It was funny though how Meadow was talking about going into civil liberties law, and using her dad as an example of civil rights abuses. Even Tony looked embarrased when she said that his FBI arrests were civil rights issues. She wasn't trying to get away from evil, she just had her blinders on. She went into hiding with the family without question - the mob was trying to whack her dad and there was no whining about "why oh why do these people want to hurt you". It's just the way things are and she had long accepted it.
That was my first gut reaction in that instance too, though I'm not fully convinced the more I think about it. What kind of helped sell it for me was what happened to Phil. I kept thinking he didn't even know that he was being whacked - it just went black for him. If I was Tony I would have wanted Phil to know that he lost and I won - just give a him a slight moment of "oh crap!", then whack him. So it kind of made an impression on me that Phil had none of that, just black. So that was my first thought there at the end when it went black. (Actually it was my second thought, my first thought was that my Tivo was jacked.)
Other people have good arguments too, so I'm not sure.
"The high-profile cast of In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale -- Jason Statham, Ray Liotta, Ron Perlman, Leelee Sobieski, John Rhys-Davies, Matthew Lillard and Burt Reynolds
The big name actors made Bloodrayne seem even worse to me - I kept thinking what the fuck are you doing in this crappy movie?
And what are you even doing in this type of movie? I'm looking at you Michael Madsen. And you Michelle Rodriguez.
And the material they had to work with made them look like really lousy actors. What a disaster.
Yeah, the interview was not really too insightful. A lot of repeating of stuff found in their own marketing materials without adding any more to it or going into any better detail.
Dude, I only mentioned DRM to explain to someone that it was not what I was talking about. I'm sorry that it is not some hot button, emotional issue for me, but it is not. All of my posts were about people's attitude towards using copied files versus paying for them and the possible consequences if this became too prevalent. I was mainly talking about people using P2P/Bittorrent to get files for free rather than pay for them. DRM really has nothing to do with this.
"Not properly secured" was a reference to people feeling free to use someone else's wifi, and I used it to express the general attitude of many college students in justifying their actions in the realm of all things digital. The point is that this attitude is significant and could have future implications BECAUSE all these files online cannot be secured; it was implicit to my point that these files could not be secured, not that we should try better to secure them. That's why I kept talking about attitudes and not DRM.
Just because I consider DRM irrelevant to my point does not mean that I support it. Just because I'm not taking every opportunity to attack it does not mean I am defending it. Just because I support copyrights does not mean that I support DRM. If DRM ever stopped me from making a legitimate copy of a CD, then I would be pissed. But right now it is not that emotional of an issue for me, and I will talk about something else since there are plenty of people smarter than myself (like Jeremy Allison, the article's author) that can explain the problems with DRM.
>>DRM software no more has bugs than a Perpetual Motion machine has bugs.
>>Is it ethical to be a professional Perpetual Motion Machine engineer?
I don't know. It depends on the situation.
DRM only has to be effective for the purposes of the client, it doesn't have to go against physical law. Maybe the client only wants a solution to keep the casual, non-tech user from sharing files with his friends. An effective DRM solution, in terms of the client's needs, is certainly possible. An outsider can only guess what people employing DRM truly want and expect in terms of outcomes.
Years ago I was involved with some software that used a commercially available hardware dongle for copy protection (aka DRM). In our case DRM was 100% successful. You can't make blanket statements about DRM being impossible, when there are many, many instances that would disprove this in practice. You can call the company that produced the dongles unethical all you want because it might be technically impossible for their DRM scheme to be 100% effective all the time, but they have been around forever making millions of dollars from many satisfied customers.
Whatever. His main point was that DRM was screwing over the legitimate user so I used the term "defective DRM" in passing, because again, *I* was not wanting to talk about DRM and was trying to sum up his point concisely so that I could get back to my own point. DRM is not *intended* to piss off the legitimate user so I used the word "defective". He said DRM was defective, and I called it defective DRM. Sue me. Ignore what I am saying and pick the specific adjective or adjective placement that annoys you and go on a tirade about it. That will convince people your point is reasoned and well thought out and not some sort of knee-jerk reaction invoking the party line.
>>You are falsely saying (or at least directly implying) that there is (or at least could be) some other sort of DRM that was not defective and not have that general problem.
>>The bottled water companies do not seem to have a problem turning a profit despite the availability of free alternatives.
Exactly. It is all marketing, and they deserve every dime if they can convince people that their water is better and get them to pay for it.
The record industry is the same. They have convinced quite a bit of people to demand their particular artists instead of the huge supply of legitamely free music available.
The difference is that some people have been convinced that yes, the record industry artists are better and we want, nay demand, their music, but we are not going to pay for it unless the industry can figure out a way from preventing us from just taking it.
The bottled water industry is profitable because they built up demand and while controlling supply of their product. If the music industry loses too much control of supply, then there won't be enough profit to sustain it. Why spend millions making everybody want NSYNC if you can't make a profit off this demand.
>>It would be much better if a full screen window popped up and said "Your computer is not broken...
That would require you to build DRM capability into every device to recognize that it is in fact DRM...is that what you really want?
I get it. You don't like DRM, especially when it messes up. My original post was in response to someone who said plenty of people pay for content even though they could get it for free. I wondered if this will remain true if the next generation carries forth a belief that there is no need to pay for it if they can get it for free.
You then posted that I was wrong about the younger generation, something about I was saying something like "if it is locked then it is wrong". That is not what I said. I actually said if it is digital and it is not locked, then they have no problem taking it. I don't think there is much moral judgment involved, other than to make excuses for their actions.
I wasn't sure how the rest of your post about defective DRM related to this, but you did say your family members never think about whether it was right or wrong, which is similar to the attitude of many of the college kids I was talking about who download everything off P2P/Bittorrent. I know you wanted to talk about defective DRM, but that was not what I was talking about and so tried to steer the discussion back, especially since you said I was totally wrong about the attitudes of the college students. I asked about your family member's attitudes toward sharing files to see if it really was much different than what I said about college students - does she even care what she agreed to with iTunes, and is DRM the prime factor in preventing her from sharing her files with others. (Also, the lack of mp3s might just mean she's not technically proficient enought to obtain them via P2P/Bittorrent)
I agree 13 is probably too young to understand these issues, but I kind of disagree about a technological solution. At this age it should probably be a parenting solution. It is the perfect opportunity to explain copyright and licensing issues.
You can make a good movie on a low budget, and you can make a terrible movie on a big budget, but in general there will be a shift to lower quality movies with smaller budgets. Made-for-tv and direct-to-DVD movies are GENERALLY of less quality and use less production values than theatrical releases.
The original poster was claiming that it was unethical to even attempt to engineer software unless total success was expected (and presumably could be guaranteed).
I think people should try for bug-free software, but I don't think it is unethical for them to try if they are not sure they can do it.
It is hard to say whether or not iTunes profit is just part of a shift from CD to internet model. Music sales in general have gone down, for whatever reason. Maybe more people will discover P2P/bittorrent as more and more embrace the internet model.
Media producers would suffer too. The quality of movies would go down with production budgets.
Ultimately there will be less "art" because some of the artists will be too busy making a living to worry about producing art. Less might mean more quality, but it is hard to say.
I was questioning whether the business model is sustainable if the population shifts to more and more people willing to just use bit torrent instead of paying (and if people decide to share their files with friends as iTunes and others go DRM-free.)
>>At no point does "right vs wrong" enter into the thought process.
I was thinking in terms of bit torrent, unsecured wifi, etc... My wife works with a guy right out of college who drives a Lexus, but laughs at her for buying children's DVD's off ebay when she could just download them for free.
DRM is intended to prevent you from sharing with all your friends. Does your family member think it is okay to share iTunes songs with other people? That they can't, is that a computer error or a violation of their user agreement?
There is a huge amount of legitamely free music available out there right now, so the collapse of the record industry would be no big deal. The only value the industry does impart is marketing and pre-screening to make sure you don't have to wade through a bunch of American Idol wannabees.
The movie industry would be a different situation though. If people were not willing to pay even the $1 rental rate they can get now, then the quality of movies will suffer. Production values will be crap. Most movies will be of the "made-for-tv" quality. Think Lifetime movies and those produced by the Sci-Fi channel.
>>It seems to me that an engineer who, knowing that it is impossible to create a DRM system that does what it is supposed to do, nevertheless accepts an assignment to create one, is implicitly claiming competence he or she does not possess and is in violation of this point.
All software can be hacked. All software has bugs. People just have an expectation that it performs at a certain level. Should everybody working on operating systems be deemed incompetent because there are still security issues?
>>It has become very clear, that people will pay for content, even when that content can be had for free.
>>iTune has sold over 2.5Billion tracks, all of which can be found for free.
The question is will enough people be willing to pay for it to make it a viable business model. The big problem is that there is an entire generation of college kids that think everything digital is free for the taking unless it is properly secured, and if it is not properly secured then it is basically an invitation to take it.
Most college kids don't have the money to spend on something anyway so it doesn't affect the business model much now, but if they keep this attitude as they grow older and replace the people willing to pay, then there will be a problem.
There is a lot of non "industrialized" music out there, people just seem to want the industrialized music more.
We could get by fine without a large-scale music industry, but probably not without a large-scale TV and motion picture industry. The production values would be crap. Especially in sci-fi.
>>I'm not sure I see the utility of this. If you want to cancel something you just click to uncheck the checkbox you just clicked, or move the slider back where it was before, or whatever.
Never used a Mac, so I might be mistaking what is being said, but...what if you changed something by accident, but you are not sure what you changed. Revert or undo would solve the problem as well.
My perspective is a little different because I am the person that gets asked for help rather than the one doing the asking. Most people who have asked me for help usually have alternates they turn to if I'm not available, so it seems like there is a lot of help available for the average user.
The advantage to being able to figure out Windows when needed is there is a bigger base of people willing to buy you a bottle of scotch for helping out.
Slashdot Mirror
It was funny though how Meadow was talking about going into civil liberties law, and using her dad as an example of civil rights abuses. Even Tony looked embarrased when she said that his FBI arrests were civil rights issues. She wasn't trying to get away from evil, she just had her blinders on. She went into hiding with the family without question - the mob was trying to whack her dad and there was no whining about "why oh why do these people want to hurt you". It's just the way things are and she had long accepted it.
>>I always thought that the "stuff that matters" actually mattered - like rights...
Not too many rights issues apply to white, middle-class males with excellent job outlooks, so the articles become pretty redundant after a while...
That was my first gut reaction in that instance too, though I'm not fully convinced the more I think about it. What kind of helped sell it for me was what happened to Phil. I kept thinking he didn't even know that he was being whacked - it just went black for him. If I was Tony I would have wanted Phil to know that he lost and I won - just give a him a slight moment of "oh crap!", then whack him. So it kind of made an impression on me that Phil had none of that, just black. So that was my first thought there at the end when it went black. (Actually it was my second thought, my first thought was that my Tivo was jacked.)
Other people have good arguments too, so I'm not sure.
>>So, are they really automatically matching the monster levels to the player level?
No.
The big name actors made Bloodrayne seem even worse to me - I kept thinking what the fuck are you doing in this crappy movie?
And what are you even doing in this type of movie? I'm looking at you Michael Madsen. And you Michelle Rodriguez.
And the material they had to work with made them look like really lousy actors. What a disaster.
Yeah, the interview was not really too insightful. A lot of repeating of stuff found in their own marketing materials without adding any more to it or going into any better detail.
Dude, I only mentioned DRM to explain to someone that it was not what I was talking about. I'm sorry that it is not some hot button, emotional issue for me, but it is not. All of my posts were about people's attitude towards using copied files versus paying for them and the possible consequences if this became too prevalent. I was mainly talking about people using P2P/Bittorrent to get files for free rather than pay for them. DRM really has nothing to do with this.
"Not properly secured" was a reference to people feeling free to use someone else's wifi, and I used it to express the general attitude of many college students in justifying their actions in the realm of all things digital. The point is that this attitude is significant and could have future implications BECAUSE all these files online cannot be secured; it was implicit to my point that these files could not be secured, not that we should try better to secure them. That's why I kept talking about attitudes and not DRM.
Just because I consider DRM irrelevant to my point does not mean that I support it. Just because I'm not taking every opportunity to attack it does not mean I am defending it. Just because I support copyrights does not mean that I support DRM. If DRM ever stopped me from making a legitimate copy of a CD, then I would be pissed. But right now it is not that emotional of an issue for me, and I will talk about something else since there are plenty of people smarter than myself (like Jeremy Allison, the article's author) that can explain the problems with DRM.
>>DRM software no more has bugs than a Perpetual Motion machine has bugs.
>>Is it ethical to be a professional Perpetual Motion Machine engineer?
I don't know. It depends on the situation.
DRM only has to be effective for the purposes of the client, it doesn't have to go against physical law. Maybe the client only wants a solution to keep the casual, non-tech user from sharing files with his friends. An effective DRM solution, in terms of the client's needs, is certainly possible. An outsider can only guess what people employing DRM truly want and expect in terms of outcomes.
Years ago I was involved with some software that used a commercially available hardware dongle for copy protection (aka DRM). In our case DRM was 100% successful. You can't make blanket statements about DRM being impossible, when there are many, many instances that would disprove this in practice. You can call the company that produced the dongles unethical all you want because it might be technically impossible for their DRM scheme to be 100% effective all the time, but they have been around forever making millions of dollars from many satisfied customers.
Whatever. His main point was that DRM was screwing over the legitimate user so I used the term "defective DRM" in passing, because again, *I* was not wanting to talk about DRM and was trying to sum up his point concisely so that I could get back to my own point. DRM is not *intended* to piss off the legitimate user so I used the word "defective". He said DRM was defective, and I called it defective DRM. Sue me. Ignore what I am saying and pick the specific adjective or adjective placement that annoys you and go on a tirade about it. That will convince people your point is reasoned and well thought out and not some sort of knee-jerk reaction invoking the party line.
>>You are falsely saying (or at least directly implying) that there is (or at least could be) some other sort of DRM that was not defective and not have that general problem.
Whatever. His
>>The bottled water companies do not seem to have a problem turning a profit despite the availability of free alternatives.
Exactly. It is all marketing, and they deserve every dime if they can convince people that their water is better and get them to pay for it.
The record industry is the same. They have convinced quite a bit of people to demand their particular artists instead of the huge supply of legitamely free music available.
The difference is that some people have been convinced that yes, the record industry artists are better and we want, nay demand, their music, but we are not going to pay for it unless the industry can figure out a way from preventing us from just taking it.
The bottled water industry is profitable because they built up demand and while controlling supply of their product. If the music industry loses too much control of supply, then there won't be enough profit to sustain it. Why spend millions making everybody want NSYNC if you can't make a profit off this demand.
>>It would be much better if a full screen window popped up and said "Your computer is not broken...
That would require you to build DRM capability into every device to recognize that it is in fact DRM...is that what you really want?
I get it. You don't like DRM, especially when it messes up. My original post was in response to someone who said plenty of people pay for content even though they could get it for free. I wondered if this will remain true if the next generation carries forth a belief that there is no need to pay for it if they can get it for free.
You then posted that I was wrong about the younger generation, something about I was saying something like "if it is locked then it is wrong". That is not what I said. I actually said if it is digital and it is not locked, then they have no problem taking it. I don't think there is much moral judgment involved, other than to make excuses for their actions.
I wasn't sure how the rest of your post about defective DRM related to this, but you did say your family members never think about whether it was right or wrong, which is similar to the attitude of many of the college kids I was talking about who download everything off P2P/Bittorrent. I know you wanted to talk about defective DRM, but that was not what I was talking about and so tried to steer the discussion back, especially since you said I was totally wrong about the attitudes of the college students. I asked about your family member's attitudes toward sharing files to see if it really was much different than what I said about college students - does she even care what she agreed to with iTunes, and is DRM the prime factor in preventing her from sharing her files with others. (Also, the lack of mp3s might just mean she's not technically proficient enought to obtain them via P2P/Bittorrent)
I agree 13 is probably too young to understand these issues, but I kind of disagree about a technological solution. At this age it should probably be a parenting solution. It is the perfect opportunity to explain copyright and licensing issues.
You can make a good movie on a low budget, and you can make a terrible movie on a big budget, but in general there will be a shift to lower quality movies with smaller budgets. Made-for-tv and direct-to-DVD movies are GENERALLY of less quality and use less production values than theatrical releases.
The original poster was claiming that it was unethical to even attempt to engineer software unless total success was expected (and presumably could be guaranteed).
I think people should try for bug-free software, but I don't think it is unethical for them to try if they are not sure they can do it.
It is hard to say whether or not iTunes profit is just part of a shift from CD to internet model. Music sales in general have gone down, for whatever reason. Maybe more people will discover P2P/bittorrent as more and more embrace the internet model.
Media producers would suffer too. The quality of movies would go down with production budgets.
Ultimately there will be less "art" because some of the artists will be too busy making a living to worry about producing art. Less might mean more quality, but it is hard to say.
I was questioning whether the business model is sustainable if the population shifts to more and more people willing to just use bit torrent instead of paying (and if people decide to share their files with friends as iTunes and others go DRM-free.)
>>At no point does "right vs wrong" enter into the thought process.
I was thinking in terms of bit torrent, unsecured wifi, etc... My wife works with a guy right out of college who drives a Lexus, but laughs at her for buying children's DVD's off ebay when she could just download them for free.
DRM is intended to prevent you from sharing with all your friends. Does your family member think it is okay to share iTunes songs with other people? That they can't, is that a computer error or a violation of their user agreement?
There is a huge amount of legitamely free music available out there right now, so the collapse of the record industry would be no big deal. The only value the industry does impart is marketing and pre-screening to make sure you don't have to wade through a bunch of American Idol wannabees.
The movie industry would be a different situation though. If people were not willing to pay even the $1 rental rate they can get now, then the quality of movies will suffer. Production values will be crap. Most movies will be of the "made-for-tv" quality. Think Lifetime movies and those produced by the Sci-Fi channel.
>>It seems to me that an engineer who, knowing that it is impossible to create a DRM system that does what it is supposed to do, nevertheless accepts an assignment to create one, is implicitly claiming competence he or she does not possess and is in violation of this point.
All software can be hacked. All software has bugs. People just have an expectation that it performs at a certain level. Should everybody working on operating systems be deemed incompetent because there are still security issues?
>>It has become very clear, that people will pay for content, even when that content can be had for free.
>>iTune has sold over 2.5Billion tracks, all of which can be found for free.
The question is will enough people be willing to pay for it to make it a viable business model. The big problem is that there is an entire generation of college kids that think everything digital is free for the taking unless it is properly secured, and if it is not properly secured then it is basically an invitation to take it.
Most college kids don't have the money to spend on something anyway so it doesn't affect the business model much now, but if they keep this attitude as they grow older and replace the people willing to pay, then there will be a problem.
The author's photo made it look like HE thought it was hilarious...
Or maybe the Star Trek references were lowest common demoninator enough to get modded "hilarious" rather than "off-topic".
There is a lot of non "industrialized" music out there, people just seem to want the industrialized music more.
We could get by fine without a large-scale music industry, but probably not without a large-scale TV and motion picture industry. The production values would be crap. Especially in sci-fi.
>>I'm not sure I see the utility of this. If you want to cancel something you just click to uncheck the checkbox you just clicked, or move the slider back where it was before, or whatever.
Never used a Mac, so I might be mistaking what is being said, but...what if you changed something by accident, but you are not sure what you changed. Revert or undo would solve the problem as well.
My perspective is a little different because I am the person that gets asked for help rather than the one doing the asking. Most people who have asked me for help usually have alternates they turn to if I'm not available, so it seems like there is a lot of help available for the average user.
The advantage to being able to figure out Windows when needed is there is a bigger base of people willing to buy you a bottle of scotch for helping out.