You're right, of course. You've just stated much of what I was thinking more elequently that I could. As you said our system just makes it not worthwhile going after the little guy, who's harmed noone. Although the IIRC BPI did float the idea of acting like the **AA I've not seen anything come of it. And, to be blunt, the British press, loves an underdog, so if they started suing old grannies they would quickly lose credibility among the general public. I can see the Daily Mail headlines already.
Then considering the way this government reacts to headlines, perhaps we should hope the BPI tries somthing; Tony's (or maybe Gordon's) next speech would be on the terrorist evil that is copyright law.
Having said all that, I would like to see some clarification of the law (more case law?) in this area, just so we can see what exactly is allowed, and what isn't. Because there are many people (including myself) who just don't know what fair dealing allows and what it dosn't. My opinion is that my photocopying activities are inline with the government guidelines I posted eailer, but IANAL either.
Oh, I totally understand that our legislation is not as liberal as the American fair use doctrine, I was just pointing out that our courts (and hence case law) have tended to use some "common sense"* when it comes down to copyright. For example, I work in a children's library and we regularly photocopy images downloaded from the internet of popular cartoon characters and give them to kids to colour in. I don't see a British court prosecuting us for breech of copyright, as it's all non-profit, and dosn't impact on the Disney\Nickalodeon\Warner bros. etc.'s profits. If we were selling those picture's it would be a different matter of course.
*More specifically, what the general public consider comon sense. Trying to convinse them that down\uploading via any p2p network is actually benificial to record companies, as many here often do, wouldn't wash IMO
Basic things like format-shifting and other copying for strictly personal use are not currently included, for example.
Are you sure about that, the official guidelines don't seem to exclude them:
Fair dealing has been interpreted by the courts on a number of occasions by looking at the economic impact on the copyright owner of the use; where the economic impact is not significant, the use may count as fair dealing.
so whilst they may not be specifically included, I don't see a court prosecuting me, as I'm not exactly bancrupting the copyright holder by converting my CDs to mp3, and millions of people are doing it, and there are I havn't heard of any prosecutions.
The RIAA and MPAA have posted their official response: "....aaaaaaaAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"
Sitting here in the UK, my official reply to the RIAA & MPAA: So sue me. I remind you that despite our best efforts at being the 51st state, you still have no jurisdiction on this side of the Atlantic.
Isn't ThinkGeek also owned by OTSG (/.s parent company)? Perhaps they should have known about this before, since ThinkGeek has been selling it for ages, thus validating all the people above screaming "dupe".
For some reason, the top of my list (i.e. the first game into my head) came Joust, followed by Miner 2049er. Both of which I played on my Atari, as opposed to the C64, but I kow that they were available for the C64.
It also makes things difficult for adults who don't have a driver's license. I know one person who can't get a driver's license because of a problem with his eyesight. Because of this, he can't get access to some things because he can't show a driver's license for identification.
Any idea why it has to be a drivers licence? Here, most places ask for ID, they don't state what type of ID; a passport or uni campus card, for example, is usually more than good enough.
Or show ID to buy alcohol?
Here in the UK, You only need to do this if you look under 18 (legal drinking age), and the vendor requests it of you.(The vendor can get into trouble for selling alcohol to people underage)
And try to get by for a while without giving anyone your SSN.
I've only ever had to give my National Insurance(NI) Number (UK Equivalent of SSN) When either using government services (like appling for various benifits of our welfare state) or for tax reasons (apart from the government the only people who know my NI number are my employers)
I once had trouble buying pizza because I didn't want to give my telephone number, even though I was right there in the shop, paying with cash. WTF? I could understand if you had orderd a delivery, but why on earth did they need to know your phone number if you're in the shop paying by any means, cash or otherwise?
Re:I want to clarify a couple of things
on
The Wii Takes NYC
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· Score: 1
You never know, we may get a £150-£170 priced Wii yet, I'm keeping my fingers crossed and am just hoping that Nintendo dosn't pull the $1 == £1 trick.
Total $600, the same price as the PS3 with nothing extra.
Execpt those three games, and VC points (i.e a couple of retro games), and 4 or 5 more controllers than the PS3. Do you really consider that nothing? Or have I missed some subtle sarcasm?
*Note, I'm not a Nintendo Fanboy, but I do have a bias towards the Wii*
Same here, though my brother has been known to complain that my bias is reaching fanboy proportions.
Ok. I feel like I just wasted a lot of time subjecting my opinions on anyone who reads this. However, I did want to refute some of their bad counterpoints. The entire article was full of lame points that needed refuteing; not only that, but they contradicted themselfs more than once. It needed refuting, and I'm glad somone else did, so I did't have to. I'd really like to read a well written counterpoint article; that one just wasted 5mins of my life.
Personally I've got the PSone versions of C&C, C&C Red Alert, Civ II, and Dune 2000.
And by the way, Steam is a delivery system, not a game.
I've seen the Playstation versions of some of the games you mentioned, but they definatly don't play as well on console as they do on PC; having a point and click mouse is a definate help, and untill they start coming as standard with consoles, RTS and Civ games will remain on the PC for me.
PS. I know what steam is, but every steam game I've played is an FPS; I was using it as shorthand for those games, it makes more sence than listing CSS, DoD etc. seperately.
Everything else to this point seems better fit for a console.
What console is a "better fit" FOR Civ 4, Rome total War, the C&C series or any other RTS game and most decent FPS games (COD, Battlefield & Steam all play best on the PC)? PC gaming is far from dead in any of the afore mentioned generes; and they certainly arn't "better fit" to console gaming.
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You're right, of course. You've just stated much of what I was thinking more elequently that I could. As you said our system just makes it not worthwhile going after the little guy, who's harmed noone. Although the IIRC BPI did float the idea of acting like the **AA I've not seen anything come of it. And, to be blunt, the British press, loves an underdog, so if they started suing old grannies they would quickly lose credibility among the general public. I can see the Daily Mail headlines already.
Then considering the way this government reacts to headlines, perhaps we should hope the BPI tries somthing; Tony's (or maybe Gordon's) next speech would be on the terrorist evil that is copyright law.
Having said all that, I would like to see some clarification of the law (more case law?) in this area, just so we can see what exactly is allowed, and what isn't. Because there are many people (including myself) who just don't know what fair dealing allows and what it dosn't. My opinion is that my photocopying activities are inline with the government guidelines I posted eailer, but IANAL either.
Oh, I totally understand that our legislation is not as liberal as the American fair use doctrine, I was just pointing out that our courts (and hence case law) have tended to use some "common sense"* when it comes down to copyright. For example, I work in a children's library and we regularly photocopy images downloaded from the internet of popular cartoon characters and give them to kids to colour in. I don't see a British court prosecuting us for breech of copyright, as it's all non-profit, and dosn't impact on the Disney\Nickalodeon\Warner bros. etc.'s profits. If we were selling those picture's it would be a different matter of course.
*More specifically, what the general public consider comon sense. Trying to convinse them that down\uploading via any p2p network is actually benificial to record companies, as many here often do, wouldn't wash IMO
Are you sure about that, the official guidelines don't seem to exclude them:
so whilst they may not be specifically included, I don't see a court prosecuting me, as I'm not exactly bancrupting the copyright holder by converting my CDs to mp3, and millions of people are doing it, and there are I havn't heard of any prosecutions.
The RIAA and MPAA have posted their official response: "....aaaaaaaAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"
Sitting here in the UK, my official reply to the RIAA & MPAA: So sue me. I remind you that despite our best efforts at being the 51st state, you still have no jurisdiction on this side of the Atlantic.
Isn't ThinkGeek also owned by OTSG (/.s parent company)? Perhaps they should have known about this before, since ThinkGeek has been selling it for ages, thus validating all the people above screaming "dupe".
For some reason, the top of my list (i.e. the first game into my head) came Joust, followed by Miner 2049er. Both of which I played on my Atari, as opposed to the C64, but I kow that they were available for the C64.
Don't quote me, but IIRC MS licenced the rumble from Immersion, and Nintendo do it a different way, so aren't affected.
The Wii's controllers are wireles, and IIRC they have rumble.
Here in the UK shops are already taking pre-orders, and we launch after you in the states. (I wonder how many units we get).
I'm converting though... my daughter's PC will stay windows for a while until I can get educational...software working
Have you tried Edubuntu http://www.edubuntu.org/ ? I've not used it myself, but by all accounts it's quite good for that sort of stuff.
Read it again; it says refunds to a small group of customers; it dosn't mention the size of the refund (I misread it first too).
Why copy Microsoft's mistakes.
I think they are looking at it from the point of view of copying Mozilla's sucesses.
It also makes things difficult for adults who don't have a driver's license. I know one person who can't get a driver's license because of a problem with his eyesight. Because of this, he can't get access to some things because he can't show a driver's license for identification.
Any idea why it has to be a drivers licence? Here, most places ask for ID, they don't state what type of ID; a passport or uni campus card, for example, is usually more than good enough.
A large part of the UK population of 60,000,000 (sixty million)
Or show ID to buy alcohol?
Here in the UK, You only need to do this if you look under 18 (legal drinking age), and the vendor requests it of you.(The vendor can get into trouble for selling alcohol to people underage)
And try to get by for a while without giving anyone your SSN.
I've only ever had to give my National Insurance(NI) Number (UK Equivalent of SSN) When either using government services (like appling for various benifits of our welfare state) or for tax reasons (apart from the government the only people who know my NI number are my employers)
I once had trouble buying pizza because I didn't want to give my telephone number, even though I was right there in the shop, paying with cash.
WTF? I could understand if you had orderd a delivery, but why on earth did they need to know your phone number if you're in the shop paying by any means, cash or otherwise?
You never know, we may get a £150-£170 priced Wii yet, I'm keeping my fingers crossed and am just hoping that Nintendo dosn't pull the $1 == £1 trick.
I think that we'd rather have the pics... ;p
Fair enough, he could have been clearer, but I'm due my afternoon coffee as well ;p
This morning? I'm in the UK, it's 4:30 in the afternoon here, but yes; I am caffene deprived at the moment.
Total $600, the same price as the PS3 with nothing extra.
Execpt those three games, and VC points (i.e a couple of retro games), and 4 or 5 more controllers than the PS3. Do you really consider that nothing? Or have I missed some subtle sarcasm?
*Note, I'm not a Nintendo Fanboy, but I do have a bias towards the Wii*
Same here, though my brother has been known to complain that my bias is reaching fanboy proportions.
Ok. I feel like I just wasted a lot of time subjecting my opinions on anyone who reads this. However, I did want to refute some of their bad counterpoints.
The entire article was full of lame points that needed refuteing; not only that, but they contradicted themselfs more than once. It needed refuting, and I'm glad somone else did, so I did't have to. I'd really like to read a well written counterpoint article; that one just wasted 5mins of my life.
Personally, I agree; it's just I've seen so many debates on the ST vs SW subject, there's not much left to say, much like the PC vs Console debate.
Personally I've got the PSone versions of C&C, C&C Red Alert, Civ II, and Dune 2000. And by the way, Steam is a delivery system, not a game.
I've seen the Playstation versions of some of the games you mentioned, but they definatly don't play as well on console as they do on PC; having a point and click mouse is a definate help, and untill they start coming as standard with consoles, RTS and Civ games will remain on the PC for me.
PS. I know what steam is, but every steam game I've played is an FPS; I was using it as shorthand for those games, it makes more sence than listing CSS, DoD etc. seperately.
Everything else to this point seems better fit for a console.
What console is a "better fit" FOR Civ 4, Rome total War, the C&C series or any other RTS game and most decent FPS games (COD, Battlefield & Steam all play best on the PC)? PC gaming is far from dead in any of the afore mentioned generes; and they certainly arn't "better fit" to console gaming.
Star Trek vs Star Wars?