Which one does Google sending data to me via my ISP come under? Am I paying my ISP to be a part of their network (the second case) or for transit from my network to the internet as a whole (the first)? Seems a bit of an arbitrary distinction, unless we want to go by technicalities like "having your own IP range / AS number makes you a separate network".
Google doesn't send data to your ISP. It seems that Google sends data to Cogent and pays Cogent money to accept the data. Cogent then sends the data to Orange, and Orange sends the data to your ISP. Your ISP sends it to you, and you pay the ISP.
As you see, there is no payment between Cogent and Orange and between Orange and your ISP. The idea is that Orange sends data to your ISP, but your ISP also sends data to Orange, so they decide to not charge each other. And the same between Cogent and Orange. Problem is that apparently Cogent sends so much more data to Orange than Orange sends to Cogent, that Orange isn't happy with that arrangement. Cogent gets money from Google, Orange gets nothing and pays for transmitting the data. So Orange asks Cogent for money.
Actually the move to the App Store happened because developers balked at not being allowed to have native apps like Apple had on the device. Steve had no intentions to ever have a store beyond their music/movies/tv/ and eventually books. It was only when developers demanded native app space that Apple looked to get something out of allowing it.
I would bet that the SDKs for native app development were in development simultaneously with iPhone development, but not ready for prime time when the iPhone was released. As typical for Steve Jobs, if Apple can't deliver it, or not in the quality that people would expect, then you don't actually want it and Apple will never do it. Until it suddenly appears and it was always the greatest thing in the world.
Cleverly photographed from just the right angle. If you google for "Braun T3" you'll find this image http://www.iainclaridge.co.uk/blog/9674 and the similarity to the iPod disappears. Or the Braun LE1 speakers at http://www.quad-musik.de/html/braun_le1___le2.html which _really_ don't look like an iMac unless you photograph both form a very specific angle.
In the UK for example, it is illegal to access a computer system without the owner's permission. You could argue that the TOS set out the terms under which the owner is prepared to give permission to access their system, and if you violate them, you don't have permission to access the site, and are therefore breaking the law. I guess it is much the same in the US.
"Access a computer system without the owner's permission" is meant to mean "hacking into someone's computer" and similar things. If I leave my Mac on the table, and you open it and delete all the files, that's supposed to be covered by this. Or if you spread a virus to my computer. Or if you use your boss's password to access things that you are not supposed to access.
But accessing a website against the owner's TOS is nothing like that. It's not hacking anything. If their TOS say "no swearing", then posting a message that contains foul language is not hacking into their computer. So the problem, especially bad in the USA, is that they created a law to make certain things criminal, but because of stupid wording of the law, it makes things criminal that are not supposed to be criminal.
An unrelated example: In my company, there is some HR person who is responsible to enter salary amounts into a computer so you get paid the right amount. That person has write access to the salary amounts, I don't. If I hack into the company computers and double my salary, that is hacking. If that HR person doubles his or her salary, that is not hacking, and should not be punished as hacking. Of course it is fraud, but not hacking.
First 30 posts, and nobody has actually realised what the problem is. This law is intended to make it illegal to hack into a computer. Which is fine. Of course I should be allowed to access a computer if I'm authorized. Which also makes sense. Now let's say Apple has their music and the customer accounts on the same computer. I'm authorized to access that computer (to download music), but if I somehow manage to put $100 into my account, that would be hacking which we want to be illegal. Even though I'm allowed to access the computer. So how do we put this into a law? They called it "exceeding my authorisation" and made it illegal.
But now people have been claiming that doing something that is against the TOS is "exceeding my authorisation" and therefore illegal hacking. So if Slashdot's TOS said "you must not swear in any posts", then this post would be a bloody violation of these TOS and equivalent to computer hacking.
A similar situation is this: Some employee has access to a customer list stored on the company's computer. It's part of his job (for example to send spam to customers). He sells the customer list to a competitor. Clearly a bad thing, and clearly in some way illegal. But now it is claimed that accessing the customer list on the computer exceeded his authorisation, so he is a computer hacker. No, he isn't.
To elaborate: If a P2P user is sued for allegedly sharing (for example,) two albums of equal play-length and file size*, each in its own monolithic archive file (e.g.,.rar), but one album contains ten tracks and the other is a single-track DJ set, would a court more likely consider this two, or eleven works/infringements? If the latter is the norm, couldn't, say, a publisher sue for each chapter/recipe/etc. contained in an book, and so forth?
In Apple vs. Psystar, Psystar was found guilty of making about 700 illegal copies of MacOS X. MacOS X was counted as _one_ work, and Psystar was ordered to pay $30,000.
So it's quite simple: You count separate works. A CD with 30 two minute pop songs is 30 works. Mike Oldfield's one hour Amarok is one work. MacOS X is one work. War and Peace is one work. 300 short stories are 300 works.
Up to $150,000 per work in statutory damages, not $750,000. Not that it is much less ridiculous for some random file sharer. Above that, actual damages need to be proven (good luck with that).
It's not about the Ã900,000. The judgement stated that Apple needs to bring their warranty in line with EU Law. If they fail, I wouldn't be surprised if there are significant repercussions (Import / trade ban until it's sorted, for instance).
Apple didn't have to change their manufacturer warranty at all. The consequence of all this is apparently that Apple is going to stop offering Apple Care in Italy. I'll try to explain what _actually_ happened, in case some slashdotters have the brain power to understand it:
The manufacturer can offer any warranty they like. The seller has to fix faults under certain conditions for a certain amount of time. A manufacturer or a store can also offer to sell an extended warranty. Now when you buy extended warranty, and the warranty promises "we will do A, B, and C for you", the customer doesn't actually pay for A, B and C. They pay for A, B, and C, minus whatever rights they had anyway. And that is what the Italian complaint was about: When Apple sells Apple Care, they need to tell the buyer what they are exactly buying, and that means informing them about any rights that are part of Apple Care, but that the customer would have had without buying Apple Care.
Note that the only people that Apple has to inform are those buying Apple Care, because when selling Apple Care, Apple has to accurately describe what the customer is getting. In all other cases, the onus is on the customer to inform himself about their laws.
And interestingly, Dell is offering extended warranties, and they don't mention _anywhere_ on their Italian or any other website that the customer would have other rights, and neither Italian courts nor anyone on slashdot complains. (Again, they don't have to mention it when you buy a computer. They should mention it when selling extended warranties).
This article is not based on any court papers that this Belgian consumer organization filed, but just on a press release! Since it is just a press release, they can add all the fluffy bits, like confusing "warranty" and "statutory rights", calling a case in Italy "precedent" when it is no such thing, and so on.
And of course there will be tons of complaints about Apple's handling of warranties, because any bloody idiot dropping his iPhone into the toilet wants a free replacement from Apple and complains when they don't get one. (And insurers have found that the number of "accidentally" damaged iPhones more than doubles when a new model is released)
Two year warranty presented as an extension. Two year warranty is required by European law. I'm sure that's probably just a start.
And what you say is nonsense. You are confusing warranty and statutory rights. Any _manufacturer_ is free to give you any manufacturer's warranty that they like under any terms they like. Any _seller_ where you buy an item is responsible that the item is of sufficient quality. Calling that 'warranty' is quite misleading.
The pundits will wring their hands (and Slashdotters will gloat) over Apple's shrinking market share, but Apple has known all along that it can't have both high profits and high share, and it knows that of the two, high profits are the way to go.
The market share is shrinking only if you look at "smartphones" as the market. If you look at "phones", the share is growing. If you look at "high end phones", the share is growing. And the reason that the "smartphones" share is shrinking is that five years ago, "smartphone" was really expensive, while nowadays lots of cheap phones have entered that market.
I won't make the same claim for children, but when an adult commits suicide, the only one responsible, is that individual. I don't care how much somebody verbally abuses you, the only person who can be blamed, if you commit suicide, is you. That doesn't mean that other people are not jerks, but you can not blame them for somebody else's decision to take their own life.
Most suicides are the result of a mental problem, because situations where a suicide would be a sane and rational decision would be very rare. Mental problems _can_ be created or made worse by other people's actions, for example depression.
I suggest people should take responsibility for their actions (that's what Americans always say), and if someone kills themselves because of the shit some jerk told them, then that jerk should take responsibility for his actions.
... of anyone who "ripped" an MP3 of a CD they already owned? When Napster first came out, I downloaded songs I had physical possession of media of, and kind of wondered if they could. The problem of course was the sheer temptation (all those other titles you DON'T own coming up in search)... but if someone only possessed MP3s they had physical media of, I wonder how they could be found guilty of stealing them.
Technically, it is copyright infringement. The mp3 that you copied was something that you shouldn't have copied, and the fact that you own a CD (that you could have ripped yourself) doesn't make a difference.
For as long as i can remember iTunes has, by default, offered to rip any CD you insert into your computer. I'm sure the industry rattled their sabers and I'm just not remembering it; but I'm pretty sure that feature was never removed even briefly.
For all I know, in the UK ripping a CD to your computer is not legal. But there will be no prosecution, ever, for various reason. One, no evidence. Two, the police officer arresting you, the prosecutor, the judge, your lawyer, they all do exactly the same thing. Third, the record industry knows that iTunes allows this (and I assume Windows and Linux software as well), so if they didn't want it to happen, did they ever tell Apple or Microsoft or Redhat to prevent it?
As for Webkit - I've liked it since it's debut under Google's name. Sure, I realize it's not Google's invention, but webkit is cool.
Not sure if I understand you correctly: So when Apple developed and released it, you didn't like it. And when Nokia used it, you still didn't like it. But then it came out under Google's name, and suddenly you like it?
There are lots of people killed in Syria every day. Turning this into a game with the hope of making money is cynical and tasteless. So I don't feel the slightest bit sorry about these guys.
And consider that if the game was sold and successful, some people could be very tempted to put a bullet through their heads. Either someone who lost dear friends or relatives in this struggle, or someone who is in danger of losing their power over the country.
Thou shalt not get a flu shot? Seriously, I can get behind the notion that, if a person has doubts about the efficacy or effects of getting a flu shot, they should be able to choose whether or not to get one without social or professional ramifications. But what is with all of these objections being written down to religious beliefs? Where in the Bible did Jesus ever say anything about flu shots?
I disagree there. If you work in healthcare, you are supposed to help people getting well, and you do that by using generally accepted methods. You may have your opinion about whether some treatment is good or bad, but you still have to use the treatment that is accepted as the best one - even if you personally disagree. Because it is assumed here that the majority opinion is better informed than you are. So if you are a nurse, and you are told that a flu shot keeps patients safe and you disagree, you have no leg to stand on. (I am talking about generally accepted things here; the uninformed opinion of your immediate superior would be something totally different).
On the other hand, if you refuse because of religious reasons, that is much closer to acceptable to me. Still not acceptable, but more acceptable. Or if you get into a panic whenever someone approaches you with a needle, that is much closer to acceptable. But disagreeing with the majority opinion how your job should be done properly, no.
I found this whole thing so offensive, I started working on Ebooks.coop, to provide a path out of the walled garden. Google, Apple, and Amazon typically charge 30% for nothing other than having sold you the tablet or reader. Apple is the worst, forcing publishers to insure that no ebook store was allowed to offer lower prices than Apple. All three DRM all their ebooks.
The last is either ignorance or a blatant lie. 1. All free eBooks on the Apple Store are DRM free. 2. I know one major German publisher whose books are available DRM free at about 20 different stores including Apple's Store - they only use DRM on Amazon's store because Apple doesn't allow anything else.
(If someone wants to check this, be careful: Apple actually does a rather bizarre thing. EPub books can use DRM, and in that case there is a list of which files inside the EPub zip file are encrypted. Apple ships some EPub books that have the whole DRM infrastructure inside, but the list of encrypted files is empty. Which means they can be freely copied and any EPub reader can read them - unless it is frightened off by the poinless DRM infrastructure inside).
iOS still requires a computer (with iTunes) to do some things. For example, if you want to add new music files to the library. So it's not an optimal solution if it's supposed to be the sole computing device.
The guy can ask his mother if she wants to add new music files to her library. What do you think the answer is going to be?
Automatic backup. Lots of people of her own age group with reasonable experience if she needs help. If you're lucky a store nearby with employees who will actually help her when she needs it.
Some people actually have a backbone. There are entire cultures of people who would not rat someone out to the police if they actively hated them.
Should you ever go to jail: The guy who tells you that you should never snitch on anyone, and honour among thieves and all that shit, he will be the first one to rat on you if there is the slightest advantage in it for him.
If you live in Belgium you can drive to Germany in no time... and there's no speed limits in Germany.
Actually, there is. Even on motorways with no explicit speed limit, the speed limit is "whatever speed is safe". 300km/h would only be safe on a motorway with no other traffic whatsoever, with special training to enable you to drive at that speed safely, and enough clear view ahead so you can slow down to a reasonable speed safely within your view.
Are these real friends or Facebook "friends"? If a close friend admits to driving drunk, I'd keep quiet about it (after trying to convince him not to do it again). If a vague Facebook acquaintance brags about driving drunk and a hit-and-run, then yes, I'd be on the phone with the police too. In the long run, this probably benefits everyone, including the drunk idiot.
In the UK, there's a police phone number that you can call to shop a criminal. Their statistics are that the callers are 1/3rd each "concerned citizens", friends and family who want to stop you from getting deeper into whatever shit you are getting yourself into, and one third criminals trying to get rid of the competition.
I'm sure any attempt by Sony to prevent second-hand sales will be highly contested in court on the first sale principle. So if they persue this an injunction will be pushed through while it sits in the court.
That might be difficult. I have the right to sell the wallpaper that I put into my living room to you, but I just can't remove it and give it to you in a useful condition. Anyone using this patent could say "You are free to sell this game. It just won't work on any console other than the one it was first played on, so good luck selling it". And this wouldn't stop you from selling the console and all your games together.
Slashdot Mirror
Which one does Google sending data to me via my ISP come under? Am I paying my ISP to be a part of their network (the second case) or for transit from my network to the internet as a whole (the first)? Seems a bit of an arbitrary distinction, unless we want to go by technicalities like "having your own IP range / AS number makes you a separate network".
Google doesn't send data to your ISP. It seems that Google sends data to Cogent and pays Cogent money to accept the data. Cogent then sends the data to Orange, and Orange sends the data to your ISP. Your ISP sends it to you, and you pay the ISP.
As you see, there is no payment between Cogent and Orange and between Orange and your ISP. The idea is that Orange sends data to your ISP, but your ISP also sends data to Orange, so they decide to not charge each other. And the same between Cogent and Orange. Problem is that apparently Cogent sends so much more data to Orange than Orange sends to Cogent, that Orange isn't happy with that arrangement. Cogent gets money from Google, Orange gets nothing and pays for transmitting the data. So Orange asks Cogent for money.
Actually the move to the App Store happened because developers balked at not being allowed to have native apps like Apple had on the device. Steve had no intentions to ever have a store beyond their music/movies/tv/ and eventually books. It was only when developers demanded native app space that Apple looked to get something out of allowing it.
I would bet that the SDKs for native app development were in development simultaneously with iPhone development, but not ready for prime time when the iPhone was released. As typical for Steve Jobs, if Apple can't deliver it, or not in the quality that people would expect, then you don't actually want it and Apple will never do it. Until it suddenly appears and it was always the greatest thing in the world.
Cleverly photographed from just the right angle. If you google for "Braun T3" you'll find this image http://www.iainclaridge.co.uk/blog/9674 and the similarity to the iPod disappears. Or the Braun LE1 speakers at http://www.quad-musik.de/html/braun_le1___le2.html which _really_ don't look like an iMac unless you photograph both form a very specific angle.
In the UK for example, it is illegal to access a computer system without the owner's permission. You could argue that the TOS set out the terms under which the owner is prepared to give permission to access their system, and if you violate them, you don't have permission to access the site, and are therefore breaking the law. I guess it is much the same in the US.
"Access a computer system without the owner's permission" is meant to mean "hacking into someone's computer" and similar things. If I leave my Mac on the table, and you open it and delete all the files, that's supposed to be covered by this. Or if you spread a virus to my computer. Or if you use your boss's password to access things that you are not supposed to access.
But accessing a website against the owner's TOS is nothing like that. It's not hacking anything. If their TOS say "no swearing", then posting a message that contains foul language is not hacking into their computer. So the problem, especially bad in the USA, is that they created a law to make certain things criminal, but because of stupid wording of the law, it makes things criminal that are not supposed to be criminal.
An unrelated example: In my company, there is some HR person who is responsible to enter salary amounts into a computer so you get paid the right amount. That person has write access to the salary amounts, I don't. If I hack into the company computers and double my salary, that is hacking. If that HR person doubles his or her salary, that is not hacking, and should not be punished as hacking. Of course it is fraud, but not hacking.
First 30 posts, and nobody has actually realised what the problem is. This law is intended to make it illegal to hack into a computer. Which is fine. Of course I should be allowed to access a computer if I'm authorized. Which also makes sense. Now let's say Apple has their music and the customer accounts on the same computer. I'm authorized to access that computer (to download music), but if I somehow manage to put $100 into my account, that would be hacking which we want to be illegal. Even though I'm allowed to access the computer. So how do we put this into a law? They called it "exceeding my authorisation" and made it illegal.
But now people have been claiming that doing something that is against the TOS is "exceeding my authorisation" and therefore illegal hacking. So if Slashdot's TOS said "you must not swear in any posts", then this post would be a bloody violation of these TOS and equivalent to computer hacking.
A similar situation is this: Some employee has access to a customer list stored on the company's computer. It's part of his job (for example to send spam to customers). He sells the customer list to a competitor. Clearly a bad thing, and clearly in some way illegal. But now it is claimed that accessing the customer list on the computer exceeded his authorisation, so he is a computer hacker. No, he isn't.
To elaborate: If a P2P user is sued for allegedly sharing (for example,) two albums of equal play-length and file size*, each in its own monolithic archive file (e.g., .rar), but one album contains ten tracks and the other is a single-track DJ set, would a court more likely consider this two, or eleven works/infringements? If the latter is the norm, couldn't, say, a publisher sue for each chapter/recipe/etc. contained in an book, and so forth?
In Apple vs. Psystar, Psystar was found guilty of making about 700 illegal copies of MacOS X. MacOS X was counted as _one_ work, and Psystar was ordered to pay $30,000.
So it's quite simple: You count separate works. A CD with 30 two minute pop songs is 30 works. Mike Oldfield's one hour Amarok is one work. MacOS X is one work. War and Peace is one work. 300 short stories are 300 works.
Up to $150,000 per work in statutory damages, not $750,000. Not that it is much less ridiculous for some random file sharer. Above that, actual damages need to be proven (good luck with that).
It's not about the Ã900,000. The judgement stated that Apple needs to bring their warranty in line with EU Law. If they fail, I wouldn't be surprised if there are significant repercussions (Import / trade ban until it's sorted, for instance).
Apple didn't have to change their manufacturer warranty at all. The consequence of all this is apparently that Apple is going to stop offering Apple Care in Italy. I'll try to explain what _actually_ happened, in case some slashdotters have the brain power to understand it:
The manufacturer can offer any warranty they like. The seller has to fix faults under certain conditions for a certain amount of time. A manufacturer or a store can also offer to sell an extended warranty. Now when you buy extended warranty, and the warranty promises "we will do A, B, and C for you", the customer doesn't actually pay for A, B and C. They pay for A, B, and C, minus whatever rights they had anyway. And that is what the Italian complaint was about: When Apple sells Apple Care, they need to tell the buyer what they are exactly buying, and that means informing them about any rights that are part of Apple Care, but that the customer would have had without buying Apple Care.
Note that the only people that Apple has to inform are those buying Apple Care, because when selling Apple Care, Apple has to accurately describe what the customer is getting. In all other cases, the onus is on the customer to inform himself about their laws.
And interestingly, Dell is offering extended warranties, and they don't mention _anywhere_ on their Italian or any other website that the customer would have other rights, and neither Italian courts nor anyone on slashdot complains. (Again, they don't have to mention it when you buy a computer. They should mention it when selling extended warranties).
This article is not based on any court papers that this Belgian consumer organization filed, but just on a press release! Since it is just a press release, they can add all the fluffy bits, like confusing "warranty" and "statutory rights", calling a case in Italy "precedent" when it is no such thing, and so on.
And of course there will be tons of complaints about Apple's handling of warranties, because any bloody idiot dropping his iPhone into the toilet wants a free replacement from Apple and complains when they don't get one. (And insurers have found that the number of "accidentally" damaged iPhones more than doubles when a new model is released)
Two year warranty presented as an extension. Two year warranty is required by European law. I'm sure that's probably just a start.
And what you say is nonsense. You are confusing warranty and statutory rights. Any _manufacturer_ is free to give you any manufacturer's warranty that they like under any terms they like. Any _seller_ where you buy an item is responsible that the item is of sufficient quality. Calling that 'warranty' is quite misleading.
The pundits will wring their hands (and Slashdotters will gloat) over Apple's shrinking market share, but Apple has known all along that it can't have both high profits and high share, and it knows that of the two, high profits are the way to go.
The market share is shrinking only if you look at "smartphones" as the market. If you look at "phones", the share is growing. If you look at "high end phones", the share is growing. And the reason that the "smartphones" share is shrinking is that five years ago, "smartphone" was really expensive, while nowadays lots of cheap phones have entered that market.
I won't make the same claim for children, but when an adult commits suicide, the only one responsible, is that individual. I don't care how much somebody verbally abuses you, the only person who can be blamed, if you commit suicide, is you. That doesn't mean that other people are not jerks, but you can not blame them for somebody else's decision to take their own life.
Most suicides are the result of a mental problem, because situations where a suicide would be a sane and rational decision would be very rare. Mental problems _can_ be created or made worse by other people's actions, for example depression.
I suggest people should take responsibility for their actions (that's what Americans always say), and if someone kills themselves because of the shit some jerk told them, then that jerk should take responsibility for his actions.
... of anyone who "ripped" an MP3 of a CD they already owned? When Napster first came out, I downloaded songs I had physical possession of media of, and kind of wondered if they could. The problem of course was the sheer temptation (all those other titles you DON'T own coming up in search)... but if someone only possessed MP3s they had physical media of, I wonder how they could be found guilty of stealing them.
Technically, it is copyright infringement. The mp3 that you copied was something that you shouldn't have copied, and the fact that you own a CD (that you could have ripped yourself) doesn't make a difference.
For as long as i can remember iTunes has, by default, offered to rip any CD you insert into your computer. I'm sure the industry rattled their sabers and I'm just not remembering it; but I'm pretty sure that feature was never removed even briefly.
For all I know, in the UK ripping a CD to your computer is not legal. But there will be no prosecution, ever, for various reason. One, no evidence. Two, the police officer arresting you, the prosecutor, the judge, your lawyer, they all do exactly the same thing. Third, the record industry knows that iTunes allows this (and I assume Windows and Linux software as well), so if they didn't want it to happen, did they ever tell Apple or Microsoft or Redhat to prevent it?
As for Webkit - I've liked it since it's debut under Google's name. Sure, I realize it's not Google's invention, but webkit is cool.
Not sure if I understand you correctly: So when Apple developed and released it, you didn't like it. And when Nokia used it, you still didn't like it. But then it came out under Google's name, and suddenly you like it?
There are lots of people killed in Syria every day. Turning this into a game with the hope of making money is cynical and tasteless. So I don't feel the slightest bit sorry about these guys.
And consider that if the game was sold and successful, some people could be very tempted to put a bullet through their heads. Either someone who lost dear friends or relatives in this struggle, or someone who is in danger of losing their power over the country.
Thou shalt not get a flu shot? Seriously, I can get behind the notion that, if a person has doubts about the efficacy or effects of getting a flu shot, they should be able to choose whether or not to get one without social or professional ramifications. But what is with all of these objections being written down to religious beliefs? Where in the Bible did Jesus ever say anything about flu shots?
I disagree there. If you work in healthcare, you are supposed to help people getting well, and you do that by using generally accepted methods. You may have your opinion about whether some treatment is good or bad, but you still have to use the treatment that is accepted as the best one - even if you personally disagree. Because it is assumed here that the majority opinion is better informed than you are. So if you are a nurse, and you are told that a flu shot keeps patients safe and you disagree, you have no leg to stand on. (I am talking about generally accepted things here; the uninformed opinion of your immediate superior would be something totally different).
On the other hand, if you refuse because of religious reasons, that is much closer to acceptable to me. Still not acceptable, but more acceptable. Or if you get into a panic whenever someone approaches you with a needle, that is much closer to acceptable. But disagreeing with the majority opinion how your job should be done properly, no.
I found this whole thing so offensive, I started working on Ebooks.coop, to provide a path out of the walled garden. Google, Apple, and Amazon typically charge 30% for nothing other than having sold you the tablet or reader. Apple is the worst, forcing publishers to insure that no ebook store was allowed to offer lower prices than Apple. All three DRM all their ebooks.
The last is either ignorance or a blatant lie. 1. All free eBooks on the Apple Store are DRM free. 2. I know one major German publisher whose books are available DRM free at about 20 different stores including Apple's Store - they only use DRM on Amazon's store because Apple doesn't allow anything else.
(If someone wants to check this, be careful: Apple actually does a rather bizarre thing. EPub books can use DRM, and in that case there is a list of which files inside the EPub zip file are encrypted. Apple ships some EPub books that have the whole DRM infrastructure inside, but the list of encrypted files is empty. Which means they can be freely copied and any EPub reader can read them - unless it is frightened off by the poinless DRM infrastructure inside).
iOS still requires a computer (with iTunes) to do some things. For example, if you want to add new music files to the library. So it's not an optimal solution if it's supposed to be the sole computing device.
The guy can ask his mother if she wants to add new music files to her library. What do you think the answer is going to be?
Automatic backup. Lots of people of her own age group with reasonable experience if she needs help. If you're lucky a store nearby with employees who will actually help her when she needs it.
Some people actually have a backbone. There are entire cultures of people who would not rat someone out to the police if they actively hated them.
Should you ever go to jail: The guy who tells you that you should never snitch on anyone, and honour among thieves and all that shit, he will be the first one to rat on you if there is the slightest advantage in it for him.
If you live in Belgium you can drive to Germany in no time ... and there's no speed limits in Germany.
Actually, there is. Even on motorways with no explicit speed limit, the speed limit is "whatever speed is safe". 300km/h would only be safe on a motorway with no other traffic whatsoever, with special training to enable you to drive at that speed safely, and enough clear view ahead so you can slow down to a reasonable speed safely within your view.
Are these real friends or Facebook "friends"? If a close friend admits to driving drunk, I'd keep quiet about it (after trying to convince him not to do it again). If a vague Facebook acquaintance brags about driving drunk and a hit-and-run, then yes, I'd be on the phone with the police too. In the long run, this probably benefits everyone, including the drunk idiot.
In the UK, there's a police phone number that you can call to shop a criminal. Their statistics are that the callers are 1/3rd each "concerned citizens", friends and family who want to stop you from getting deeper into whatever shit you are getting yourself into, and one third criminals trying to get rid of the competition.
Don't worry. You knew more about computers than your parents. You'll also know more about computers than your children.
I'm sure any attempt by Sony to prevent second-hand sales will be highly contested in court on the first sale principle. So if they persue this an injunction will be pushed through while it sits in the court.
That might be difficult. I have the right to sell the wallpaper that I put into my living room to you, but I just can't remove it and give it to you in a useful condition. Anyone using this patent could say "You are free to sell this game. It just won't work on any console other than the one it was first played on, so good luck selling it". And this wouldn't stop you from selling the console and all your games together.