Ah, thanks for enlightening me. I figured it was either a bug or part of the lameness filter. (Breaking up long words to stop the page-widening trolls.)
Since consumers have a choice as to what their purchases (particularly entertainment purchases), all consumers' purchase decisions influence the marketplace. Do wealthy people have more influence in this way? Maybe, but I doubt that it is nefarious. Is it unfair? Maybe. Is it any less valid of a concept? I do not believe so.
It's also worth noting that a single person can only absorb so much culture. Sure, Bill Gates could afford to download every single song on iTunes, but when is he going to listen to them all? The same goes for CDs and DVDs. Most people only buy what they can use, hence the top ten percent's votes won't overpower everyone else's, except maybe in the luxury yatch industry.
However, I do see a lot of people giving up their votes. If you copy a dvd or cd instead of buying an original, not only are you denying the artist(s) whatever small sliver of profit they're entitled to, you're not telling the industry that you want to see more from the same artist(s). So even if you copy the latest mainstream crappy stuff, please try to buy the innovative, original stuff.
It does? it doesn't cost me anything except time to scan books and save them in PDF, bitmap or text format.
How much is your time worth? =P
Granted, it doesn't take much of your time if you have a scanner with a feeder and are willing to cut the book's spine off, but I think most people still prefer reading a physical copy. Things might be different if cheap tablets or non-sucky ebook readers were available.
Microsoft sabotaging their own code? Isn't that a little redundant? Just release security patches for the stripped-down version six months after the full version gets them.
why? because they're a news organization. they get money from selling the stories(and associated photos), not from giving them away for free so that another organization can get the ad revenue as well without paying them anything.
Excuse me? Google News is a free service, with no ads whatsoever. As others have pointed out, the only ones to lose revenue from this will be the AFP.
Inventors: Ford; Peter S. (Carnation, WA);Bahl; Pradeep (Redmond, WA);Khaki; Jawad Mohamed J. (Redmond, WA);Burns; Greg (Carnation, WA);Beeson; Frank J. (Seattle, WA)
Abstract: A method and computer product for automatically generating an IP network address that facilitates simplified network connection and administration for small-scale IP networks without IP address servers, such as those found in a small business or home network environment. First, a proposed IP address is generated by selecting a network identifying portion (sometimes known as an IP network prefix) while deterministically generating the host identifying portion based on information available to the IP host. For example, the IEEE 802 Ethernet address found in the network interface card may be used with a deterministic hashing function to generate the host identifying portion of the IP address. Next, the generated IP address is tested on the network to assure that no existing IP host is using that particular IP address. If the generated IP address already exists, then a new IP address is generated, otherwise, the IP host will use the generated IP address to communicate over the network. While using the generated IP address, if an IP address server subsequently becomes available, the host will conform to IP address server protocols for receiving an assigned IP address and gradually cease using the automatically generated IP address.
Assignee: Microsoft Corporation (Redmond, WA) Application Number: 57135 Filing Date: April 8, 1998 Publication Date: August 8, 2000
Claims:
What is claimed and desired to be secured by United States Letters Patent is:
1. In a host that has been connected to a network that does not have an IP address server and is not connected with any network having an IP address server, a method for automatically generating an IP address for the host, without another component of the network being required to transmit, to the host over the network, an IP address of said other component, the method comprising the steps of:
without the host having received over the network any IP address of another component of the network, selecting a valid network identifying value as a network identifying portion of the IP address for the host;
without the host having received over the network said any IP address of another component of the network, generating a host identifying portion of the IP address for the host based on information available to the host;
and testing the generated IP address for the host for conflicting usage by another host on the network and determining that no conflicting usage of the generated IP address exists.
2. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the network identifying portion of the generated IP address is chosen to be 10.
3. A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising the steps of: determining that an IP address server is not present prior to selecting the network identifying portion of the IP address; and ascertaining if an IP address server later becomes present over the network.
4. A method as recited in claim 3, further comprising the steps of: assigning an IP address from the IP address server to the host when an IP address server is available over the IP network; and immediately discontinuing use of the generated IP address when an assigned IP address is received from an IP address server available over the network.
5. A method as recited in claim 3, further comprising the steps of: assigning an address from the IP address server to the host when an IP address server is available over the network; and gradually discontinuing use of the generated IP address when an assigned IP address is received from an IP address server available over the network.
6. A method as recited in claim 3, further comprising the step of assigning an IP address from the IP address server to the host
When you buy a song on iTunes, you aren't buying the song itself. You are buying a license to use the song in particular ways, governed by the license.
Which is why I'll never buy a song on iTunes. Or Napster. Or any other DRMed service. It should be called "iTunes License Service", not "iTunes Music Service".
Books don't contain any DRM, yet it is still illegal to photocopy entire books and distribute the copies to all of your friends. Most people consider this unethical as well.
What you're saying is true, but it's a poor example. It costs more for you and I to copy a book than to buy a second copy.
Why is music different?
It's not. Don't assume that someone who wants DRM-free music wants to share it. I just want to be able to listen to music using the hardware and software of my choice. CDs still cost less than DRMed services like iTunes if you value freedom.
I admit that I don't have an N-gage, but I cringe every time I see that damn vertical screen. It's a very, very, very bad design choice. And it's something that would be relatively easy to fix, too. Just put a normal frickin' screen on the next N-gage, and give users the option to either center or stretch the image when playing old games!
If it were made blatantly clear when you purchased a song from the iTMS that YOUR NAME and ACCOUNT NUMBER were embedded into the file (just like a license plate on a car), I would certainly think twice about sharing that file on a P2P network.
Time to fire up the ol' hex editor!
Parent is insightful? The mods are on crack!
on
iTunes DRM Hole Closed
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I would prefer that a few bad DVD John-like people not ruin it for me.
WTF? Last time I checked, all Jon (there's no 'h' in his name) wants to do is watch dvds and listen to music purchased via iTunes on his Linux box. What Jon has done is indeed illegal in some countries (more extreme/. members would call them corporate states), but I don't think that any honest person can say it's unethical.
It's really quite simple. If you buy something, you can do whatever the hell you want with it, so long as your actions don't harm anyone. Don't give me that "indirect harm" bullshit, either. I'd give you ground if we were talking about releasing the plans for building an antimatter bomb, but not for something so inconsequential as circumventing DRM and copy protection.
I can't wait to get a Pentium M CPU and board and whack a great big P4 heatsink on it with a very slow (or no) fan. Just can't accept the noise that's required to cool these P4 chips.
Get a Zalman flower cooler. Zero noise. Then you'll want to get a quiet PSU and a fanless heatsink for your graphics card.
I can't see 20% of kids with PS2's or Gamecubes cracking games... Is it really that easy?
The study only dealt with the PS2 and Xbox. End-users simply cannot copy Gamecube games, because of the proprietary disc format. It is possible to load games from a PC using the ethernet adaptor, but very, very, very, very few people bother with that.
While the parent may be indirectly supporting consoles, remember that Microsoft sells the Xbox at a loss. (Even at the $300 pricepoint they were below cost, if all the hearsay was true.)
Now look at the Xbox Next. Instead of a 700Mhz Celeron, it's gonna have a 3Ghz, triple-core PPC chip. These will not be cheap to produce. Can you imagine how much Microsoft will lose on each unit?
The Final Solution to the Microsoft problem should now be obvious. If each and every one of us buys an Xbox Next and no games, we will bankrupt Microsoft. I'm not advocating copyright infringement. I doubt the launch games will be worth duping. Just throw it in a closet and dust it off when someone figures out how to run Linux on it.
Will we have an option to install to the HD? I don't know about you, but I don't want to hear my optical drive going "raaaar-rrrrAAAARRR-RRRRRRRRAAAARRRR!!!" every time I start a game or change levels. (Yeah, it's a cheap drive. So sue me.)
What kind of copy protection will be used? Is this really just a scheme to prevent people from playing with duped cds, or installing a game and passing the cd on to a friend?
What about patches? Do they really expect every game to be perfect when it goes gold? I think that'd be a pretty tough sell for most publishers and developers right now...
Finally, this *is* 2005, not 1995. Hard disks are big. There's no reason not to install to the hard disk. The only thing that I can see frustrating consumers right now is multiple-disc installs. (Publishers, please use a frickin' dvd instead of two, three, or more cds.)
Installing an average game does take a few minutes, but the payoff is much, much shorter load times. Given the choice of spending five or ten minutes installing a game or having load times "under a minute" (read: up to 59 seconds) every time its played, I think consumers would choose to install it.
Slashdot Mirror
1 human == $7 million
But it's worth half that once you drive it off the lot.
About a fifth of my customers say "Leighman", "Lamar", or "Linux" when they mean "Lexmark". :-\
Ah, thanks for enlightening me. I figured it was either a bug or part of the lameness filter. (Breaking up long words to stop the page-widening trolls.)
Fixed link.
Stupid slashcode.
Since consumers have a choice as to what their purchases (particularly entertainment purchases), all consumers' purchase decisions influence the marketplace. Do wealthy people have more influence in this way? Maybe, but I doubt that it is nefarious. Is it unfair? Maybe. Is it any less valid of a concept? I do not believe so.
It's also worth noting that a single person can only absorb so much culture. Sure, Bill Gates could afford to download every single song on iTunes, but when is he going to listen to them all? The same goes for CDs and DVDs. Most people only buy what they can use, hence the top ten percent's votes won't overpower everyone else's, except maybe in the luxury yatch industry.
However, I do see a lot of people giving up their votes. If you copy a dvd or cd instead of buying an original, not only are you denying the artist(s) whatever small sliver of profit they're entitled to, you're not telling the industry that you want to see more from the same artist(s). So even if you copy the latest mainstream crappy stuff, please try to buy the innovative, original stuff.
It does? it doesn't cost me anything except time to scan books and save them in PDF, bitmap or text format.
How much is your time worth? =P
Granted, it doesn't take much of your time if you have a scanner with a feeder and are willing to cut the book's spine off, but I think most people still prefer reading a physical copy. Things might be different if cheap tablets or non-sucky ebook readers were available.
Microsoft sabotaging their own code? Isn't that a little redundant? Just release security patches for the stripped-down version six months after the full version gets them.
"Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!"
why? because they're a news organization. they get money from selling the stories(and associated photos), not from giving them away for free so that another organization can get the ad revenue as well without paying them anything. Excuse me? Google News is a free service, with no ads whatsoever. As others have pointed out, the only ones to lose revenue from this will be the AFP.
Inventors: Ford; Peter S. (Carnation, WA);Bahl; Pradeep (Redmond, WA);Khaki; Jawad Mohamed J. (Redmond, WA);Burns; Greg (Carnation, WA);Beeson; Frank J. (Seattle, WA)
Abstract: A method and computer product for automatically generating an IP network address that facilitates simplified network connection and administration for small-scale IP networks without IP address servers, such as those found in a small business or home network environment. First, a proposed IP address is generated by selecting a network identifying portion (sometimes known as an IP network prefix) while deterministically generating the host identifying portion based on information available to the IP host. For example, the IEEE 802 Ethernet address found in the network interface card may be used with a deterministic hashing function to generate the host identifying portion of the IP address. Next, the generated IP address is tested on the network to assure that no existing IP host is using that particular IP address. If the generated IP address already exists, then a new IP address is generated, otherwise, the IP host will use the generated IP address to communicate over the network. While using the generated IP address, if an IP address server subsequently becomes available, the host will conform to IP address server protocols for receiving an assigned IP address and gradually cease using the automatically generated IP address.
Assignee: Microsoft Corporation (Redmond, WA)
Application Number: 57135
Filing Date: April 8, 1998
Publication Date: August 8, 2000
Claims:
What is claimed and desired to be secured by United States Letters Patent is:
1. In a host that has been connected to a network that does not have an IP address server and is not connected with any network having an IP address server, a method for automatically generating an IP address for the host, without another component of the network being required to transmit, to the host over the network, an IP address of said other component, the method comprising the steps of:
without the host having received over the network any IP address of another component of the network, selecting a valid network identifying value as a network identifying portion of the IP address for the host;
without the host having received over the network said any IP address of another component of the network, generating a host identifying portion of the IP address for the host based on information available to the host;
and testing the generated IP address for the host for conflicting usage by another host on the network and determining that no conflicting usage of the generated IP address exists.
2. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the network identifying portion of the generated IP address is chosen to be 10.
3. A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising the steps of: determining that an IP address server is not present prior to selecting the network identifying portion of the IP address; and ascertaining if an IP address server later becomes present over the network.
4. A method as recited in claim 3, further comprising the steps of: assigning an IP address from the IP address server to the host when an IP address server is available over the IP network; and immediately discontinuing use of the generated IP address when an assigned IP address is received from an IP address server available over the network.
5. A method as recited in claim 3, further comprising the steps of: assigning an address from the IP address server to the host when an IP address server is available over the network; and gradually discontinuing use of the generated IP address when an assigned IP address is received from an IP address server available over the network.
6. A method as recited in claim 3, further comprising the step of assigning an IP address from the IP address server to the host
Which is why I'll never buy a song on iTunes. Or Napster. Or any other DRMed service. It should be called "iTunes License Service", not "iTunes Music Service".
Books don't contain any DRM, yet it is still illegal to photocopy entire books and distribute the copies to all of your friends. Most people consider this unethical as well.
What you're saying is true, but it's a poor example. It costs more for you and I to copy a book than to buy a second copy.
Why is music different?
It's not. Don't assume that someone who wants DRM-free music wants to share it. I just want to be able to listen to music using the hardware and software of my choice. CDs still cost less than DRMed services like iTunes if you value freedom.
I admit that I don't have an N-gage, but I cringe every time I see that damn vertical screen. It's a very, very, very bad design choice. And it's something that would be relatively easy to fix, too. Just put a normal frickin' screen on the next N-gage, and give users the option to either center or stretch the image when playing old games!
Time to fire up the ol' hex editor!
WTF? Last time I checked, all Jon (there's no 'h' in his name) wants to do is watch dvds and listen to music purchased via iTunes on his Linux box. What Jon has done is indeed illegal in some countries (more extreme /. members would call them corporate states), but I don't think that any honest person can say it's unethical.
It's really quite simple. If you buy something, you can do whatever the hell you want with it, so long as your actions don't harm anyone. Don't give me that "indirect harm" bullshit, either. I'd give you ground if we were talking about releasing the plans for building an antimatter bomb, but not for something so inconsequential as circumventing DRM and copy protection.
Should we change it to "Tommy six-pack" instead of "Joe six-pack" now?
I think I'll stick with "you idiot". The look on their face is always priceless...
Get a Zalman flower cooler. Zero noise. Then you'll want to get a quiet PSU and a fanless heatsink for your graphics card.
That would be almost everyone with a Y chromosome...
What is this defecation game you speak of called? Where did you buy your copy?
You're right. Better yet, just have your botnet search for the stuff you invest in.
The study only dealt with the PS2 and Xbox. End-users simply cannot copy Gamecube games, because of the proprietary disc format. It is possible to load games from a PC using the ethernet adaptor, but very, very, very, very few people bother with that.
Now look at the Xbox Next. Instead of a 700Mhz Celeron, it's gonna have a 3Ghz, triple-core PPC chip. These will not be cheap to produce. Can you imagine how much Microsoft will lose on each unit?
The Final Solution to the Microsoft problem should now be obvious. If each and every one of us buys an Xbox Next and no games, we will bankrupt Microsoft. I'm not advocating copyright infringement. I doubt the launch games will be worth duping. Just throw it in a closet and dust it off when someone figures out how to run Linux on it.
Mod the parent up. If 1% of Slashdotters kicked in $5 or $10, the PearPC group would be very well funded. Think of it as supporting the GPL. :)
Will we have an option to install to the HD? I don't know about you, but I don't want to hear my optical drive going "raaaar-rrrrAAAARRR-RRRRRRRRAAAARRRR!!!" every time I start a game or change levels. (Yeah, it's a cheap drive. So sue me.)
What kind of copy protection will be used? Is this really just a scheme to prevent people from playing with duped cds, or installing a game and passing the cd on to a friend?
What about patches? Do they really expect every game to be perfect when it goes gold? I think that'd be a pretty tough sell for most publishers and developers right now...
Finally, this *is* 2005, not 1995. Hard disks are big. There's no reason not to install to the hard disk. The only thing that I can see frustrating consumers right now is multiple-disc installs. (Publishers, please use a frickin' dvd instead of two, three, or more cds.)
Installing an average game does take a few minutes, but the payoff is much, much shorter load times. Given the choice of spending five or ten minutes installing a game or having load times "under a minute" (read: up to 59 seconds) every time its played, I think consumers would choose to install it.
"Hey guys! Physics is done!"
"Alright! What's left?"
"Not much. Just graphics, control, scripting, AI, sound, and multiplayer."
Oh, that's a great idea. If you keep a problem secret, it's not a problem anymore!