, long since recouped, and the fact that it still stands today shows the colossal power
of the lobby behind the stations/conglomerates such as Clear Channel.
This makes the RIAA's position that Internet broadcasters have to pay a bit more sensible, although totally irrelevant to the reality of the Internet.
Being that records are not selling that much anymore, and that people still listen to terrestrial radio quite a bit, it would make sense that some
of the income stream commercial radio is deriving from music should be used to give people an incentive to create more of the same material
the stations are using to earn income with.
I really don't see what's far-fetched or ludicrous about this; there should however be exemptions for not-for-profit, college radios, and low-power transmitters.
Z.
...that Micro$oft doesn't have to do anything. The FUD is already spreading, so sit back and watch the corporate CTO's and CIO's squirm
under the pressure of having to (possibly) justify to their boards why they changed to a Linux environment and risk exposure or worse, rather
than pay the usual license fees, and be safe by staying with an all-Windows environment.
Another telltale sign of this is that all of these threads on here and elsewhere are getting zero answers or rebukes from anyone even remotely
associated with Redmond, as they probably all are under strict orders not to do so....
It is plain as day that M$ would probably not dare actual lawsuits, but yet these tactics indicate increasingly desperate attempts at solving
what many at the helm there have identified as a deeper and more pressing crisis:
As we read every day, Linux is gaining a hefty amount of traction worldwide, and this may yet be the safest course for slowling down
what they perceive as the ineluctable spread of a killer virus, and which in the OSS camp others view as nothing less than the long-awaited
liberation from the dark embrace of proprietary software's biggest monopolist.
Make no mistakes!... The M$ ship is finally flying its true colors.
It will be easy to dismiss these tactics, yet Redmond is full of very cunning and determined people who will 'fight to the death' to retain their
cushy jobs, $tock options and have grown accustomed to a way of life where they decide everything.
This was only the first salvo. Brace for more of the same tactics, only uglier.
Z.
When reading these types of thread about the record business special interest group finding ways to bend the law, I find something very depressing about the fact that those who are supposed to be in charge of the 'stewardship' of copyrights seem to be doing everything in their power to make sure that a lot of the music they own doesn't ever get exposed, and since nobody will ever know about it, that it'll never sell. But actually, there are a lot of music lovers out there donating their time to upload torrents of many obscure records which haven't been in print for a great many years, and most likely will never be made available commercially again... and in the same fashion there are also any who contribute to projects such as Pandora and Last.fm
So against all odds, and no matter the Kafka-esque hurdles these people are trying to put up at every possible moment, it is still comforting to know that despite their best efforts to muzzle non-top 40 music, a lot of it will survive because there are many others out there who care about it quite deeply, not for money, but out of LOVE, and because it is part of our cultural heritage.
And in some way it is comforting to think that after putting out so much negative energy, bad vibes, and consistently having so few innovative ideas or vision on what is really needed in today's marketplace to make artists sell some records, (besides suing the pants out of everyone they can) the very people responsible for lobbying for all of this arguably short-sighted legislation are going to get what's coming to them, i.e.: the opportunity to re-tool and learn a new trade very soon.
It's kind of futile to argue against a tidal wave; it's what this particular situation reminds me of.
In the meantime, and until this takes place, there is no question that if I had a Net radio show or anything of that sort, I'd make sure that the servers streaming it are hosted somewhere which cannot be impacted by any such legislative measures.
Z.
For whatever reason, and I am not trying to appear difficult, I have an extremely strong aversion to ads, especially at the obnoxious frequency they
...Interesting. Let's hope that neither the coporate hive mind, nor content itself acquire too much sentience! LOL.
are displayed in American TV programming.
What appears significant to me here is not so much who owns, business models going the way of the dodo, and so on... but the fact that such things might
actually empower some people to think for themselves and start to shun this system of ad-supported content, somehow and over time. I'd much prefer
watching a show a few days late, but ad-free, even if it was for a small fee. (I'd get my time back)
Even though Google has ads, they are so unobtrusive that one hardly notices them, and certainly a giant step away from 'coitus interruptus' every 11 minutes.
Ultimately, there is already so much content out there that those who protect its re-runs too fiercely may just suffer slow death by being ignored and
gradually made less relevant, as their own interest is not that of sharing, but profit at the expense of everything else.
Undeniably, information now more and more wants to be free. It seems to have a mind of its own, and just as corporations sometimes display a 'gestalt survival instinct'
of sorts, it would now appear that content itself also wants to insure its survival as a meme in the unconscious mind of humanity, regardless of corporate control.
Z.
I was reading parent post and did a double-take, as what I got of it was:
...which in a way seemed to make total sense, there is a perverse part of myself that thinks that this is almost where we are headed.
"I can't wait until they realize that it's not worth it, and just stop concerning themselves with creating good movies, and instead focus full-time on copy-protecting their media."
Z.
There is much that has already been documented and guidelines exist to guarantee somehow the short to medium-term preservation of digital assets; this particular link is for audio-related digital assets, but data is all the same...!
A combination of multiple sets of magneto-optical and tape backups maintained in separate locations, all temperature and humidity-controlled environments should easily yield 25~30 years shelf life, which guarantees that by then we'll hopefully have found better long-term options to transfer these to.
I am transferring most of my 15 to 20-year old audio DAT tapes digitally with no problems. Good brand-name CD-R's (like Tayo-Yuden) kept out of the light and at a steady temperature seem fairly resilient so far, but there has been batches which over time have developed 'rot' or layer oxydation, which sometimes renders them partially or wholly unusable.
DLT tapes are so far the most trouble-free type of media I have encountered, but with only 10 years to go back on, not sure that is accurate.
Z.
Rigt before going to spec out a nice bunch of PC components on NewEgg and build a good box, I always pass by the Myth TV Users Mailing List to make sure that I get the most relevant and updated hardware necessary, and instead end up reading a sampling of the horror stories they go through, taking a few minutes to savor the different tortures one can be subjected to (video out of sync with audio, artifacts on certain channels, MySQL database corruption, NuvExport screws up, X breaks dependencies, and all the rest) and decide to wait another few weeks, certainly the new upcoming release will be much more reliable and user-friendly? And by the way, what happened to all of the things that were done during last year's Google's 'Summer Of Code' for Myth TV ? All the great features and enhancements that were worked on?
So I keep waiting, hoping that the next time I check the mailing list, their version of Matt Groening's Life In Hell have died down a bit....
Even though I am definitely doing a fair amount of Sys Admin duties on various distros, this is different, the killer part is what will happen when something screws up while I'm not around, and my wife gets mad because something didn't work, (provided I can even teach her to deal with all of these menus, options and the whole 'watching Live TV through Myth' syndrome) or my kid decides that he knows better and starts trying to hack the box himself in frustration....?
Surely the TiVo is an attractive box for the wife and kids, but with technology changing as rapidly as it has been, it is questionable whether to invest in such a product today, unless we were hard-core TV addicts, and could justify the cost as it would immediately be recouped.
Funnily enough, the most expedient thing I've ended up doing has been to identify the things I want to watch, and as a previous poster pointed out, just BitTorrent the shows in HD without commercials the next day, no matter where in the world I may be. (...and yes, it is sweet to download things at 10 Megs speed while in certain countries like Japan or Norway!!...LOL!)
Net result: I hardly EVER watch any TV whatsoever, and the few shows I care about can be watched on my laptop.
Well, I wish I had more time to tinker.... and still, major kudos to Jarod Wilson for having created this amazing open-source wonder. But as others have pointed out, for either of these two options, it's really going to all be about being able to have Myth TV interact with the CableCard slot, at least in major urban centers where cable companies rule the roost, and antenna reception is unwatchable!! The killer is that companies like Time Warner Cable are offering their own PVR deals, so they will make sure to lock anyone else out of the convenience until forced to do so by the FCC... Or that someone learns to hack the Firewire outputs of some of those new set-top decoders. Then you potentially still have HDCP to contend with. Oh, brother!! Brave new world !!
Z.
The above post describes my exact and honest thoughts on the matter of current US military expenditures.
So, for this pointless war in Iraq, and which our leaders have taken on with our tax $, there could have been the equivalent of ~ 500 + shuttle flights launched?
I rest my case.
Z.
As it may be, the people in charge of budgetary approval for the programs which put all of these RFID solutions
into place will steadfastly deny that anything is wrong until they are forced to do so, as agreeing that those are
potentially high security risks would otherwise equate it with having to backtrack on what they previously approved,
even though they were amply forewarned by many in the security-related field.
It's really about not losing face at any cost, lest people start questioning other methods they employ.
Human nature, really. Look no further than the voting machines controversy for parallels here in the US.
Z.
It goes without saying that for anyone gullible enough to think that they can get away with doing something like this under their real identity... (fill in the blanks)
This is the one time where I would categorically have advised to consult with an attorney beforehand, so that he could have understood the type of trouble he might be in for pointing this out the way he did, and releasing the software in the wild.
It really doesn't seem very smart to go about it headfirst like this, and he is paying for it now.
Maybe we need 'whistle-blower lawyers', or at least courses in responsible and perfectly safe whistle-blowing?
There has to be a better way to force the TSA to fix their flaws.
Z.
The danger of this being of course that it usually leads to - for example -shady operators using these 'pseudo-moralistic values' to justify totally screwing content creators and to make $$ at their expense.
Morality's line does seem very thin indeed, in more ways than one, as anyone but the truly obtuse usually realize that wars and conflict are 9 times out of 10 borne out of economic disparities that have roots in similar situations as the kind of wholesale rape AllOfMP3 was basically committing.....
Z.
There's no way that what Doug Morris is suggesting would ever be fair. (well, what is in the record industry?...)
:(
Many people put indie label stuff on their iPods, and much other unclassifiable music, why should Universal get some $$ and not other labels?
What will happen at this point is anyone's guess, but I would consider that Apple's dominance of the market makes it such that it could fight back.
Otherwise there will be no end to this slippery slope. Warner Bros, Sony/BMG, EMI and all the others will claim the same.
Then it'll be the turn of major indies to hit Apple for a piece of the pie.
Therefore I pray that Steve Jobs and Apple's board of directors will have the sanity and foresight to resist what could be a very sad precedent
for the nascent digital music marketplace.
Just as in the SCO / Linux case, this may be a watermark moment, one that will help forever define our future with regards to recorded music.
Doug Morris is only projecting his own frustrations and those of his company's shareholders, and barely clinging to his job due to the lackluster corporate
earning results for the last 3 quarters at Universal certainly gives him far more motivation to do the saber-rattling act to show what a tough negotiator he is.
(well, that and what evil plotters Micro$oft are for pursuing what some call a 'scorched-earth' policy, so that if Zune fails, they'll make sure everyone else
fails, or at least truly suffers along with them...)
In the current picture of the digital marketplace today, Universal stands to lose out far more than Apple by refusing to renew the license on the existing terms.
Actually, if you retrace Doug Morris' steps and read some recent quotes, (and unless I am mistaken) he was also the most vociferous one behind the concept
that one-size-fits-all pricing had to end, and that his top-tier new artists should get more per download than his deep catalog titles.
Therefore, an interpretation of this would be that this is posturing well in advance of Apple's contract renewal to establish that he will not settle for 'One Price - One Rate',
which Apple has so far been steadfast about. This particular point appears to be one which Apple will have to concede to keep their rights to the Universal catalog,
and wil lead to an inevitable industry-wide restructuring of how downloads are priced.
All joking aside, I really could care less if J-Lo and Britney Spears' downloads jump to $1.49, that in itself is a bit of a joke, but an acceptable one...
Some days I do feel extremely ahsamed and embarrassed for still being a part of what's left of the record business, and likely to be summarily judged as being in
cahoots with the rest of the vultures....Today is just one of those days.
Z.
What would it feel like to you if one day you got notice that this overseas online store decided to start selling your whole entire catalog to customers worldwide without any permission or consent whatsoever, made from dubious (and inferior) pirated sound sources, or at best ripped from CDs if those were even commercially available, as many of AllOfMP3's customers have come to realize once they start downloading the product? This is basically what was happening, as far as I gather these people already had another earlier site which got shut down, all they did is try and exploit loopholes in Russian and international law, and leverage this to hopefully legitimize their business model by sheer brute force.
There are several disturbing points which are not really made clearly by anyone yet, the first being that the type of income which is usually payed to ROMS (as someone already pointed out) is customarily made for the same types of payments that radio or TV stations make to the song's publishers when there is airplay, in other words some form of compulsory license which translates to a very low income figure usually set by that country's laws addressing public broadcast; this amount usually strictly only covers the publishing rights to a song. While this does (in theory) compensates the songwriters and publishers, it pays nothing whatsoever to the actual owners of the sound recording, who are not necessarily the same entities.
In most every country, radio and TV play does not usually compensate the owners of the sound recording either, but any sale to the public stipulates that the amount payable to the owner should be negotiated in good faith between the recording's owner and the selling entity. As far as I know, there is no country in the world where someone can walk off the street and decide to start selling your music legally for whatever price they feel, just because they have unilaterally decided to grant themselves that right.
The other part of this bit of 'truthiness' is that even if - so far - AllOfMP3 was able to skirt commonly accepted international trade practices by exploiting the murky Russian legal loopholes in question, there is no question that a number of keys point should have been respected on their part in order for them to maintain the type of legitimacy their recent PR-stunt 'email press conference' hinted they were trying to gain:
I well realize that similar things took places during the Gold Rush and at the time The West was
Actually, the site in question has a lot more satirical (and IT-oriented) funny stories.
Perhaps not on the BOFH level, but still they have some pretty witty stuff, like God Going After Bible Pirates, or Sony's Self-Destructing DVD Player(TM) Most of these skits are several years old, but still very relevant today.
. Thanks for posting this!
Z.
Yeah, I did an 'in-place' upgrade from 6.06 Dapper using the recommended method ( gksu "update-manager -c" ), and it was really, really smooth on a Core 2 Duo (but only running 32-bit mode) Sony VAIO laptop.
/home directories on a separate partition, so if things really "Go South", a relatively quick clean and full re-install can be performed with the user data and preferences left intact!...
The only thing that was problematic was the fact that all Flash sites would crash Firefox...! This was something which appears to have had to do with a setting in the xorg.conf file, I followed some tips as shown here, but doing the opposite and changing the value from 16 up to 24. Smooth sailing ever since!
There probably are some more exotic combinations of motherboards, graphic cards and disk arrays that will not be working great, but so far, so good here!!
One thing that is really working in case of disaster is to keep
Z.
I sincerely wish that this was something which could be solved so easily.
Your argument is interesting, but after further examination, somewhat akin to early Communist and Socialist economic models. It looks good on paper, but might not really manage to create a situation where many content creators would be motivated to do so, or even in a position where they could make the commitment of both time and resources necessary for them to come up with the music at the level of sophistication that a Peter Gabriel album does when it is conceived, written, played, recorded, produced, mixed and mastered. This in turn could lead to the kind of long-term and endemic paucity of outstanding creative works in a similar fashion to that which ended happening in the former Soviet Union with their economic policies.
There are far many more complex and entertwined issues to this dilemna, and while I wholeheartedly agree that current copyright issues are increasingly antiquated and will likely slowly disappear in their present form, there are many reasons why this particular approach will probably not be adopted as law. Mind you, the 'de facto' result at the street level today is already so completely out of hand, that it may make less and less of a difference anyway, as it has proven utterly impossible to police and regulate. Major Hip-Hop artists make no bones about selling bootleg 'mixtapes' by the bucketload as part of their viral marketing strategies, everyone and their sister can create instant mashups which besides being difficult to even recognize, make it utterly impossible for anyone to try and collect royalties from, so in a sense the result is pretty much the same. But consequently and already noticeable, many contemporary artists have reduced the amount of time they can afford to spend in the studio crafting recording masterpieces which no one will buy in great numbers, choosing to instead put out slighty more 'average' albums and dedicate their time and energies to performing live, which for many has proven to be a reliable way to help to pay the bills...
As a whole, it is quite flattering to see that someone like Peter Gabriel (who besides being a legendary performer, also has consistently tried to further his participation to the global music community, with his World Music festival (WOMAD), Real World recording studio complex, as well as through his record label which is supporting many great, unknown but talented artists.) doing something that few have dared to try in order to stay relevant. Kudos all the way!!
Z.
Well, what happened after Bill Clinton got demonized by the RayPooBlicans is that they got a good foothold on a way to discredit him and his legacy... They were looking for ANY angle to bring him down, as he had all the makings of a truly loved president. There was definitely a big contingent of middle-Americans who took offense to the fact that he did not appear to be willing to be brave enough to own up to it.
Forget for one moment all of the Tom DeLays, Enron-connected politicos, Jack Abramoff's and so on, we all know everyone is guilty of this, and those in power right now far more than they want to admit it.
But for whatever reason, and seeing how close the 2000 election was, I think that these denials on Clinton's part actually helped in securing Bush winning those elections instead of Gore. (The "He wouldn't lie to us, because he's one of us" - syndrome. )
Seeing the results of 6 years of Bush policies, one can therefore argue that Bill Clinton's 'truthiness' did in fact have a very big impact, including the number of lives lost in foreign wars, none of which would have happened with Gore in power.
So I think that the HP boardroom scandal isn't all that much besides a case of flagrant violations of civil liberties, or yet another textbook example of the privileged getting caught red-handed and yet still getting away with it.
Way to go, Hurd, maybe someone will start a 'Hall Of Shame' website like fuckedcompany.com was, but for politicians and CEOs?
Z.
One of the most notable being Bill Clinton's memorable "I Smoked Pot But I Didn't Inhale", closely followed by his Monica-and-cigar experiments.
Z.
What the scariest thing is with this type of settlement is that no one,absolutely no one seems to really know - or care - about what will happen to such a huge pile of money, and further that it probably will only go to enrich those who have major chart successes, their lawyers, or the IFPI itself (claiming it needs more $$ to fight piracy), rather than those copyright holders whose music was actually downloaded.
Of course, as with a major news organization such as the BBC, no need to wax philosophic on the actual real-world meaning and consequences of such actions, and the possible windfall (or lack thereof) to those who created the content in question. Rethorical question if you ask me.
Sort of like the "War On Terror(TM)"... By now everyone forgot why we are fighting it, as we are too involved in the day-to-day fighting to remember what it was supposed to be about.
Carry on lads, carry on....
Z.
I think I get it.
Since
-1) China takes great pains to make it obvious that they still consider Taiwan an integral part of their country.
-2) Taiwan is arguably responsible for such a huge amount of SPAM that they are considered the world's biggest offender
-3) China has finally decided to crack down on SPAM for real (or so they say).
The only logical route to really crack down on SPAM will be to invade Taiwan, and make sure to put those shady list operators under lock and key.
Q.E.D.
We've seen some more far-fetched scenarios to justify an invasion before, have we not....?
Z.
This was totally outrageous! Just as much of a newsworthy item as Janet's 'wardrobe malfunction'!(I couldn't sleep for 3 months after watching that one)!
It would be a crying shame that kids should be exposed to (Godless?) non-graphical but still titillating sex simulations.
It might detract from their training shooting hundreds of thousands of opponents, so that they can further be brainwashed into becoming our next batch of cannon fodder to send to Iraq or wherever else our glorious leaders will be "Bringing Freedom" to in the coming years.
The FTC is only performing its patriotic duty to keep kids in line for all the state-sanctioned killing they will have to do later on.
Although, as Dr Strangelove once pointed out, reproductive duties might also have to become state-sanctioned and even encouraged when population needs to be replenished due to a 'red button malfunction' in the Oval Orifice.
Z.
I would like to add my 2 cents to this.
Currently, there are a fair amount of songs I either produced, or composed available on AllOfMP3, without any permission, or a single penny of license fee, royalty or anything else being paid to the owners of the sound recording, the musical composition's writers, etc... How are the singers, producers, writers of all this music supposed to feel about it? Should we all be thrilled that these swindlers have found a way to perform another variation on the "MP three-card monte" ?
These guys used to have another site (the name escapes me right now) which was shut down for doing the same thing about 3 years ago, and although I would state that my position is very much to not have any DRM on the downloads you sell, as well as setting prices that are far more realistic than iTunes' monolithic approach, or even that no restrictions should be placed on personal use once you've purchased a song, please don't ask me to agree with the part where someone making an honest and decent living with music should get royally f*cked by a bunch of mob-allied Russian swindlers - or anyone else for that matter - who happen to be able to thumb their fingers the law from far away. The basic point of it is that although there probably is a loophole of some kind which allows sites such as this one to sell to the Russian market, I am equally sure that this twisting of the law would probably not apply to selling the same downloads from Russia to overseas customers if they tried to do things in a legitimate way.
For that matter, please let the artists and writers decide if they want to give their music away for free, but taking that right from them... that would seem pretty close to rape than anything else.
To give a bit of historical perspective on the shady operators behind this site, (if I am not mistaken) they are the same people who previously proceeded to put many independent labels' entire catalogs up online for downloads, and then, only then proceeded to contact the labels to ask for some sort of permission to sell the audio files they de facto already gave themselves the right to sell.
I know that online and on discussion groups such as this, the pseudo-libertarian approach is always a very trendy hat to wear, but I would venture to say that many of the very ones who are proselitizing this type of philosophy more often than not turn out to be real scrooges and cheapskates in real life, and one wonders how long this hypocritical stance will last. (probably as long as their line of business doesn't get victimized by the ever-changing technology that made all of these things possible?... When it does, they'll be singing the same song many in the music industry are singing now, but will probably reap just as little sympathy as they dispensed it themselves.)
As much as I loathe to see DRM rear its ugly head, it is become nonetheless a fact of life that in order not to have to deal with these two-faced champions of everything who expect creative works for free as long as it is not from something they personally made, (save the altruistic few) some types of solutions have to be put into place that put some element of fairness back into the picture. If someone slaves themselves silly for a year or more to produce an incredible record, I am not sure where it is written that anyone is entitled to take said recording (still nothing to do with the RIAA, which I am not a member of...) and either profit from it by offering it for sale yourself without that owner's consent, or anything similar. I don't really care to hear how everything should be for free, as long as you personally don't have to contribute anything; you'll eventually get affected by it. We all are, in one way or another.
This college-dorm attitude towards wholesale stealing can go on forever for all I care when talking about the drivel and tasteless manufactured pop crap like Britney Spears and her cohorts (which incidentally the RIAA seems to really
Obviously, the setting for this somehow has to first mention the way in which Steam (Valve?...) is dealing with content protection and distribution, a fact that many will possibly find intrusive; not sure how much I care, after all it is gaming we are talking about, and in order to protect their IP and assets, the company obviously has to take measures that foil the ever-expanding consequences of today's creative 'online-sharing', torrents and the likes, which should really saved be another debate. Suffice to say that in my personal case, I do not have any issues with this and happily paid $19.95 for the pre-load a week before the game came out.
Everyone obviously has likes and dislikes in the gaming world as much as in everything else, and while I simply do not have much interest in most of the other games this company or most others have to offer, (save for a couple of Counterstrike matches on a LAN) I do not remember ever being drawn into one as much as I did when I belatedly got into Half-Life 2 a year and a half ago. An avid Sci-Fi buff and Cyberpunk enthusiast, the original premise of the game struck a deeply resonating chord in me, one that no other game so far has managed to, as I have found most of them to be far too awkwardly simplistic, or just hard to get into.
The keyword here is immersive and what really got me was just how easy the game's developers had made it to fit yourself into Gordon Freeman's character. Again, not being a gaming maven who spends at least 6 hours a day in front of a console, it was a bit of a shock how HL2 got me hooked, like no other game ever did before. The attention paid to atmosphere and details makes for a very eerie experience, the 'Physics Engine' they use is really darn good, and without trying to start a flame war, I would in some levels tend to feel the same way about this particular franchise as I felt about George Lucas and Star Wars in the late 70's, which is to say pretty darn excited.
The gaming experience on this Episode One is nothing short of breathtaking. As others have mentioned, there are plenty of cute puzzles and new tricks to keep one guessing, the introduction of some new and welcome characters like those lovely grenade-wiedling Zombines, and after spending a leisurely two sessions playing through this in 'Normal' setting, must report that I feel just as elated as before with HL2, as I reached the climactic ending. Obviously, I cannot give the game a newcomer's look as HL's key-commands are tatooed in my synapses, but the flow was very natural, and it definitely felt like we all picked up where it left off the last time around....
There were no bugs that came to halt the otherwise smooth experience. Wish I had the necessary resources to experience the HDR effects, but it would appear that my laptop's graphic card is not capable of rendering it. Oh, well...
On the down side, I did find some of Alyx's scripted answers and come-ons a bit irritating after a while, as they tended to detract from an otherwise solid storyline, bt that's something I am willing to live with. The commentary is a pretty fine way to acquaint yourself with the finer points of game design if you so desire, and very unobtrusive.
But as in good wine, what matters most to me in the end is the aftertaste, and I must report that I - for one - cannot wait for the upcoming release of Episode Two later this year. I find that the episodic format suits this game pretty well, and as long as we know what to expect, do not find it offensive or bothersome.
So there you have it. A solid 8.5 at least, with a big grin on my face and plenty of other-worldly and futuristic inspiration. Fantastic game, well worth my or anyone's time.
Z.
Disclaimer: No, I do not work for Valve or any associated companies... after a game like this, I almost wish I did!! (LOL!)